Bram Cohen
Bram Cohen (born
1975) is an
computer programmer, best known as the author of the
peer-to-peer (P2P)
file sharing program and protocol
BitTorrent. He is also the co-founder of
CodeCon, organizer of the
San Francisco Bay Area P2P-hackers meeting and the co-author of
Codeville.
Cohen grew up in the
Upper West Side of
Manhattan,
New York City,
New York. He learned the
BASIC programming language at age 5 on his family's
Timex Sinclair computer. Cohen passed the
American Invitational Mathematics Examination to qualify for the
United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) while he attended
Stuyvesant High School in New York City. He graduated from Stuyvesant in 1993 and attended the
University at Buffalo. He later dropped out of college to work for several
dot com companies throughout the mid to late
1990s, the last being
MojoNation, an ambitious but ill-fated project he worked on with
Jim McCoy.
MojoNation allows people to break up confidential files into encrypted chunks and distribute those pieces on computers also running the software. If someone wanted to download a copy of this encrypted file, he would have to download it simultaneously from many computers. This concept, Cohen thought, was perfect for a
file sharing program, since programs like
KaZaA take a long time to download a large file because the file is (usually) coming from one source (or "peer"). Cohen designed BitTorrent, which was written in
Python, to be able to download files from many different sources, thus speeding up the download time, especially for users with fast
download and
upload speeds. Thus, the more popular a file is, the faster a user will be able to download it, since many people will be downloading it at the same time, and these people will also be uploading the data to other users.
In
April 2001, Cohen quit MojoNation and began work on BitTorrent. Cohen unveiled his novel ideas at the first
CodeCon conference, which he and his roommate
Len Sassaman created as a showcase event for novel technology projects after becoming disillusioned with the state of technology conferences. It remains a must-attend event for those seeking information about new directions in software, though BitTorrent continues to lay claim to the title of "most famous presentation".
In the summer of
2002, Cohen collected free
pornography to lure
beta testers to use the program. The program became an instant hit with
Linux users who wanted to swap their enormous
open-source software, but BitTorrent gained its true fame (and infamy) for its ability to quickly share large music and movie files online. Cohen himself has claimed he has never violated copyright law using his software, and he suspects the
Motion Picture Association of America would love to make a legal example of him if he did. Regardless, he is outspoken in his belief that the current media business was doomed to being outmoded despite the
RIAA and MPAA's legal or technical tactics, such as
digital rights management. In May 2005, Cohen released a
trackerless beta version of BitTorrent.
In late
2003, Cohen served a short stint at
Valve Software to work on
Steam, their
digital distribution system introduced for
Half-Life 2.
By 2004, he had left Valve and formed
BitTorrent Inc. with his brother
Ross Cohen and business partner
Ashwin Navin.
By mid 2005, BitTorrent was funded by venture capitalist
David Chao from
Doll Capital Management, and in late 2005 Cohen and Navin made a deal with the
MPAA to remove links to illegal content on the official BitTorrent website. The deal was with the seven largest studios in America. The agreement means the site will comply with procedures outlined in the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Cohen claims he has
Asperger's syndrome based on a
self diagnosis. He also states this condition has given him great ability to concentrate, while also making it difficult for him to relate to other people.
He currently lives in the
San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Jenna and his children.
Cohen's hobbies include original
origami and
juggling up to five balls, but his main interest is in
recreational mathematics. Cohen maintains a
blog where he frequently discusses
trust metrics with
Raph Levien, as well as money systems, games of skill, and other math-related topics. He is also a
twisty puzzle enthusiast.
*
*
Bram Cohen's home page*
Bram Cohen's blog*
Official website for BitTorrent*
Wired.com article*
Interview with Cohen about his Asperger's Syndrome*
Interview with Cohen about BitTorrent and CodeCon
