this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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There seems to be a sub-group of salty dogs that sail without protection. They are often US saying they get lots of letters from ISP but nothing comes of it, lately. I'm one to hedge on the side of caution and will be continuing to use VPN but just wondering how much this is just a loud minority and how much truth is to it?

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Plenty of people have unprotected sex. That doesn't stop a portion from getting AIDs. I can give you plenty of stories of people downloading a hot (monitored) torrent and then paying thousands of dollars in legal fees after ignoring the notice.

Get a VPN, or a Debrid service if you are strapped for cash. Why roll the dice when you don't have to?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

HIV is the virus, AIDS only develops if it's untreated.

Treatments are actually very good and widely available now, such that there will be practically no incidence of AIDS by 2023.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you for the link. I literally hadn't seen anything of people being prosecuted since the mid-2010s so that was very informative. Outside of the NSFW category of torrents has any game or tv series led to indictments?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why would you want to rawdog the internet?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I want to feel every 0 + 1, maybe even a 2.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago

A VPN literally does not change anything that comes through to you from the internet. I mean, thats the whole point, isn't it? So, actually using a VPN you are "rawdogging" the internet, not the other way round.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, a VPN protects you from a lot more than just copyright trolls. Even if you're not sailing the high seas, it's better to have one than not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you elaborate what you mean? If someone lives in an oppressive country e.g. China, with many blocked sites or censured internet, I understand. But if you don't live in such a country what would be a usecase apart from piracy?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, one of the biggest reasons to have a VPN is just the privacy. Your ISP spies on you, and sells your browsing data to corporations like Amazon. A good VPN will also block ads, trackers, and malware, which helps keep you safe while browsing. You might also be on an ISP that throttles some types of traffic, such as streaming media.

A VPN, as long as it's set up right, prevents anyone from seeing what you're doing, even if they have access to your traffic. And if you're in the US, there's a strong argument that being free from casual intrusion into your internet habits by corporations and the government is a Constitutional right.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's my main reason. I don't trust my ISP at all. Plus, they most likely are the only one in your area. I'd rather not give them any ammunition to mess with me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

people fuck strangers without condoms

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I only use a vpn on public trackers, on private trackers I don't use a vpn.

But generally if you don't live in a third world country you should almost always use a vpn. I live in Germany and luckily my ISP doesn't care about torrenting.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

OP here living on the edge.
I usually only download through my seedbox located in NL.
Luckily a VPN connection is included with my seedbox and recently had a reason to use it for torrenting from a private page.

What ISP are you using?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My current ISP is VSE, Innogy highspeed, E.on Highspeed or whatever name they'll be using next. They change their name every few months or so

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Innogy highspeed (...)

Sadly they do CG-NAT which is a dealbreaker for me :/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They offer a dedicated IP for around 1 Euro per month. Recently I noticed they also enabled IPv6 natively

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Still stuck with someone not willing to go >50mbit/s at home. I will try to keep them in mind once it comes to it ;)
Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Those letters are often void threats. ISPs are not really the right plaintiff to bring priacy cases to court. The only thing they can do is to terminate service but that is obviously not in their interest.

Just if you are already paying for a VPN and the download/upload speed is acceptable, there is no point in getting yourself in trouble no matter how small the odd is.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I torrented the vast majority of my growing 28tb library without a vpn over the last 7ish years.

This year alone, I've received 45 email notices from my ISP forwarding copyright claims to me. Neither the ISP nor any claimants have taken further action and the content in the claim(s) has always finished seeding and been removed from the torrent client by the time I've received the notice. (the notice specifies a particular torrent title/filename)

Despite not yet having legal issues or service interruptions; I have just recently decided to switch from torrenting to usenet via Frugal Usenet+NZBGeek (usenet provider+indexer). Better availability (In 2 days, I grabbed 2.8tb of content I hadn't been able to find via torrents and 15+ indexers), continuous 70+mbps downloads, and no need for a vpn while also not receiving anymore copyright claims for only about $6/month.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

VPN without a doubt.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Your ISP will terminate your service after enough letters. Use a VPN to stay safe.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'd always use a VPN, you never know what could happen in the future. Better be safe than sorry!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I once received a secure message from my isp after downloading a certain film. I've been pretty paranoid ever since.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's a minority.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been torrenting for almost 20 years and no one cares here where I live. I got VPN few months ago anyway, paying 5€/mo and I sleep better. The problem is I had to change provider already (Mullvad -> AirVPN). Its not easy to find proper VPN with port forwarding and Im afraid there will be even less providers in the future. Maybe I'm wrong, but feels like I'll have to ditch PF in near future.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought Mullvad had portforwarding?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah it had, but not anymore...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Instead of spending money on a vpn and it might not work with port forwarding and me having to make sure my uptime is working I decided to spent the cash on a seedbox instead.
Any issue? Open a ticket with support and be done. No need to make yourself crazy why something is not working as it did 2min ago.

BUT it's more expensive than hosting a seedbox.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The problem with this question is that it's a whole lot more nuanced than "Do I need it?". In short the only time you could possible benefit from one is if you use torrents, and even then it's really only public torrents. From there it depends on whether the swarm is monitored, and given how you simply can't know that it's safer to just assume that it is. But even if it is, will your ISP bother to forward the DMCA notices to you, and if they will, will they care if you take no action?

If you check enough boxes it's likely worth it "just in case", although at that point you might as well look into debrid services.