Valid torrents are published on websites then registered with one of a number of ‘trackers’. The more trackers the torrents are registered with, the more peers will likely take part in the file sharing and so the more likely they are to be a more efficient way to download the files.
The torrents contain information on the files, but not the files themselves. Torrent files have an “announce” section, which specifies the URL of the tracker, and an “info” section, containing (suggested) names for the files, their lengths, the piece length used, and a SHA-1 hash code for each piece, all of which is used by clients to verify the integrity of the data they receive. The files that are being shared remain on a client PC, with only the ‘address’ to this PC being available to those wishing to obtain or share the file.
Trackerless torrents do exist; in this system every peer acts as a tracker.
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