Raleigh Capozzalo History: Freedom from a Relic Bit Torrent is an internet file sharing protocol.

It is basically a way for people to share any kind of file with anyone on the Internet who wants it. You dont have to have money or power or anything else but an internet connection to make, upload and download files via torrents. I associate this protocol with freedom because of its vast potential and unstoppable quality. No one can shut Bit Torrent down. It is not run on any one server. Everyone with an internet connection can share anything to the world uncensored and unchecked. The more people that connect to a torrent with the goal of downloading it, the faster everyone downloads because each new person who starts downloading also immediately starts uploading to everyone else. The original uploader can stop uploading and the file will continue on, so long as there are people downloading and upload it; or another way of putting it: it stays available as long as people want it. In our time so many aspects of our lives are censored and restricted by governments, corporations and by our fellow citizens. Television, literature, even day to day speech among the people; all of it is subject to restrictions, to filters be they the FCC, a publishing company, or your fellow man. Bit Torrent represents the inevitable rising up of personal freedom over the constraints of government or society imposed censorship and morals. No one decides what can go on Bit Torrent, certainly not any government or corporation. As for morals, we individuals of the world do not share the same moral code and should not kid ourselves into thinking that we do. Everyones version of right and wrong differs. The only way we can get along as much as we do is through relentless compromise. Bit Torrent offers no compromise. The uploader uploads what they wish. If you dont want to be a part of it, you dont download what theyre uploading. Simply as that.

I believe the greater implication that this relic reveals about my concept of freedom is a sense of inevitable inexorability. Freedom to me is doing as you please knowing no one can stop you. It may sound devious and indeed that is the implication at times, but just as often it can be harmless. All it really condones is a sense of independence, of being ones own person. This leads us down the trail of libertarianism, an ethos I am only a little familiar with. As far as I know, I sympathize with this party or ethos in certain areas. For example, I believe that people have a right to decide what is best for them. Drugs are an interesting example. Although I believe drugs like heroin, meth, crack/cocaine and MDMA (ecstasy) are all proven to have highly negative side effects, I still believe that adults should have the ability to decide what they put into their bodies, much in the same way they decide to eat fast food or consume alcohol and cigarettes. This brings me back to this idea of inexorability. It is certainly a theme as one grows older. When you turn eighteen, no one can stop you from smoking cigarettes. When you turn twenty-one no one can stop you from consuming alcohol. Part of what makes these substances among others so alluring to individuals under eighteen and twenty-one is that they present an illusion of independence and inexorability. I saw illusion because of course underage drinking and smoking is illegal and very stoppable by such forces as the law and parents. But because these substances are associated with a state of being in which one is unrestrained and cannot be stopped from doing as he or she pleases, the use of said substances allows the underage individual to experience a taste of that freedom. It is interesting that this idea of a self-destructive behavior, such as drinking or smoking, is associated with feelings of liberation and independence. The argument could in fact be made that by outlawing certain self-destructive activities, the government is actually freeing its citizens from the negative effects of those substances. There is no question that if heroin was legal, more people

would try it, for it is as though the government, by allowing the activity to be legal, has condoned it and made it acceptable. So arent these laws here for our protection and dont they free us from such evils as addiction and self-mutilation? In answer I say that fully mature adults have a right to decide what is best for their own selves. The decision to engage in a self-destructive activity is not yours to make until you are an adult. But when you are, you should be able to decide if a selfdestructive activity is something you wish to engage in or not. How does this relate back to Bit Torrent? Well Bit Torrent has more than its fair share of illegal activities associated with it. It has plenty of legal uses as well, but it is most famous for its ability to propagate copyrighted material free of charge. Here, Bit Torrent users (or at least I) obtain a feeling of freedom from defying the law, or as I consider it, deciding for ones self whether or not to believe in the tenants of copyright law in this country. And yet regardless of the law, we users of Bit Torrent know that we cannot be stopped; or rather the system cannot be stopped. Any one of us could of course be arrested. That is always a riskone that can be considerably reduced with proper precautions, yes, but still always a risk. But the system, the framework, Bit Torrent itself, cannot be shut down because it is not centralized to any one group of servers in any one country. It is a true child of the modern age born from the union of the Internet and personal freedom itself.