this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Always use a VPN. With torrents you actively share the file which is illegal pretty much anywhere.
Even if no one cares today, someone might tomorrow.
yeah, i will probably get Mullvad.
It doesn't support port forwarding, it's not the best VPN for torrenting, your downloading will be limited.
I personally use ProtonVPN which does have port forwarding.
VPNs are a barrier for torrenting. Some people don't want to pay (or can't even pay), and other people may find setting a VPN up difficult. This is not good advice.
Force encryption for bittorrent and you're already future proof.
wat, there is no encryption in bittorrent that will protect you except for a vpn.
no one follow this individuals advice for your own sake.
There is encryption that will save you unless ISPs use shadow peers, which they can't use retroactively.
Edit, cuz I think the scope of my original comment has been misunderstood, my bad:
Of course, ISPs can still know you're torrenting, and if they don't like that, you will get letters. But they can't know what you torrented.
If you're gonna torrent, get informed about the laws in your country and how ISPs enforce anti-piracy measures, and if you can freely torrent in your country, there's no need to use a VPN. Encryption will save you from ISPs retroactively snooping on what you torrented.
the peers approach is the problem, not the ISPs. ISPs can tell your torrenting just from the shape of the traffic.
edit: generally, the claim that the builtin encryption protects the user is essentially misinformation and anyone who follows it is potentially in for a world of hurt.
Are there any countries where torrenting is legal? AFAIK, all countries ban sharing of copyrighted content. For example where I live it's legal to download stuff, but not sharing it with others. You can't really avoid sharing with torrents.
Torrenting is legal.
What you download might not be.
Sure, sure. I think it was obvious what I'm talking about, but yeah, you got me.
It's illegal everywhere, but not every place will actively hunt out civilians that torrent. Brazil is one such example, since pirating for self use, without trying to profit off the work, gets you fully ignored by the police, they only ever go after sites (PirateBay is still blocked here). I expect other parts of Latin America are similar.
This. Actually most countries leave you alone if you're not trying to profit from torrents. I can say the same about Spain, I've never heard of anyone getting any warning for torrenting and half the people I know torrent everyday without a VPN.
Well, as I said in my first comment, that no one cares today doesn't mean no one will care tomorrow. If it's illegal, you should take precautions.
That is exactly my point. If you use encryption, they will not be able to retroactively see what you torrented, and they can't punish you just for having torrent traffic because it could be legal torrents.
Encryption won't do anything is your real IP address is exposed. A VPN covers that. Most ISPs don't care, they just have to forward those nasty letters and may shut off your internet if pressured. Rightsholders will attach to the swarm, note all the connected IPs, and then go after the ISPs to get to the users. You have to obfuscate your personal IP somehow.
And sure I can see paying being an issue for some, but there really isn't much other way. As for use, they're no harder to set up that a torrent client.
VPNs are a barrier, true. But prison bars or having to pay millions to huge corporations are even bigger barriers. Sure, it might not happen to everyone and it probably won't happen to most. If you want to gamble with your life, go ahead, but please, don't tell others some form of protection isn't needed.
If you don't want to or can't pay, don't torrent. There are other, safer ways to get content.