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Beginner questions: VPN safe enough? How to use all these tools? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 9 months ago by lazarus@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Hi, I'd like to set the sails due to being frustrated with streaming services, but I have some questions beforehand. I hope, you can help me with that, since lurking and reading the Megathread/Wiki didn't really answer my questions. Thanks for your help.

Is just using a fitting VPN (I've read about Mullvad and ProtonVPN in this community) safe enough to not get caught? I'm located in germany, so sharing even as much as a few kB of pirated content can cost me thousands of euros. I want to be really sure, that I won't get letters from some lawyer soon. All, that I've read so far is basically: Setup VPN and your Torrent software, including kill switch and maybe get into private trackers. Thats it. Is this really enough? Can I do more to be safe? What exactly is the risk with public trackers (as they are often mentioned as the "low hanging fruit" for copyright lawyers)?
I've read the post The complete guide to building your personal self hosted server for streaming and ad-blocking, which mentions many tools to setup. I'm sure these help me find and view content. But are there good resources explaining the functionalities of this software? I'm familiar with Docker and I know about Jellyfin, but it is really unclear to me, what exactly all the other tools do.

Big thanks from a long time lurker!

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[-] Painfinity@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

That explains how I got caught🤣

Jokes aside, being part of the seed is all they care about, even if you're just leeching? The wording in those letters sounds like they take issue in you uploading and sharing that file back.

But I've checked, you're right. In their communication they don't provide anything that proves that you uploaded a file or that you've done that for a set amount of time, they just use your IP address and time as proof.

So, to check if I got it right: "Never upload" is simply not possible because (1) the process of downloading something always includes uploading some information about the download and (2) copyright trolls don't care how much you upload, what parts you've uploaded, what information you've uploaded or how long, they just care that you're participating in the process of downloading a file, and that always includes uploading some information. They simply persecute torrenters because unlike with streaming websites, with a torrent they can easily monitor in real-time which IP is connected.

[-] retro@infosec.pub 4 points 9 months ago

Yeah, that basically it. If you download the torrent, your ip is visible, they don't care if you upload or download. As far as they're concerned, if your IP is there, they'll snatch it and send you a letter.