Bram Cohen is the creator of one of the most successful peer-to-peer (P2P) programs ever developed, BitTorrent.
BitTorrent allows users to quickly upload and download enormous amounts of data, including files that are hundreds or thousands of times bigger than a single MP3. BitTorrent's program is faster and more efficient than traditional P2P networking.
Cohen showed his code to the world at a hacker conference, as a free, open source project aimed at computer users who need a cheap way to swap software online. But the real audience turns out to be TV and movie fanatics.
It takes hours to download a ripped episode of Alias or Monk off Kazaa, but BitTorrent can do it in minutes. As a result, more than 20 million people have downloaded the BitTorrent application.
If any one of them misses a favorite TV show, no worries. Surely, someone has posted it as a "torrent."
As for movies, if you can find it at Blockbuster, you can probably find it online somewhere-and use BitTorrent to download it.
"Give and ye shall receive" became Cohen's motto, which he printed on T-shirts and sold to supporters.
PROJECT FOCUS
There is much debate surrounding the ethics of peer-to-peer networking. Do you believe BitTorrent is ethical or unethical? Justify your answer