Protecting privacy when using torrents

Ol!ver · 13 Feb 2013 at 16:56

Back in the day, when torrents were first taking off, people used the likes of PeerGuardian to make sure that their downloads were not bring spied upon. By all accounts, it worked well.

I've been away from the game for a long time, and I'm curious. What do people use to stop companies from seeing all those Linux distros they're downloading?

I understand PeerGuardian is no longer updated, and I hear people are using proxies these days?

Seems like a bit of a mess - do people still bother?

remy87 · 13 Feb 2013 at 17:16

Use paid VPN services, personally I use "private internet access" which only cost around £25/year. Bought it because of BT throttling during peak times but found a lot of uses for it like watching US streaming sites (hulu) or using netflix with US servers gives you a larger library than the UK one.

Avathar77 · 13 Feb 2013 at 17:22

Not that I am using torrents any more.. but isn't there a "forced encryption" setting some where in utorrent that does the job?

remy87 · 13 Feb 2013 at 17:29

Forced encryption doesn't work for throttling as far as I've tried so far, but I know that it won't do squat to hide your activities.

Phil2008 · 13 Feb 2013 at 17:52

I use blocklist manager, and this keeps the ipfilter file updated in utorrent.. But the update site for blocklist has been up and down like a yoyo recently

gillywibble · 13 Feb 2013 at 17:54

Private Internet Access. Plenty of proxies worldwide so you can also view EMI content restricted YouTube videos.

KIA · 13 Feb 2013 at 17:54

Blocklists are useless.

Decent private trackers. Google is your friend.

zakblood · 13 Feb 2013 at 20:28

i've been a mod of many a private tracker, and to be very honest, you might not even be safe there, seedboxes are the way most are going, utorrent does use encryption that will stop your isp knowing what your doing, but then they do you for the amount of data anyway, and most files ie torrents aren't encrypted so data is, name file isn't, so they still have an idea anyway, and will still pass on your details to who it concerns etc

only safe way is to be careful and don't do stuff that you shouldn't a lot

so the age old adage is, do it in moderation and most of the time you will be fine and safe, encryption on, always private and not public, and keep one eye out of the window with your night bag packed just in case

liamcrane · 13 Feb 2013 at 20:41

remy87 said:
Use paid VPN services, personally I use "private internet access" which only cost around £25/year. Bought it because of BT throttling during peak times but found a lot of uses for it like watching US streaming sites (hulu) or using netflix with US servers gives you a larger library than the UK one.

I really like watching the US chat shows but have to wait until they are put on youtube to be able to see them, i take it a vpn would allow me to watch a live stream on the ABC channel?

Ol!ver i didnt even know peergurdian was still around

. The was a good thread over on lifehacker with regards to good vpn servers and who which ones keep logs etc but like Zak said "only safe way is to be careful and don't do stuff that you shouldn't"

Mittens · 14 Feb 2013 at 00:57

https://www.ipredator.se/ or similar id say. if you google it you can find an interesting article on the subject of privacy/torrents on lifehacker

Sin_Chase · 14 Feb 2013 at 01:22

seedbox from BitTorrent network.

SFTP from seedbox to client computer.

teenwolf · 14 Feb 2013 at 01:25

What is seedbox ?

Sin_Chase · 14 Feb 2013 at 01:26

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedbox

lsg1r · 15 Feb 2013 at 19:08

if all you're after is us movies/series etc, grab mediahint (it's free) for firefox/chrome. Works with netflix and hulu (I've tried both, just log into netflix with uk ip first then install/activate mediahint) and probably some others.

Works better in chrome than firefox in my opinion

ANDARIAL · 17 Feb 2013 at 21:16

Sin_Chase said:
seedbox from BitTorrent network.

SFTP from seedbox to client computer.

same here

Ol!ver · 18 Feb 2013 at 18:51

ANDARIAL said:
same here

Seems a lot of money for what is essentially a way of avoiding spending money.

Sin_Chase · 18 Feb 2013 at 19:16

Ol!ver said:
Seems a lot of money for what is essentially a way of avoiding spending money.

Your choice, depends on your priorities.

KIA · 18 Feb 2013 at 19:23

Ol!ver said:
Seems a lot of money for what is essentially a way of avoiding spending money.

£10 per month isn't going to break the bank.

teenwolf · 18 Feb 2013 at 19:29

Sin_Chase said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedbox

thanks will check it out.

Showboat · 10 Jul 2013 at 11:16

Sorry for the thread necromancy!
I had been using Private intenet access, but with my tinfoil hat on i tend not to trust any vpn supplier, so would only want to use it when torrenting. The problem with that is you need to keep switching it off and on again.. which i always forgot to do.

Last night i setup a vm and installed private internet access and utorrent. I setup the vpn, to protect against disconnects and dns leaks.
I then tested it by disconnecting the vpn while downloading some linux distros! First time for everything!!!!!
It seemed to work well, it stopped utorrent activities until the vpn was connected again.
I also tested putting my main pc to sleep with it running and then waking it up, it seemed to run perfectly, and stopped utorrent from running while the vpn was disconnected.

A cheaper option than having a dedicated seedbox and may be of use to some of you!