The BBC's regular technology corner has once more come up top trumps with an article weighing up the good and the bad aspects of BitTorrent, the world's fastest growing P2P solution.

BitTorrent's efficient use of broadband connections has hugely increased the amount of traffic going across the net, because it runs all users' net connections flat out to deliver huge files. Recent estimates say that around a third of all internet traffic is based around BitTorrent. Some internet service providers think this is unacceptable. Recently BT began clamping down on so-called "broadband hogs", by starting to enforce a 40GB monthly limit.

Some ISPs go even further, breaking down customers' net usage into different types of activity, and discriminating against bandwidth-hungry file-sharers. So-called traffic-shaping is part of an ongoing battle between ISPs and BitTorrent programmers. As network providers look for smarter ways to identify torrent traffic, and reduce its impact on their network, more and more help sites are springing up showing users how to encrypt their data to avoid it being tracked and controlled.