Bram Cohen (1975 - ) is a computer programmer, best known as the author of BitTorrent. He is also the co-founder of CodeCon, organizer of the Bay Area p2p-hackers meeting and the author of Codeville .
Cohen graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1993, and attended SUNY in Buffalo, New York. 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 off of many computers. This concept, Cohen thought, was perfect for a peer-to-peer 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 to be able to download files from many different sources, thus speeding up the download time, especially when the peers are on ADSL connections. 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 thus, also allowing other users from uploading the data from them as well.
In April 2001, Cohen quit MojoNation and began work on BitTorrent. Cohen collected free pornography to lure beta testers to use the program in the summer of 2001. The program became an instant hit with Linux users who wanted to swap their enormous open-source programs, but 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 pirated anything using his software, and suspects the MPAA 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 late 2003, Cohen was hired by Valve Software, to work on Steam, their digital distribution system introduced for Half-Life 2. However, by early 2005 he was no longer at Valve, and his primary source of income once again became donations from BitTorrent users.
Cohen has Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism that gives him great concentration but can make it difficult for him to relate to other people.
He currently lives in Bellevue, Washington with his wife Jenna and his children.
Other interests
Cohen's hobbies include origami and juggling, but his main interest is what he calls "recreational mathematics". Cohen maintains a blog where he frequently discusses trust metrics with Raph Levien, money systems, games of skill, and other math-related topics. He is also a twisty puzzle enthusiast.
External links
Last updated: 10-08-2005 07:47:56
