Some general torrent information
Bit torrent aka Torrenting is the process of transferring files in pieces between many people. A seed is someone that is sharing pieces of the file they have already downloaded to others that are trying to download it, a leech is someone that is downloading the file (and also a pejorative for someone that only downloads and does not share back). A peer is another person that is either downloading or sharing the file. A swarm is the group of people that are downloading and uploading the file to each other. A tracker is the service/server that connects everyone in the swarm and helps manage the distribution. The protocol works to spread out the pieces of the file so that everyone trying to download it gets a different piece to download and then share back so that everyone gets the file as quickly as possible. None of this is illegal, it is perfectly fine to use the protocol as long as you own the rights to the file that you are sharing. Things get illegal when you are sharing a copyrighted work, such as a movie, then the copyright holder could possibly try to download their movie from a swarm that you are in, sharing the file. As torrenting connects peers by ip address, the copyright holder gets their own movie from you, gets your IP, uses that and the law to find you and consequences can occur. By using a VPN one obscures their IP address by using the VPN IP address, so your IP is shielded, the VPN service usually claims not to keep logs so there should be no record to trace. The mentioning of a VPN is interesting and is probably connected to CM talking about editing videos, because as long as the info being provided is legal (PCAPS would most probably be legal, as would any whistleblower video or any output of investigation) then there is no risk of breaking any copyrights. If however, the mission turns out to be sharing videos of our own via torrenting, then it would be a good idea to use a VPN as peers could get your IP, and if the files being shared are important then bad actors can connect, just like the copyright owners, and get your IP to do hostile shit to it. Finally look into and use webtorrent, if we are dealing with video/audio or any streamable type of file, you can watch and seek the video file as it is downloading and can review without having to even download the whole file. Will stop it there, maybe another lesson later if people want it.