this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Privacy
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The BitTorrent protocol basically works like this when you download a torrent:
As soon as you have something downloaded, you become a client on the list of the tracker that theoretically has the torrent available for others. So you would become the "client being asked" of step 3 as well.
But how can you be asked? In a P2P networking context, you can only "be asked" if you have a port open that allows connections to it. Otherwise it's as if you gave people your home adress but your mailbox has a hole on the bottom that leads directly to the garbage can beneath it, so all mail is immediately lost. Completely unusable.
In other words, it's (basically) impossible for you to send the torrent data to someone else. You're a leecher, someone that doesn't give back to others. If everyone would act like you, torrents wouldn't work at all.
I don't know how (in)accurate this description is, but I've been seeding hundreds of GB since Mullvad dropped port fwd. Same for the old times when I didn't bother using a VPN, I never had to enable port forward in my router for it to work.
that's so weird, that only one of two people need to have an open port. So the person with the closed port can still establish a connection, both upload AND download. However, this process stops the moment the other person closes his port, then NO connection whatsoever can be established? So we're gonna pretend this makes sense? Or is it about initiating a connection which requires an open port? That'd make a bit more sense
You could read a bit about NAT, which your router does, if you want to know more. But yes, of course only the initiation requires an open port, otherwise like you said, it doesn't make sense. As soon as a connection is established your router knows where packets should be sent and an "open" port is not necessary.
I know a bit about NATs, or how I like to call it, LAN, basically. But if you don't even have a NAT to begin with and are directly connected (to your modem), then you don't even need to open a port. Easy peasy