Do I need a VPN if I host my own DNS server?

[Kiro]

Basically the title. I use my own DNS server so for what I understand my ISP can't have logs of which sites I visit. Should I still use a VPN if I want to torrent? What about seeding? It'd be a pain to use one but I want to torrent as safely as possible. Also, first post.

[ill88eagle]

DNS is just a lookup table for domain names and corresponding IP addresses. Your ISP will log what connections you make to which IP addresses regardless of your choice of DNS service. So no. Switching DNS is useful when your ISP has blocked a certain domain from being accessible by changing their DNS record which is the case for TPB in some countries. Also, when it comes to downloading and seeding torrents, DNS is completely irrelevant.

To avoid being tracked and traced by your ISP, a VPN is the best option.

[Kiro]

DNS is just a lookup table for domain names and corresponding IP addresses. Your ISP will log what connections you make to which IP addresses regardless of your choice of DNS service. So no. Switching DNS is useful when your ISP has blocked a certain domain from being accessible by changing their DNS record which is the case for TPB in some countries. Also, when it comes to downloading and seeding torrents, DNS is completely irrelevant.

To avoid being tracked and traced by your ISP, a VPN is the best option.

How does my ISP know which connections I make then? I thought that because I had to use their DNS then I would naturally be asking them the IP address to every domain I'd like to connect and so they'd be able to log that info. If I'm not asking them the IPs of the domains I connect to then how do they know my connections?

[Moe]

Let's be clear - your ISP doesn't care what you are doing so long as you pay your bills on time.

You need a VPN because rights holders or their delegates monitor bittorrent swarms to see who is participating. Your ISP doesn't get involved until someone contacts them to say that one of the addresses belonging to your ISP was spotted in a swarm. If that address happens to be yours, you get the notice.

[ill88eagle]

How does my ISP know which connections I make then? I thought that because I had to use their DNS then I would naturally be asking them the IP address to every domain I'd like to connect and so they'd be able to log that info. If I'm not asking them the IPs of the domains I connect to then how do they know my connections?

ALL your in and outgoing connections go through your ISP: [you] <-> [ISP] <-> [internet]
Whether the DNS layer is on your end, your ISP's or google's doesn't make a difference.

However if you use a decent VPN the chain will look like this: [you] <-> [ISP] <-> [VPN] <-> [internet],
Your ISP will then only see you connect to the VPN, while copyright trolls monitoring torrent swarms and harvesting IPs will only see the VPNs IP and have no way to connect that back to your ISP/you.

[Kiro]

How does my ISP know which connections I make then? I thought that because I had to use their DNS then I would naturally be asking them the IP address to every domain I'd like to connect and so they'd be able to log that info. If I'm not asking them the IPs of the domains I connect to then how do they know my connections?

ALL your in and outgoing connections go through your ISP: [you] <-> [ISP] <-> [internet]
Whether the DNS layer is on your end, your ISP's or google's doesn't make a difference.

However if you use a decent VPN the chain will look like this: [you] <-> [ISP] <-> [VPN] <-> [internet],
Your ISP will then only see you connect to the VPN, while copyright trolls monitoring torrent swarms and harvesting IPs will only see the VPNs IP and have no way to connect that back to your ISP/you.

Ok, thank you for clarifying!