this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Torrenting is the way to go. Especially with VPN port forwarding now.
Seems like some VPNs are pulling back from port forwarding. Was a bummer that Mullvad did, probably due to legal pressure
Not legal pressure, government pressure. They kept getting asked to disclose which accounts had which ports associated with then and share all the info on them they kept (which for some payment methods they do briefly). So they decided to remove the feature rather than potentially violate their founding principle of privacy and anonymity. Kudos to them. Of course f*ck the CSAM assholes who made the government get involved in this and cost us this feature.
That is very depressing. The arms race between bad actors and repressive governments keeps whittling away at our right to privacy
why do you need port forwarding if you have VPN?
Its been a long, long time since i've used torrents in any form, so I have no idea.
You need it for seeding
I do want to note that you can still seed if your port isn't forwarded. For every seed connection, only one person out of the pair needs a forwarded port.
Good point. It just means that only people who themselves are likely to be seeders can download from me. Which is better than nothing, but not ideal!
Why is VPN port forwarding relevant here?
Mostly for western developed countries where you will get fucked up by the government for pirating. ISP's in US Canada and UK will sue normal middle class people for torrenting, unless you mask your IP with the correct VPN.
Canada limits the amount that a company can sue for downloading pirated media to the point where it's not worth it for the company to actually take it to court. The company can ask the ISP to send an email to try to scare the user, but that's about it.
this is great news
Been getting those emails for 10+ years, I just laugh and keep seeding.
I have never heard of this happening. And I've gotten multiple cease and desist letters from my ISP. ISPs don't really have the case for a suit anyways, but there are third party companies that companies like Disney will pay to watch torrents for them and ask your ISP to send you that letter.
A decade or so ago, there were some widely-publicized cases of folks who got absolutely ruined with six- or seven-figure judgements against them for copyright infringement.
Example from 2012.
Maybe it was a tactic the copyright cartel used in the mid-2000s and then stopped or something, but it was enough to shift folks' behavior such that using VPNs became the norm.
You are correct, it's super uncommon to get sued for pirating unless you're a major player. If you get busted by your ISP too many times, though, they may give you the boot. My ISP has a 9 strikes in one rolling year policy (at least last I knew).
You didnt answer the question
Yeah, we get the VPN part. What about the port-forwarding part?
I might have used the wrong word. I think the term is binding a VPN to a torrenting application so that all data going in andd out of pass thru the vpns servers
But isn't that how VPNs work, binding the network interface connected to it to the applications?
Shit they do that? Man that sucks. People go to jail? Or have to pay fines?
Fines. And say you seeded a movie to 1000 people and a DVD of the movie costs $20, they sue you for $20000, treating it like you broke into a warehouse and stole 1000 DVDs of the movie.