How in the Tech

Verifying the Contents of a Torrent Before Downloading

By Adam Myers ⋅ June 2, 2009 ⋅ Tags: File Management, Internet

Bittorrent is the most popular form of distributing large files over a peer to peer (P2P) network today. Unsurprisingly, most of the files transmitted via the protocol are covered under copyright and therefor are not being distributed legally. This does not paint the picture 100% but it’s enough to cover most of the wall and is therefor what is reported. Anytime you venture off the beaten path of the Internet and dive into the realm of questionable actions you run the risk of getting burned. For the every day user, getting burned via P2P typically means infecting yourself with a virus or trojan because you thought you were downloading x and got y instead. It’s a major risk you take every time you search The Pirate Bay for anything.

Vertor, or VERified TORrents, is a middle-man like torrent site to The Pirate Bay (TPB). Unlike TPB, Vertor does not host the torrent files and as such, is more like Google and exempt from the pseudo-quasi legal loophole most Torrent sites hide behind. Vertor provides users links to torrent files that have been downloaded and checked for viruses, spyware, etc. Clips are taken from video files and snippets from audio files; both of which are useful in determining whether what you are downloading contains exactly what the torrent name suggests.

If I were unable to see President Obama welcome and congratulate the World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers at the Whitehouse the other day, I can probably find the video on Bittorrent. To be sure I am getting exactly what I expect, I would use Vertor to search for obama and steelers. I could quickly tell by the screenshots whether the content is what I’m seeking.