While torrents were perhaps created with good intentions, these days it’s more or less associated with piracy, and it looks like even after more than 10 years, the world’s oldest torrent is actually still active. So which torrent is the world’s oldest torrent, you ask? According to the folks at TorrentFreak, it is actually the ASCII remake of The Matrix.
According to the Readme file, which seems to be some kind of disclaimer to say that it isn’t a pirated copy of the video, “This work is a parody. As such I do not believe that this DVD has any possibility of competing with the original in any market. It is not for sale.” The file weighs in over 4GB. It might not seem like a huge file these days with our fast internet speeds, but over 12 years ago, it would have been a massive undertaking.
The torrent was created 4,419 days ago on the 20th of December, 2003, and even though the website that linked the torrent is no longer active, it seems that there are still 8 people who are actively seeding the torrent as we speak, a number which we imagine will probably be spiking in the next few days from those who are curious and want to take a look for it themselves.
The torrent is still available from other torrent websites, and a quick search on Google should bring up some sources (which we won’t be linking for obvious reasons).