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.
I got one threatening letter (they are uncommon where I live in Czechia but they will write you after a while). I got a VPN and no more letters.
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.
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 think that depends very much on your jurisdiction and the type of content you download. In Germany when I did things without VPN I most of the time downloaded english content and not the latest blockbusters. Copyright enforcment companies, at least back then, were hired for specific newer movies. Now I have things more automated so I’d rather not risk tripping any wires.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
My friend’s friend’s cousin was dinged 3 times in 10 years by their ISP, large provider in a populated area.
He or she really needs to add a password to his or her router one of these days, darn neighbors. And those pesky neighbors need a VPN too. After getting a VPN, the complaints stopped. For the neighbors, of course.
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.
Just use ProtonVPN. They have a free tier. No credit card required. Its slightly slower speeds, but it will keep you from getting in trouble while sailing the high seas 🏴☠️🏴☠️
Proton’s free tier doesn’t support P2P traffic anymore.
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.
I don’t know your situation (and age) but small jobs like delivering newspapers can usually be taken up at relatively you age. They should easily cover a VPN subscription.
E.g. I was delivering newspaper biweekly for a few hours at the age of 13. Even today, the monthly pay would’ve been enough to pay for a year of my current VPN. Your guardians will have to approve the job but legally it shouldn’t be an issue.
If you torrent without a VPN the conversation about a warning by the internet provider on behalf of some rights holder will be way worse than asking about ideas for a small (summer) job.
does anyone still gets a newspaper?
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)
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.
How do you go about finding and joining such a venture
- 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/
- 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).
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.
Like most things, it depends on your jurisdiction and the policies of your ISP. But as a general rule, yes, you should take steps to hide your IP.
Probably a good case example is to look at how many people in your area were sued for torrenting. For example, the rights holders to Dallas Buyer’s Club famously went nuclear on torrenters, so maybe start by searching that. Of course none of this is legal advice.
PIA is pretty reliable in my experience and their three year plan is quite affordable.
