Torrent

hello Mr. PmCd9
I can perhaps help you with your torrent questions

Your computer does not have a port, rather, bit torrent will utilize a certain port, so, there you go. A port, as the etymology of the word implies, can be thought of as a virtual door. Your computer's internet connection has thousands of ports, each designated by a number. Incoming messages that arrive on your intertube connection are each labeled with a "port" number. Inside your computer is a magic sorting elf (usually referred to as the Mail Delivery Elf or MDE for short) (get it... for short... a short elf... ha ha) who takes the incoming messages (called packets) and reads the label on the message which indicates the port the message is to be delivered to, and he then tosses each message into the appropriate port as per it's label.

As the MDE drops a new packet at the door step of each port, he knocks once or twice on the port. At any given point in time, most ports are not being used. However, when you run a program such as bit torrent, the program will send a MRE (Mail Receiver Elf) over to the port to listen for new messages (packets.) When the MRE hears the MDE knock, the MRE opens the port and receives the packet from the MDE.

When the MDE delivers a packet to the MRE, it is customary for the MRE and the MDE to exchange a brief courtesy sort of greeting. "Hi, how ya doing, how's the spouse and kids, etc." Of course, with the speed of modern computers this all happens very rapidly - in hundredths of a second, but since modern intertube connections can only support limited packet sizes, the MRE must receive dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of packets from the MDE in order for a complete message to be delivered. (messages are segmented or split up into multiple packets.) With each and every packet delivery the MDE and MRE exchange their greetings, so this is where latency in the connection comes from.

Latency is the end-to-end speed of the connection, and should not be confused with bandwidth. Often in advertising, bandwidth is referred to as speed, which is technically not correct. You can think of bandwidth as the hiring of additional Mail Elves. Sure, the more Mail Elves you hire, the more packets you can send and receive per unit time, with the caveat that Mail Elves are very social and always exchange greetings whenever they meet, so no matter how large a message you are able to send or receive per unit time, there will always be some latency in the connection.

In many ISPs (Intertube Service Providers) the Mail Elves are unionized, and these unions are often quite powerful, and are able to impose some rather inefficient work rules on the ISPs. It's not uncommon to find in unionized ISPs that the packets get handled by as many as 20 pairs of MDEs and MREs, sometimes getting passed in loops such that the same MDE/MRE pair handles the same packet several times before it finally gets sent on it's way, and you guessed it, with each MDE/MRE exchange, there is added latency while they exchange their customary social greetings. So certainly, the latency (speed) of the connection is something to consider when shopping for an ISP, especially if you plan on using your computer for online video gaming. A delay of a few tenths of a second might not seem like much if you're just surfing porn on the internet, but in the typical interactive team game, it could mean the difference between ... well... um... nevermind.

Speaking of porn, do you ever wonder why sometimes your computer often slows down or freezes at the worst possible moment while you're surfing porn? The reason is simple - one of your Mail Delivery Elves and/or Mail Receiver Elves is snooping in the packets and is essentially 'watching' the porn with you, is getting all turned on, and is off in some dark corner of your CPU masturbating. The CPU often has lots of unused transistors that are perfect for this. As the CPU design evolves and changes, there are often areas that are no longer used, but are left mostly intact because the designers are lazy, or have run out of whiteout.

Occasionally the MDE and MRE will even get so aroused that they get 'busy' with one another.

One strategy that works well is if you notice your computer starting to slow down or if it shows signs of freezing up while you're surfing porn, is simply switch to porn of a different sexual orientation. If you're surfing straight porn, switch over to gay porn for a few minutes, or vice-versa. In most cases the MDE or MRE who is guilty of snooping in your packets will get rather turned off and will loose interest in snooping in your packets for several hours or even days. Of course, this won't work if your MRE or MDE is bisexual, but this is exceedingly rare and is usually due to a faulty memory chip, since MREs and MDEs are programmed in binary, the fundamental programming unit of the computer, and by definition, binary is either on or off, 1 or 0.

Giving someone your IP is not entirely without risk. It's always possible that someone may send malicious packets to random ports of your computer's IP address. For instance, they might expose the packet to Small Pox, SARS, AIDS, Sarah Palin, Ebola Virus, Rabies, etc, and then send it to random ports of your computer. Now remember our discussion about the snooping Mail Elves. What do you suppose happens if the MDE (Mail Delivery Elf) is snooping in an incoming packet, and he or she gets a whiff of Ebola, or Bristol? You guessed it - there's no telling what might happen. The MDE knocks on the port, drops off the packet, and if there happens to be an MRE listening on the other side of the port, maybe an MRE from the Bit Torrent program, the MRE opens the port to receive the packet, and this presents a number of problems. For one, the packet is infected with Ebola. This could make the MRE sick. For another thing, the MDE has been infected with God knows what... Instead of giving the MRE the customary Mail Elf greeting, the MDE might just go ape shit on the poor fellow, pull out a dull butter knife and shank the poor fellow, sexually assault him, or who knows.

The MREs of some programs are more susceptible to attack than others.

I hope this helps