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An Analysis of the History of File Sharing Technology
R. Li Casanova
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Undergraduate, Computer Science Department
Abstract – If we look back through history, it is relatively safe to conclude that mankind has always had the need,
certainly the desire, to share information. From the distributed printed page, technology to facilitate oral communiqué, to
today’s modern-day Internet, information sharing may even control our lives to a great extent. The dynamic and
evolutionary nature of information sharing has evolved such that we are able to share virtually anything; limited only by
that of our imagination and ingenuity. The subsequent emergence then of file sharing and the Internet continues to shatter
the boundaries of network technology. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the development of file sharing
technology over the past 40 years, from “inception” to modern day sharing solutions, their underlying network
technology, and the giving way of the evolution of one technology to another.
1. Introduction
If a chronological point of origin must be considered for today’s modern file sharing technology, it should begin with that
of IBM’s advent of the 8-inch floppy diskette. Not a networking technology by any means, the 8-inch floppy would
nevertheless make available use of “sneakernets” – the transporting of data through a portable storage solution from one
individual to another physically. The general populace would now have a means to share software – both legal and illegal
– and a method for distribution. It is important to note that all file sharing technologies have these important elements in
common: 1) the means by which to share, 2) the method by which to share, 3) and the data itself. [2]
Some seven years later traveling along the timeline of technology, Duke University graduate students would develop the
grandfather of today’s forum discussion format technology, UseNet. UseNet’s importance among social networking
cannot be underrated as the technology would be the first to employ networked threaded discussions. UseNet’s popularity
grew and eventually was no longer localized to Duke, becoming a massive way for people to come together. Of key
importance is a UseNet user’s ability to post code in binary – which would allow for file construction / deconstruction and
become a precursor for file sharing. Software and music, even as early as the advent of this technology, began to be
distributed among the UseNet network. [9]
2. Background: Modern Day File Sharing
The development of MPEG-Layer 3 technology in 1981 Germany would fuel a desire to file share that to this day
revolutionizes all manner of technological computing and communication devices. As the MP3 file format was a lossless
file compression algorithm that preserved quality, it was inevitable that networking technology to distribute files such as
MP3 would be pressed forward in the interests of efficiently and quickly sharing such files. [2] The 80’s and the early
1990’s would see technologies such as newsgroups, Internet Relay Chat, and websites themselves distributing MP3 files.
Internet Relay Chat would be among the first network technologies to spurn the world’s need for text-based chat. Using
the Internet’s TCP/IP protocol, live chat was handled by way of a Client-Server design, with other IRC Servers
connecting to one another to broaden the IRC network. IRC was important in the evolution of file sharing due to the
ability – similar to newsgroups – to send binary file code, which could be reconstructed. IRC facilitated file sharing. [6]
1998 would mark “The MP3 Revolution” (referring to the great need to share MP3 files beginning in the late 1990s). File
Transfer Protocol over the Internet would initially be the primary distribution method of music. FTP Protocol also
employs TCP/IP for data transfer as the user connects to the server. Files are transferred in ASCII format as the FTP
client – the software employed on the user’s machine – sends requests and commands to the FTP Server for file
distribution. Websites facilitating FTP transfer would soon appear, including those of Audiogalaxy and MP3.com. [2]
No network technology would revolutionize file sharing more than Shawn Fanning’s infamous Napster in 1999. Many
deem Napster as the “first” peer-to-peer networking topology. Napster was peer-to-peer in the interest that users could
find other users on the network with a desired MP3; however, Napster still had a central index server which routed
connections and kept an index of files available per-client. The illegality of Napster’s MP3 file distribution and network
topology (the topic of which is outside the scope of this analysis) would soon give way to other, evolutionary technology
such as the Gnutella network . Gnutella, similar to Napster, employs a peer-to-peer topological solution to file sharing
with a decentralized approach. [8] Rather than clients first connecting to a central server which maintains connections and
routes data, Gnutella propagates connections through peers by bootstrapping. Although truly peer-to-peer, Gnutella
bootstrapping was not optimally efficient and gave way to other technologies. [7]
2001’s FastTrack would be a network technology that would increase the efficiency of Gnutella by making every
connected client a supernode (both a server and a client) that would handle connection proxies and relays to other peers.
Client programs growing in massive popularity utilizing FastTrack included Kazaa, Morpheus, and Grokster. The most
efficient methodology however, would come almost suddenly after the advent of FastTrack.
Bittorrent peer-to-peer networking would revolutionize an already revolutionized approach to file distribution. The failure
of networks such as Napster and Gnutella to avoid copyright infringement would dictate the need for Bittorrent’s
completely decentralized approach. Also the lopsided upload-to-download ratio of existing file sharing technologies
drove a new approach. Bittorrent technology was aimed to circumvent both of these immediate file sharing problems.
Bittorrent establishes its peers for file transfer based on “torrents” -- metadata found in .torrent files. Torrents contain data
such as file information and peer connection information. Once a user obtains a torrent which may have information on
desired data, the user can employ torrent-reading software to execute a connection and facilitate a download. While the
client software scours over TCP/IP to obtain connections to other users containing the desired object file, pieces of the file
are simultaneously uploaded from the user’s file in return. This enables a “hyper-meshing” topology which provides
extreme efficiency in transfer. With Bittorent transfers, a user is both an uploader and a downloader, which guards
against “leeching” (downloading without contribution). [12]
3. Conclusions
With a brief look at these technologies, it is clearly seen that the driving motivator behind the evolution of file sharing has
been both the justification of efficiency in data transfer and the subsequent “outlawing” of any previous technology in
distribution of media. Copyright law continues to bear its force on Bittorrent and prior file sharing technologies, and we
will undoubtedly see other networking technologies replace current ones. One thing remains clear despite the uncertainty
of legality: file sharing technologies are here to stay and change with our demands.
References
[1] "Distributed Systems Topologies: Part 1 - O'Reilly Media." OpenP2P.com. Web. 01 Mar. 2010.
<http://openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/12/14/topologies_one.html>.
[2] "File Sharing." Wikipedia. Web. 22 Feb. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing>.
[3] "How the Usenet News Protocols Work." People.dsv.su.se. Web. 01 Mar. 2010.
<http://people.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/e-mail-book/usenet-news.html>.
[4] "Internet Relay Chat Protocol." RFC-Editor Webpage. Web. 02 Mar. 2010. <http://www.rfceditor.org/rfc/rfc1459.txt>.
[5] "Internet Relay Chat." Wikipedia. Web. 02 Mar. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat>.
[6] "The IRC Prelude." Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Help. Web. 02 Mar. 2010.
<http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/new2irc.html#what>.
[7] "On the Long-term Evolution of the Two-Tier Gnutella Overlay." Daniel Stutzbach. Web.
[8] "Regarding Gnutella - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)." The GNU Operating System. Web.
02 Mar. 2010. <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gnutella.html>.
[9] "Usenet Newsgroups, Internet." The Internet. Web. 04 Mar. 2010. <http://www.livinginternet.com/u/u.htm>.
[10] "Using Usenet - Useful Tool or Dead Technology?" Lippeatt.com. Web. 22 Feb. 2010.
<http://www.lippeatt.com/professional/usenet.asp>.
[11] "What Is Usenet?" Usenet.com. Web. 22 Feb. 2010. <http://www.usenet.com/usenet.html>.
[12] “How Bittorrent Works." Things Of Interest. Web. 04 Mar. 2010. <http://qntm.org/bittorrent>.