Hey

Got an idea yesterday, that maybe some programmer could answer me best. I need thinking out of the box for a second.
Maybe you will laugh, but what the heck, if this is not possible, at least I'll be a little smarter after the discussion or maybe start a good concept for a SF movie

Anyway, my idea is about "downloading" (copying a file) and possibility to speed things up only using software, and not upgrading hardware or your internet connection.

So, how this would work...

As I understand, when you download a file, the download manager reads the file byte by byte and copies it to your HDD. Is that correct? If it is, read on...

What if you didn't need to download the actual file? What if the download manager can make an exact local copy of the file you want to download only by getting some information from the Server about the file.

How this would work:
The Client sends the download request for a file to the Server. Then the Server analyses that file and says to the Client: Im not going to send you such a large file psychically, it will take too much time and bandwidth, instead Im gonna send you signals that will perfectly describe how this file looks like, and then you can use this information that I give you and make a local copy of the same file that exists here.

So it's like this: don't send me a psychical file, send me a description of that file, and I will make it psychical here locally.

I have no idea really how that would work, maybe the Server would say "ABC" and the client would know he has to write some information that code "ABC" represents.

So instead of downloading 1 MB of some data, the server would send a code "ABC" (for example) and the client would know what that means, and make an exact copy of that 1 MB of data. So if sending the information "ABC" is quicker then downloading 1 MB of actual data, then you would "download" that 1 MB of data faster with the same internet connection, thus boosting the speed needed to copy something over the internet.

Now this probably is not possible, but I want to know why?

And if there is some kind of workaround to achieve something similar to this. I mean, do we really need to download something? Cant we just clone it locally based on information sent? Or would that get to a point of diminishing returns?

So fiction or plausible?