What makes torrents work
25A lot of work goes into a simple torrent download. What looks like a single stream of data is actually hundreds of streams at once, assembled through a complex ballet of code. Cryptographic hashes prevent anyone from slipping bad data into that stream, and makes sure good data doesn't get corrupted along the way. Data comes in from lots of different sources, but it all ends up in exactly the right place in exactly the right configuration. In this video, we take a look at how it all happens, and why that setup turns out to be perfect for downloading things you didn't pay for.
More from The Verge
- SpaceX successfully lands its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating drone ship again
- Tesla’s ‘upgradable’ battery may change the way we buy cars
- Cupertino's mayor says Apple is 'not willing to pay a dime' in taxes
- World's longest insect is twice the length of your worst nightmare
- MacBook 2016 review: all of the possibilities, all of the realities
- A Bitter Pill: Four days with an extreme DIY fecal transplant
- The Verge summer movie guide: blockbusters, comedies, and brand experiments
