I know this is a dumb question… But i cant really aford a vpn like at all, is it possible to torrent without using a vpn in the USA or will i get in some trouble and go to jail if i torrent without a vpn?
The reason i cant get a vpn is because im just broke and im young enough to live with family so i cant really get a job.
If you convert a magnet link to a .torrent file (there are many sites that can do that) and then upload the .torrent file to archive.org, they’ll download the files to their servers as part of their archival process, then you can just download the files via standard https, you ISP will only know you downloaded from archive.org.
But archive.org isn’t really meant to be used this way, so this is probably unethical. But I think section 230 protect them (for now), so its not like they’ll get shutdown or anything (correct me if I’m wrong).
Ugh. Doesn’t IA have enough legal issues already?
Use i2pd with qbittorrent
Yeah they’re gonna need qBittorment* for this though
Note that the official documentation says that it’s experimental and may leak your IP address.
Do your ISP a favor and use a VPN when torrenting. They will know you’re torrenting based on traffic patterns, but they won’t know what you’re torrenting. That way they don’t have to serve you a notice or kick you off their service at the behest of movie or music studios. Your ISP may not care what you’re doing, but those businesses do, and the law is in their side.
VPN makes it extremely difficult for your ISP to spy on you, which is the whole point.
Unless you use a VPN that supports traffic pattern obfuscation. Mullvad VPN does this https://mullvad.net/en/blog/introducing-defense-against-ai-guided-traffic-analysis-daita.
How will they know you’re torrenting if all they see is a lot of wireguard traffic? You could be uploading backups to a remote location for all they know
Just gettin’ a few linux ISOs
I’ve been collecting over 10 TB of Linux ISOs this year.
The nature of uploads/downloads happening with torrents coming and going from disparate sources. Apparently it has a certain network signature that can be identified fairly reliably. ISPs don’t really give a shit about WHAT you torrent, but they will try to traffic shape it so it doesn’t affect other users on the ISP much.
No idea what happens nowadays also probably depends on your location too, but a friend of mine downloaded fallout 4 when it released and his isp disabled their houses internet until he went to a web page and checked off a box saying “i have deleted the following file(s) from my machine” lol
It was a tame outcome relatively speaking, but it could have been worse.
Its not zero-effort, but you can safely torrent without a VPN using I2P. You’d have to have an I2P router running on the backend and use something like i2psnark to connect. Out of the box, I2P won’t work, you have to adjust the config, but after that you could go VPN-less. Two things to consider though: 1. Torrents will run slower. 2. Only trackers inside the I2P network would be reachable.
Use the Windscribe 10gb per month free. It works well. And if you need more use RiseUpVPN. But note it is slow. And that its completely free and volunteer run. It’s the kind of thing that if you get an income you should probably donate to if you used a lot. It’s mainly used by activists in authoritarian countries.
Adding another free alternative; The free Cloudflare Warp for a semi-VPN. You can’t choose your output node, but your traffic gets routed through their network.
It can run in proxy mode as well if you prefer only your torrent traffic being routed through it.
depending on what you you plan on downloading you can probably use direct downloads instead, and you won’t need a VPN if I’m not mistaken. no idea if and how available things are, though
What you were doing online is being watched. It is being recorded. Right now, some ISPs will will protect your identity and send warnings to you, to a point. Some ISPs will just give up your information.
They are currently working on legislation to force ISPs just shut you off If piracy is reported.
Right now, for every ISP that I’m aware of in the US, No action is actually taken against you for reports of piracy. But that doesn’t mean that this will stay the same, or, that they won’t retroactively go on a witch hunt.
You can find VPNs for a couple bucks a month. Make it a birthday request.
So here’s the deal is you “really” can’t afford $30 a YEAR:
I use a VPN called windscribe. You can buy this 1 year VPN for $30. You can buy it through the Google play store.
I also have the “Google Rewards” app that pays you in Google play store credit for taking short surveys or taking pictures of receipts.
I get $50 to $100 per year in play store credits to spend on Google play.
See where I’m going with this? I pay for my yearly subscription with my “free” play store credits I get.
=Free VPN. Like right now I’ve got almost $40 in play store credits (the free credits you earn have to be spent in a year. It spends the oldest credits first) and I have like 4 months left before I have to renew my VPN subscription. Since I never enjoyed any pay to win styles of games, at this point I practically run out of things I even want to buy with my credits before they start to expire. I’ve bought probably a thousand dollars worth of apps and games over the years and haven’t ever spent a single cent of my own money on any of them. Nothing but the reward app credits. I buy the “pro” versions of apps I use to remove ads, even if the ads don’t bother me or I don’t use that particular app very much.
This, and something to note is never lie to Google Rewards as you’ll then stop getting surveys altogether if they catch you out with their trap questions
Have you ever visited XYZ waterpark
If you haven’t, even if it’s a real place just say no and wait for the next survey because they’ll trip you up trying.
also I’m sure that DNS adblocking on my phone also stops the Google Rewards surveys. I haven’t gotten any for months now lol
You got me curious, because while I don’t have the app installed for the longest time I do have a female fam member who used to demolish me in rewards and still uses it.
But, only blocks adverts at home while on WiFi and pretty sure she doesn’t have PrivateDNS enabled.
Seems she’s only getting surveys whilst out and about shopping so I’ve asked her to enable her exit node at home next time shopping.
For science…
edit: goddamn formatting via Boost is nuts 🙈
Interesting. I never gotten surveys where I can upload receipts. Could it be a region thing? I’m not in the Western World Countries (in South East Asia), and from what I remember, only gotten “Have you been to” surveys.
I’ll always remember my favourite survey
Made me giggle that one, totally apt for a lad from Bradford :D
I adblock all my phones and back when I tried to use it I have it installed and never got any surveys for months. So that probably does it.
If you use only private trackers you can skip the VPN. If you use public ones, your ISP might take issue
Stick to private trackers, the risk of being caught is dramatically lower (harder to get it, smaller user base, companies target the big public ones)
Most private trackers require seeding seedboxes.
I’m sure OP would find it hard to find an Invite without spending money.
If you permanently seed all you’ve downloaded and you’ve been using a tracker for a while, bonus points + upload should usually cover all your downloading needs.
Starting out is difficult without a seedbox though. Especially of you don’t use Cross-Seed to seed to multiple trackers. In that case it is considerably easier to pay for a seedbox.
Really can’t say that’s the case. A lot of PTs have bonuses points and other things for long term seeding, and you can then buy upload or reduce download, or regular site wide free-leech, or free-leech over xGB, or Perma freeleech while you seed 1tb. You can do perfectly fine on a home connection as long as you don’t mind keeping some torrents seeding (like you ideally should be to share back) You can go from open reg PTs to mid or elite teir PTs off a home connection and no seedbox (if you out in some elbow grease).
Where are you getting these ideas from? I’m on multiple private trackers and none require a seedbox. They may require a seed ratio, but that’s a totally different matter.
Also, some private trackers offer invites from time to time and some provide a way to be invited via an interview. I got into two of them by interviewing.
How do you go about finding and joining such a venture
- Pay for a month for TorrentLeechs seedbox promo to get an invite.
- wait for opensignups. HUNO, FearNoPeer, onlyencodes are solid options.
- do an “interview” at MAM. After downloading and seeding all you’ve downloaded for a few months, you’ll be able to get into the trackers mentioned above and a few others (e.g. Aither).
- keep a eye on https://redlib.trux.dev/r/OpenSignups/ for sites that briefly open for anyone to signup
- keep a eye on https://lemmy.world/c/opensignups (not as trafficed as reddit sadly, might be better lemmy alternatives around)
- Look for sites that do IRC interviews (MAM, RED, OPS)
- Invite from a trusted friend (Note: I recommend being slow and steady and avoiding invites, its safer to ‘make it your own way’ - You can potentially lose your account(s) if someone youve trusted does something dodgy like buy/sell accounts - you have to absolutely 100% trust the person longterm and anyone theyve invited)
- Once into a reputable site and rank up a little through seeding/account time, look for invite/power user forums to request invites to other sites. This is how you branch out over time and ‘recruit’ your way through trackers.
- If your into ebooks MAM is a excelent starting place, its incredibly easy and forgiving and has a good invite section to springboard from (and friendly/welcoming community).
Info:
- sites/acronym list (exhaustive) https://hdvinnie.github.io/Private-Trackers-Spreadsheet/
- https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Private_trackers (older but still interesting/relevant)
- https://redlib.trux.dev/r/Piracy/comments/19bl0dn/the_complete_guide_to_climbing_the_ranks_of/
Private tracker security is, at best, security theater. You (a random nobody) can get an invite with nearly no effort. You really think a billion dollar industry can’t manage to get in and spoof as a legit user? There are entire companies that specialize in corporate espionage. Use a VPN (or seed box) even on private trackers.
They absolutely can of course. However, its easier for them to go after the easier fish that are public and advertise/make profit off work, much the same way a theif will levitate toward the least secure/most attractive house to rob. That said, country makes a huge difference - risk profile between a US citizen and say a Romanian is very different.
I use Spectrum, I get warnings, so vpn it is. I’d also rather no one know than know and willingly ignore it, logging it anyway for some government goon to discover in 10 years.
If you are broke and cannot afford a VPN, I suggest you use I2P.
I2P is basically an internet protocol that treats all kinds of internet activity in the manner a torrent works.
Basically, you run a local node.
Traffic is routed around in a bunch of anonymized, encrypted chunks, from many different users, which are then bunched up together into packets and encrypted again.
As a client, you can only decrypt the parts of a packet that pertain to you…
But as a node, you help move packets along to every other person who is running a node, in a sort of meshnet like fashion.
The result is a free, but very slow, but also pretty well anonymized way of passing net traffic around…
…and it is also arguably more private/secure than a VPN, which can simply hand over its server logs if legally asked to…
…and it is also arguably more private/secure than TOR, which can have de-anonymization attacks run on it if enough onion nodes, or your entry/exit nodes, are either comprimised or just outright run as honey pots, which is a thing various law enforcement agencies do.
However, another downside to I2P is that it is… considerably more technically complex for most users to actually set up and use properly, than just a basic VPN for switching your geoip to watch Brazillian netflix or w/e.
But, it does allow torrenting and portforwarding, and is totally free.
Don’t expect to be able to stream any media with it though, it is again very slow.
Couldn’t you potentially have the same thing you describe for tor happening with i2p?
In some sense yes, but:
If your TOR entry exit node is comprimised, you are basically fucked.
I’ve seen estimates that roughly 1/3 of them are comprimised, run by State actors of some kind.
People seem to forget that TOR was originally invented by the US Navy and used by them and the CIA and shit to move sensitive data around in the early 2000s, possibly late 90s.
Then they handed it off to the public.
Do you really think they do not know how to defeat it, when they really want to?
…
Also… I2P traffic is more anonymized/encrypted than TOR traffic is, in that each chunk in each packet is anonymized and encrypted… each packet is kind if a sausage of a bunch of people’s data being moved around all at once, the whole point is you can’t tell whose data ia whose.
IIRC, TOR packets do not work this way, they’re specifically addressed to a single encrypted and anonymized person.
So, its easier to reverse engineer who is the actual person using the network.
Whereas with I2P, you’re always routing for others as well as receiving your own data, albeit much, much more slowly.
I don’t think the cia/nsa or fsb is gonna involve themselves to investigate…
check notes
… people pirating movies and games…
They’re more worried about dissidents.
I mean… the FBI and INTERPOL/EUROPOL routinely do things like infiltrate dark web black markets for physical things, services, hacked data, hacks themselves, that exist mainly or only on a .onion site, then honeypot the users for 6 to 12 months, then crackdown on as many as they can at the same time.
They also go after rom hosting sites, they go after the sites that host torrents and trackers…
Sure, call those ‘Law Enforcement’ agencies instead of ‘Intelligence’ agencies if you want to, fact of the matter is they often collaborate and share methods, practices and just direct intel.
Kinda like how US police have largely militarized after getting all the surplus guns from Iraq 2 and Afghanistan.
…
Have you never seen a website with a:
“THIS SITE HAS BEEN SEIZED AND SHUTDOWN”
Banner replacing the main site?
If not, you must not have been pirating anything for very long, or even just following that genre of news.
Happens all the time, and its often a big smorgasbord of collaborating LE/Intel agencies with their logos on the banner.
But tor is not built to torrent.
Don’t subject your family to nasty letters in their mail from your ISP. You won’t go to jail, but you might risk your internet service getting canceled, which won’t be a fun conversation with your parents.
If you’re 18 and healthy, go donate plasma at a local clinic. In the USA depending on where you are, you can make $40-$80 per week, sometimes even more if they have a big shortage. Takes about 90 minutes a session, and you just chill with a needle in your arm and browse on your phone, super easy.
Proton VPN’s most expensive plan is $108 for 2 years, you can afford that. Go to your friends or neighbors and offer to do some yard work for cash. Mow their lawn, shovel bark, dig up dead shrubs, whatever. That’s the main way I made money when I was in my teens. People will pay 20-30 bucks an hour in most places for that kind of work, so a few hours of that in a week or two and you’ve got your $108 for Proton VPN, or whatever other VPN you want to use.
Sell some crap on eBay, FB marketplace, Craig’s List, etc. Old clothes, computer parts, consoles, weights, people will buy anything. You’d be surprised how fast I’ve gotten rid of junk buy posting it online for 10 bucks.
Proton smells bad for me, too much of a walled-garden and corporate restriction aesthetic with their services. I would recommend Mullvad or NordVPN
Why would you recommend Nord over Proton?
Proton take cash payments and xmr just like Mullvad and IVPN.
I only mentioned it because it’s what I’ve been using for a while and it’s been a good experience so far. Cheap, runs well on Linux, and is one of the few that still allows you to port forward.
There are several good ones to pick from, defs would stay away from Nord because of their advertising practices, but Mullvad is solid. I think they removed port forwarding though.
Mullvad did remove port forwarding, and it’s the only thing stopping me from cancelling my Proton subscription early. I don’t torrent often, but I wonder about getting a seedbox one day, and I’d need Proton.
I honestly don’t love them after the idiot board member’s Trump praise.
im young enough to live with family
Tell your parents that they’ll lose their internet if they don’t give you $20 per year for VPN.
