privacy when torrenting?
#1
(Feb 01, 2014, 04:03 am)NIK Wrote: What's the difference between a VPN and a proxy?

Imagine you're a member of a club, and the club has a library of books, looked after by a club librarian. The club doesn't actually have a physical library, all the books are held by members and they're exchanged as and when required. The duty of the librarian is to keep track of all the books that are available and who has which.

When you want a book you phone the librarian and he tells you whether the club has a copy of that book and whose house it is at). You then drive over to that members house and pick up the book.

Now, if you wanted to keep your identity secret, you need to be able to hide your phone number from the librarian AND hide your car licence plate number from the guy you pick up the book from.

So, you could phone a friend and ask them to phone the librarian for you. That way the librarian wouldn't see your phone number. Your friend or, more specifically, your friends telephone, would be the "proxy".

But you can't get the book to your house via that proxy. It simply doesn't carry that type of traffic. You need to borrow your friend's car. When you go and pick up the book it's the licence plate number of your friend's car that the other club member will see. The car is the "VPN"

That's not a perfect analogy, but I think it covers the main aspects of your question.

To keep everything safe and secure, what I do is go to InPrivate Browsing on Internet Explorer. I also change the settings to delete everything and leave nothing behind.

Again, you're protecting something I'm guess you're not particularly bothered about. In this case, you're ensuring that if anyone gains physical access to your computer they won't be able to see where the movies on it were downloaded from. So your wife, or burglar, or the police if they ever confiscate your computer will be able to see that you have a copy of "big butt babes" but they won't be able to see that you've downloaded it from The Pirate Bay.

But nothing you've done will prevent the copyright owners of BBB seeing you downloading it.

I'm using PeerBlock. I don't know if it's any good,

It isn't. It's worse than no good, it's actually bad. Uninstall it.

but so far I've been protected.

No. So far you haven't been caught. But that's not because of anything that you've done, it's because the chances of getting caught are actually staggeringly low regardless of what you do.

All the measures you've described taking so far are akin to sticking a paper bag over your head, going outside in an electrical storm, not being struck by lighting, and then concluding that paper bags protect you from lightning.

will downloading too many torrents risk the chances of getting my ISP address spotted?

There is a risk with each download so, yes, the more downloads the more cumulative risk. But the risks are very very low to begin with so, meh. It's like being struck by lightening--the more times you step outside the greater your chance of being struck by lightening. But the chances are so small that you don't let the risk (which, though small, is very real) stop you.
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#2
Don't try to steal attention away from someone trying to obtain help. That's rude.

Post split to new thread.



A VPN or seedbox are the best choices. Neither are free though.
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#3
Sorry


(Feb 14, 2014, 16:58 pm)kjf Wrote: Don't try to steal attention away from someone trying to obtain help. That's rude.

Post split to new thread.



A VPN or seedbox are the best choices. Neither are free though.
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#4
Ok, I got "caught". Cox via HBO True Detective. 2nd time. As very knowledgeable users what do you recommend? A VPN set-up alone? A combination of configurations of the router and bittorrent. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am disabled and poor. Cannot afford to purchase content, go to theater, purchase premium services or get sued if they ever start to do that seriously. I feel that I am a good torrentor and always seed, seed, seed. I am somewhat technical but really need some solid advice.

Thank you in advance for any advice. I will check out the links for seed boxes and vpn set-up that have already been posted too.

Teri

kjf edited Feb 14, 2014 17:12 pm this post because:

No need to start a new thread either.

Merged

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#5
(Feb 14, 2014, 17:09 pm)mnaussie Wrote: Ok, I got "caught". Cox via HBO True Detective. 2nd time. As very knowledgeable users what do you recommend? A VPN set-up alone? A combination of configurations of the router and bittorrent. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am disabled and poor. Cannot afford to purchase content, go to theater, purchase premium services or get sued if they ever start to do that seriously. I feel that I am a good torrentor and always seed, seed, seed. I am somewhat technical but really need some solid advice.

Thank you in advance for any advice. I will check out the links for seed boxes and vpn set-up that have already been posted too.

Teri

I am not an expert in this area by any stretch of imagination, but I would like to share my recent experience with you so that it may help solve your problem.

I had read a few things about VPN and I decided to sign up with one.

I found a VPN service, www.easy-hide-ip.com. They also called themselves NetPrivacy Inc. Their soft ware never worked and their support needed improving a lot. So, I cancelled my subscription. Then I decided to subscribe to ProPNX (https://proxpn.com). Their software didn't work well and my download speed slowed down to almost halt from my normal 55 Mbps promised and provided by Comcast. I contacted their support team and asked them to help me to set the VPN to work with torrent traffic. They finally said their system didn't work with torrent.

Then, to my surprise, they forwarded a DMCA violation warning withing a day of becoming their customer. They claimed that I downloaded a copy of True Detective, which I did not. This happened more than 10 days before I became their customer. Anyways, they didn't provide any privacy as they had promised.

I wrote about this experience of mine on this forum a few days ago. I was directed to another thread to learn more about VPN (http://bit.ly/1miovWI). I learned that not all VPN services are created equal.

According to a recommendation by one member, I decided to subscribe to Private Internet Access (https://www.privateinternetaccess.com), which claimed that they didn't keep any log whatsoever. In other words, they don't keep a record as to what I downloaded and when I used their server to download a DMCA protected files. So, If DMCA demands that they produce the real IP of the person who downloaded the movie file they are monitoring, they can truly claim that they don't know.

I initially experienced considerable slowing down of my download speed, but their competent support team helped me tweak their software so that I could get the best possible speed. Now I get 105 Mbps download speed, which is twice as fast as the one provided by my ISP, Comcast. I don't know how it works, but I have been checking the speed all over again via Ookla speed test.

I have no personal interest in Private Internet Access and I want to share my experience to help you hide from DMCA's watchful eyes. Cool
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