The Magnet URI scheme is a de facto standard (instead of an open standard) defining a URI scheme for Magnet links, which mainly refer to resources available for download via peer-to-peer networks. Such a link typically identifies a file not by location, but by content -- more precisely, by the content's cryptographic hash value.
Since it specifies a file based on content or metadata, rather than by location, a Magnet link can be considered a kind of Uniform Resource Name, rather than the more common Uniform Resource Locators. Although it could be used for other applications, it is particularly useful in a peer-to-peer context, because it allows resources to be referred to without the need for a continuously available host.
Read more about Magnet URI Scheme: History, Use of Content Hashes, Design, Features and Clients
Famous quotes containing the words magnet and/or scheme:
“It has lately been drawn to your correspondent’s attention that, at social gatherings, she is not the human magnet she would be. Indeed, it turns out that as a source of entertainment, conviviality, and good fun, she ranks somewhere between a sprig of parsley and a single ice- skate. It would appear, from the actions of the assembled guests, that she is about as hot company as a night nurse.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“Your scheme must be the framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)