Pirating is illegal in many jurisdictions and as such should never be encouraged. My guess is your question is academic.
I have heard people use reputable VPN’s like Mullvad, Proton, etc. for daily usage to obscure their traffic/IP which is entirely legal and a wonderful use of these tools since we must safeguard our privacy from bad actors/protect ourselves from malware (a side benefit many VPN’s).
I have also heard uploading (seeding) is where you really get in trouble with the law in many jurisdictions, as opposed to downloading (leeching), so it’s important to know the laws that apply to you. Not that it matters, because neither of us would ever use these tools to pirate.
Killswitches are important as well whenever using a VPN. This helps prevent leaks. I have never seen a major VPN that did not have this feature baked in.
Allegedly it is higher risk when you are grabbing brand new stuff, especially things that have not been released to the public yet.
I have heard people use reputable VPN’s like Mullvad, Proton, etc. for daily usage to obscure their traffic/IP… protect ourselves from malware (a side benefit many VPN’s).
A VPN won’t protect you from malware. The only thing it does is encrypt your traffic to/from the VPN server, and mask your WAN IP address. The encryption will help protect you from a hostile network, (like your work WiFi spying on what sites your phone is accessing) but it won’t stop you from downloading malware. The largest reason to use a reputable VPN is because you’re running all of your traffic through their servers. You want to know that they’re not just selling all of that data to the highest bidder; If you’re not the customer, you are the product. When searching for a VPN, you’ll want to find one that supports port forwarding, because a torrent can only connect if at least one of you has an open port. You don’t want to rely on random seeders to have open ports, so forwarding your own port ensures you can connect.
I have also heard uploading (seeding) is where you really get in trouble with the law in many jurisdictions, as opposed to downloading (leeching), so it’s important to know the laws that apply to you.
This part is largely correct, though it will depend on where you live. Generally speaking, uploaders are penalized more heavily than downloaders. The issue is that you can’t torrent without inevitably doing both. The torrent protocol literally doesn’t allow you to block all seeding. You can restrict it down to a tiny amount of bandwidth in your torrent client, but you can’t just outright disable it.
Killswitches are important as well whenever using a VPN. This helps prevent leaks. I have never seen a major VPN that did not have this feature baked in.
This is where things veer into the “dangerously untrue” territory. A VPN kill switch will not protect you from IP leaks. A VPN simply creates its own network interface, and tells programs to use it. But when that connection drops, there’s nothing stopping programs from just using your regular interface before the kill switch kicks in. You need to bind the torrent client to the VPN directly. This must be done directly in the torrent program, not from the VPN’s kill switch option. By binding the torrent program directly to the VPN’s network interface, the VPN won’t be able to connect unless the VPN is enabled.
You can check for IP leaks using a few different websites (Google it).
That’s because it’s garbage that was shit out by a LLM. The constant “I have heard…” for every statement is a thing deepseek does, and it’s bloody annoying.
I have also heard that you can bind your hypothetical torrent client to your hypothetical VPN network interface meaning it would be unable to even send out any data if the VPN was not connected.
Or in the case of docker use a prepackaged VPN+Torrent container or pipe all container network traffic through a VPN container like gluetun
I have also heard uploading (seeding) is where you really get in trouble
Which is interesting since modern web standards make it possible to exchange data peer to peer in browser. Isn’t PeerTube working this way? So you might not even know you are sharing. How does it work in such situation?
Distribution is the key here, which they can pinpoint to your IP. They can’t come after YOU specifically (usually) but they contact your ISP Who then sends you a strongly worded letter about stopping (usually). If this happens repeatedly they will often throttle your bandwidth or even cut you off. Again, usually. This is different everywhere.
Distribution is the key here, which they can pinpoint to your IP. They can’t come after YOU specifically (usually) but they contact your ISP
Germany:
Which in turn hands out your contact data. And Waldorf + Frommer will send you a form for a Unterlassungserklärung, which you are kindly asked to sign. Plus they will kindly ask for a few hundred euros.
Who then sends you a strongly worded letter about stopping (usually). If this happens repeatedly they will often throttle your bandwidth or even cut you off. Again, usually. This is different everywhere.
You’re right I forgot we were speaking about Germany specifically. Still, trying to keep things kind of broad and remind people to check their law regardless
My understanding was that Germany’s issue is with uploading as well, but I am not German and I am not a lawyer
Yes, broad is fine. It’s interesting to see the different approaches. :) I’m sorry if I sounded too harsh.
My understanding was that Germany’s issue is with uploading as well, but I am not German and I am not a lawyer
Lawyer? Me neither.
Indeed. Uploading is problematic, which includes p2p. Downloading not so much. Still illegal though.
There was the story about witcher and CD project who targeted illegal users. Understandably. So downloading isn’t exactly 100% safe. Or using the downloads…
Pirating is illegal in many jurisdictions and as such should never be encouraged. My guess is your question is academic.
I have heard people use reputable VPN’s like Mullvad, Proton, etc. for daily usage to obscure their traffic/IP which is entirely legal and a wonderful use of these tools since we must safeguard our privacy from bad actors/protect ourselves from malware (a side benefit many VPN’s).
I have also heard uploading (seeding) is where you really get in trouble with the law in many jurisdictions, as opposed to downloading (leeching), so it’s important to know the laws that apply to you. Not that it matters, because neither of us would ever use these tools to pirate.
Killswitches are important as well whenever using a VPN. This helps prevent leaks. I have never seen a major VPN that did not have this feature baked in.
Allegedly it is higher risk when you are grabbing brand new stuff, especially things that have not been released to the public yet.
So there’s… Uhh… Quite a bit wrong with this.
A VPN won’t protect you from malware. The only thing it does is encrypt your traffic to/from the VPN server, and mask your WAN IP address. The encryption will help protect you from a hostile network, (like your work WiFi spying on what sites your phone is accessing) but it won’t stop you from downloading malware. The largest reason to use a reputable VPN is because you’re running all of your traffic through their servers. You want to know that they’re not just selling all of that data to the highest bidder; If you’re not the customer, you are the product. When searching for a VPN, you’ll want to find one that supports port forwarding, because a torrent can only connect if at least one of you has an open port. You don’t want to rely on random seeders to have open ports, so forwarding your own port ensures you can connect.
This part is largely correct, though it will depend on where you live. Generally speaking, uploaders are penalized more heavily than downloaders. The issue is that you can’t torrent without inevitably doing both. The torrent protocol literally doesn’t allow you to block all seeding. You can restrict it down to a tiny amount of bandwidth in your torrent client, but you can’t just outright disable it.
This is where things veer into the “dangerously untrue” territory. A VPN kill switch will not protect you from IP leaks. A VPN simply creates its own network interface, and tells programs to use it. But when that connection drops, there’s nothing stopping programs from just using your regular interface before the kill switch kicks in. You need to bind the torrent client to the VPN directly. This must be done directly in the torrent program, not from the VPN’s kill switch option. By binding the torrent program directly to the VPN’s network interface, the VPN won’t be able to connect unless the VPN is enabled.
You can check for IP leaks using a few different websites (Google it).
That’s because it’s garbage that was shit out by a LLM. The constant “I have heard…” for every statement is a thing deepseek does, and it’s bloody annoying.
I have also heard that you can bind your hypothetical torrent client to your hypothetical VPN network interface meaning it would be unable to even send out any data if the VPN was not connected.
Or in the case of docker use a prepackaged VPN+Torrent container or pipe all container network traffic through a VPN container like gluetun
Which is interesting since modern web standards make it possible to exchange data peer to peer in browser. Isn’t PeerTube working this way? So you might not even know you are sharing. How does it work in such situation?
Distribution is the key here, which they can pinpoint to your IP. They can’t come after YOU specifically (usually) but they contact your ISP Who then sends you a strongly worded letter about stopping (usually). If this happens repeatedly they will often throttle your bandwidth or even cut you off. Again, usually. This is different everywhere.
Germany:
Which in turn hands out your contact data. And Waldorf + Frommer will send you a form for a Unterlassungserklärung, which you are kindly asked to sign. Plus they will kindly ask for a few hundred euros.
Nope. Not the ISPs job here.
You’re right I forgot we were speaking about Germany specifically. Still, trying to keep things kind of broad and remind people to check their law regardless
My understanding was that Germany’s issue is with uploading as well, but I am not German and I am not a lawyer
Yes, broad is fine. It’s interesting to see the different approaches. :) I’m sorry if I sounded too harsh.
Lawyer? Me neither.
Indeed. Uploading is problematic, which includes p2p. Downloading not so much. Still illegal though.
There was the story about witcher and CD project who targeted illegal users. Understandably. So downloading isn’t exactly 100% safe. Or using the downloads…