Bittorrents

[CrystalSword]

Originally Posted by MOW

I was thinking about getting into downloading bittorrents for some hard-to-find vintage porn like early al$sc@n images & loops and some mainstream movies, etc. I would be termed a novice, as I've never got into the bittorrents.

I have an old laptop with Vista & an old Seagate ext. HD I was going to use.

What are problems of being mostly a leech. (Most of my stuff is easily found here or other boards & has been posted already.

I've read of people tracking you down & reporting you to your internet provider? True? Problems??

I've heard of lawsuits filed against downloaders. (I'd be small potatoes d/l-er.) True? Problems???

I've read of hacker getting into the computer & stealing your stuff. True? Problems?

Any suggestions on what bittorrent software I should get if the above is a minor risk? Major risk?

Thanks

Probably a late post so not as useful as it could be, but I do know a fair bit about the subject.
I agree with almost everything in the above comments from other VEF members. good advice.

1) Bit torrent is easy to use. I recommend utorrent(microtorrent) as a client -- it has virtually every feature you could want -- including throttling, pausing, IP checking, DHT modification, tracker blocking, and magnet-link adding. I would configure utorrent to not query or respond to their websites after you install it(that is, turn off the ads and your client tracking).

2) I recommend piratebay and rutracker.org to find your torrents.

Now the warnings:
3) Many countries and ISPs block torrent trackers and http domains as well as the torrent protocols. Depending upon your country and ISP, you may not have direct access to use BT.

4) Virtually all public(at least in the USA) wifi locations will block the BT protocols. So, this leaves you with doing it at home with your connection that is in your name(so you are legally responsible for your downloading).
Most megabit ISPs(cablemodem, DSL, etc...) will use backend tools to manage their clients(you). The speed of your up/down speed is throttled and your communications are monitored and logged. Yes, they know you come to VEF everyday! lol.
20 years ago, cable and dial-up modem connections were untraced and dumped -- you could share morally illegal content and (probably) no one would know. This is not true today.

5) So which content might you see legal action taken against you?
a) 5-strikes policy and DMCA warnings -- some ISPs take these warnings more seriously than others. In short, your ISP probably has a policy in their user legal agreement(that you consented to) that explains what happens to you and your account when a violation is logged. For most ISPs, after the third warning of your IP downloading something that is copyright protected(that they receive a Cease and Desist letter for), they will throttle your connection and limit some of your communication(even block torrent protocols). After 5, you may be in breach of your agreement and lose your connection entirely. Again, I have not seen anyone lose their connection due to this issue, but YMMV.
b) Tracked trackers and actual lawsuits.
At least in the USA and the UK, the content that is currently watched on the BT trackers are "new" movies, TV shows, games, and music. "New" tends to mean "commercially currently viable" as in UK top 40 music or movies that are in the theater(or coming to the theater).
The lawsuits I have seen tend to be for popular current movies almost exclusively. This makes sense from a financial standpoint too, they need to hire a legal firm to do their prosecution and that takes a lot of money. They are looking to get fast reparations for their perceived financial loss. It is a shakedown, but you ARE guilty.

6) Virtual private networks
VPNs are like porn stars, there are a lot to choose from and the quality runs the entire field from great to poor.
Personally, the VPN solution isn't a solution and here is why:
a) VPNs encrypt the packets that prevent inspection, however some trackers are actually run by the NSA or shared with the people that you are trying to avoid learning of your action. Furthermore, your ISP can datatrack you which is legally actionable -- that is, they can see that you downloaded 109Gb of data in three days.
b) All VPN companies will not protect you. If legal action is taken against you, they are required by law to share their logs of your actions.
c) Free VPNs are useless as they cannot be trusted period. Many times these VPNs will not be encrypting your data over the entire time period.
d) It is against the user agreement for VPNs to allow you to do illegal activity through their connection, including illegal file-sharing.
e) free VPNs have a data-limit of something very small like 500Gb/month. Pay VPNs may even be unlimited, but their prices lean toward just buying the product on DVD instead of paying a VPN to download a possibly degraded copy. So unless you are downloading terabytes of stuff, this wouldn't be a worthwhile solution.

There isn't very much GOOD VEF-type content on BT, at least not vintage stuff.
Also, the pornography industry is wise to the notion that 99% of their users don't pay... they often honeypot the trackers to trap you into a lawsuit out of shame. They often target public figures for this as these "celebrities" will be able to pay good hush money in the lawsuit.
Lawsuits for London has Fallen were between 5K and 18K USD. You can expect porn movies to be more.

Don't quote me on this, but, theoretically, you should be safe if you download non-current, older-than-a-year-or-two items.
Fritz the cat isn't going to get you caught, but you better think twice about risking some current Netflix/Showtime/blockbuster movie.

Last warning, torrents are a sticky business. crappy torrent client software or crappy DHT hosting sites will have ads and garbage embedded. MOST programs and games(anything with an executable) will have something embedded you don't want(malware, ransomware, adware, trojan, virus, or just a data-miner). Don't say you weren't warned. Personally, I don't run potentially dirty software on a computer that has my important files.... and never ever when connected to the internet.

[bllm1910]

Epic Browser has a built in VPN, Duck,DuckGo is a private search engine
https://www.epicbrowser.com/
Tixati is ad free and spyware free lots of advice pages
https://tixati.com/
use a webRTC to prevent actual IP leakage https://webrtc.org/
SETUPVPN is a free VPN in Firefox
there are plenty of free proxy torrent sites try https://proxyportal.net/
https://unblocked-pw.github.io/ https://www.torrentmirror.net/

[twisted angel]

Originally Posted by pierrelm

I'd be interested to know if anyone around here uses a VPN - if so, how effective are they?

I use a Keezel to connect to VPN service

[m100]

Originally Posted by bllm1910

Epic Browser has a built in VPN, Duck,DuckGo is a private search engine
https://www.epicbrowser.com/
Tixati is ad free and spyware free lots of advice pages
https://tixati.com/
use a webRTC to prevent actual IP leakage https://webrtc.org/
SETUPVPN is a free VPN in Firefox
there are plenty of free proxy torrent sites try https://proxyportal.net/
https://unblocked-pw.github.io/ https://www.torrentmirror.net/

i'm trying epic right now using the dutch source on the VPN seems to slow deposit files right down a 20 minute normal download estimated at 2 hours but it's ok on the streaming sites. any of the other sources known to be quicker than the others?

[m100]

the firefox setupvpn doesn't seem to have any adverse effect on download speeds and does seem to result in a change of language to your country of choice in many instances which suggests it is at least doing something.

edit: since i am able as a free user to download two deposit files simultaneously, one through chrome and one through firefox it definitely does change your ip.