Understanding BitTorrent Through Real Measurements

TL;DR

This study provides a comprehensive measurement analysis of BitTorrent, focusing on swarm behavior and protocol efficiency, especially comparing UDP-based {}u}TP with traditional TCP-based clients, based on real-world data.

Contribution

It offers the first detailed swarm-oriented measurement analysis of BitTorrent, including the impact of {}u}TP protocol on transmission efficiency, using extensive real-world data.

Findings

Swarm-oriented analysis reveals resource exchange patterns.

{}u}TP improves transmission efficiency over TCP.

Experimental data from 15 days of torrent activity.

Abstract

In this paper the results of the BitTorrent measurement study are presented. Two sources of BitTorrent data were utilized: meta-data files that describe the content of resources shared by BitTorrent users and the logs of one of the currently most popular BitTorrent clients - {\mu}Torrent. {\mu}Torrent is founded upon a rather newly released UDP-based {\mu}TP protocol that is claimed to be more efficient than TCP-based clients. Experimental data have been collected for fifteen days from the popular torrent-discovery site thepiratebay.org (more than 30,000 torrents were captured and analyzed). During this period the activity and logs of an unmodified version of {\mu}Torrent client downloading sessions have been also captured. The obtained experimental results are swarm-oriented (not tracker-oriented as has been previously researched), which has allowed us to look at BitTorrent and its users from an exchanged resources perspective. Moreover, comparative analysis of the clients' connections with and without {\mu}TP protocol is carried out to verify to what extent {\mu}TP improves BitTorrent transmissions. To the authors' best knowledge, none of the previous studies have addressed these issues.