I was working on a comment to a general post asking how to start pirating games. I tried to submit it but then soon realized that the post was deleted by the moderators while I was working on the comment. So, here you go:

Yarr welcome to the ship. Three rules you must always follow, lest the empire tracks u and sinks ur ship. Penalties for piracy vary by region (in the US if the ISP receives letters from copyright lawyers too many times about your file sharing behavior, they can suspend your internet)

First thing is a bittorrent client. There is really only one true bittorent client, which is qBittorrent (https://www.qbittorrent.org/). Stay away from uTorrent, they aren't good anymore. Others like Transmission are good as well.

Second is a VPN. My personal favorite is hide.me, since they have a Wireguard VPN (see https://hide.me/en/wireguard-vpn) and port forwarding. A very important thing to do is to choose one with port forwarding.

Port forwarding is the ability to open ports through your VPN. Basically, it allows you to be seen by Seeders even with closed ports, so they can establish a connection with you. This usually dramatically increases your download rate initially (because seeders can sometimes connect with you even if they have closed ports, it'll just take a while). Also, it's good for seeding as well and it helps the swarm! Here is a more complete explanation: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/35669790

Another very pro tip is to bind your VPN to your torrent client. In qBittorrent, simply change Preferences -> Advanced -> Network Interface. (To know which one, go to your terminal and type "ifconfig" if you're on Linux or "ipconfig" if Windows. It will show you a list of all your network interfaces. Type this command two times, one with your VPN off and one with your VPN on, and whichever interface appears should be it)

Thirdly, come to a pirate site. There's fitgirl-repacks.site, or there's dodi-repacks.site. Download the installation folder and run the installation file.

Is piracy from reddit allowed? Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/p6h7em/answered_why_you_do_need_portforwarding_for/

Many people look for a VPN with the primary goal of running Bittorrent. Sadly nearly equally many people have no idea what's important there and recommend a random popular VPN without port-forwarding. They know no better. These misguided 'recommendations' are all over this sub and r/piracy too. Explanation

> But it has been running fine without any port-forwarding for me!

If you are OK with your downloads failing in 10% of cases then continue as usual. If you don't want to miss a chance, here's a short explanation:

Bittorrent relies on your connection working both ways: to accept incoming and outgoing connections. Without port-forwarding: you may will see slower speeds, slower speed ramp up and if a torrent has very few online seeders you may run into a situation where you cannot connect to anybody at all - no download! Seeding is very hard without port-forwarding.

Normally home users cannot accept incoming connections due to NAT. This is always the case for proxies and VPNs, but some VPNs allow the assignment of a port that will always lead to your connected device (and to your client). Making outgoing connections is always technically possible but then you rely on the seed/peer to have their ports open! At least one side must be open. There's no way around.

A detailed explanation would be too long but you can ask in comments.

Is it safe (privacy-wise)? Decide for yourself, discussions also in comments

Opinion & TLDR: If a VPN tracked/logged you, they don't need port-forwarding to find you. On the other hand, it is possible that the no-log VPN is forced to disclose which account currently (at the time of request) has the port in question configured. So far without known precedents. I believe it's worth it, without seeding torrents would die. How to

Pick a VPN provider that supports port-forwarding. Here's a list I compiled last month.

Pick a client and force it to only ever use the VPN connection in settings (see screenshots). This is called IP/interface binding

In client settings set the "incoming port" to match the forwarded port from your VPN provider (also referred to as "local port")

    Disable UPnP and other automatic configuration unless your VPN provider explicitly only works with UPnP.

You are set. Bon voyage at the calm seas!

Sometimes you also need to allow incoming connections to the client application in your firewall. EDIT: Examples

Explicit examples where port-forwarding will help establishing a connection:

Downloader, closed port <--- ---> Seeder, closed port: Tough luck!

Downloader, closed port ---> Seeder, open port: Instant!

Downloader, open port ---> Seeder, closed port: Bummer. Need to wait until Seed sees and connects back to you. Usually up to 30min (or tracker refresh time)

Downloader, open port <---> Seeder, open port: Instant! in either direction

I am writing these posts to form a complete guide for people to follow and set up everything. Next time I see someone recommending a trashy VPN, I'll send them here.

As easy as taking candy from a megacorp’s intellectual property

Rough Procedure:

1. Download game of choice from fitgirl-repacks dot site from a separate (linux) computer. (Dont forget to seed folks!)

2. Install it via lutris. I installed it on my linux PC so Lutris will automatically create a directory under ~/Games

3. After fitgirl is done with her magic, take the entire directory installed under ~/Games, copy it over to a USB, and transfer it to your steam deck. You would probably need a USB to USB-C adapter for this one.

If you have no such adapter, no worries. What you could do is in desktop mode, install Decky, and from Decky install the terminal plugin (or you can skip installing Decky entirely and just use the terminal from desktop mode. But Decky is a really good plugin and want an excuse for more people to try it out!). SteamOS is by default an immutable distro so you can’t mess around outside your home directory unless you invoke some special linux incantations. Here is the procedure for that: https://christitus.com/unlock-steam-deck/

After you unlock & install the terminal on your steam deck, install and start openssh daemon so your steam deck can be an ssh server so other pcs on your local network can ssh into your steamdeck. From the top of my head the command should be:

sudo pacman -S openssh

sudo systemctl start sshd.service

Or something like that idk 🤷

After that do an “ifconfig” on your terminal emulator on the steam deck to find out the local address of your steam deck (should be something like 10.x.x.x, or 192.168.x.x or something (basically search up what an internal ip should look like)). After you successfully ascertain such code, try to ssh in to your steam deck, and if you can, do an rsync from your PC. (rsync -rl —progress ‘installed game directory’ deck@‘steamdeck internal ip’:/home/deck/Games)

Ok now that it’s done rsyncing, open up steam from desktop mode in your steamdeck, add non-steam game, and choose the exe file in your installed game folder. (Remember when installing from fitgirl, you can choose where to place the game directory? That should be where it is).

Ok now that’s done, try running it and see if it works. Ez. If you want community game layouts set up, copy & paste the game code from steam db as the “Shortcut Name” of your game, and community layouts should show up

Next steps are optional, but basically your installed game will just be blank in your steam library when you play it, so here are the steps to make piracy more ✨a e s t h e t i c✨

Remember you installed decky? Install the steamgriddb plugin from it, and highlight your new non-steam game, and there should be an option called “changed artwork” when you press the three horizontal line button on ur steam deck. Go ham.

Anyway here are the rough details of how i was able to make it work. Ive only tested it with fitgirl but theres no reason other repacks wont work.

23andMe is not doing well. Its stock is on the verge of being delisted. It shut down its in-house drug-development unit last month, only the latest in several rounds of layoffs. Last week, the entire board of directors quit, save for Anne Wojcicki, a co-founder and the company’s CEO. Amid this downward spiral, Wojcicki has said she’ll consider selling 23andMe—which means the DNA of 23andMe’s 15 million customers would be up for sale, too.

23andMe’s trove of genetic data might be its most valuable asset. For about two decades now, since human-genome analysis became quick and common, the A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s of DNA have allowed long-lost relatives to connect, revealed family secrets, and helped police catch serial killers. Some people’s genomes contain clues to what’s making them sick, or even, occasionally, how their disease should be treated. For most of us, though, consumer tests don’t have much to offer beyond a snapshot of our ancestors’ roots and confirmation of the traits we already know about. (Yes, 23andMe, my eyes are blue.) 23andMe is floundering in part because it hasn’t managed to prove the value of collecting all that sensitive, personal information. And potential buyers may have very different ideas about how to use the company’s DNA data to raise the company’s bottom line. This should concern anyone who has used the service.

DNA might contain health information, but unlike a doctor’s office, 23andMe is not bound by the health-privacy law HIPAA. And the company’s privacy policies make clear that in the event of a merger or an acquisition, customer information is a salable asset. 23andMe promises to ask its customers’ permission before using their data for research or targeted advertising, but that doesn’t mean the next boss will do the same. It says so right there in the fine print: The company reserves the right to update its policies at any time. A spokesperson acknowledged to me this week that the company can’t fully guarantee the sanctity of customer data, but said in a statement that “any scenario which impacts our customers’ data would need to be carefully considered. We take the privacy and trust of our customers very seriously, and would strive to maintain commitments outlined in our Privacy Statement.”

Certain parties might take an obvious interest in the secrets of Americans’ genomes. Insurers, for example, would probably like to know about any genetic predispositions that might make you more expensive to them. In the United States, a 2008 law called the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act protects against discrimination by employers and health insurers on the basis of genetic data, but gaps in it exempt providers of life, disability, and long-term-care insurance from such restrictions. That means that if you have, say, a genetic marker that can be correlated with a heart condition, a life insurer could find that out and legally deny you a policy—even if you never actually develop that condition. Law-enforcement agencies rely on DNA data to solve many difficult cases, and although 23andMe says it requires a warrant to share data, some other companies have granted broad access to police. You don’t have to commit a crime to be affected: Because we share large chunks of our genome with relatives, your DNA could be used to implicate a close family member or even a third cousin whom you’ve never met. Information about your ethnicity can also be sensitive, and that’s encoded in your genome, too. That’s all part of why, in 2020, the U.S. military advised its personnel against using consumer tests.

Spelling out all the potential consequences of an unknown party accessing your DNA is impossible, because scientists’ understanding of the genome is still evolving. Imagine drugmakers trolling your genome to find out what ailments you’re at risk for and then targeting you with ads for drugs to treat them. “There’s a lot of ways that this data might be misused or used in a way that the consumers couldn’t anticipate when they first bought 23andMe,” Suzanne Bernstein, counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told me. And unlike a password that can be changed after it leaks, once your DNA is out in the wild, it’s out there for good. Some states, such as California, give consumers additional genetic-privacy rights and might allow DNA data to be deleted ahead of a sale. The 23andMe spokesperson told me that “customers have the ability to download their data and delete their personal accounts.” Companies are also required to notify customers of any changes to terms of service and give them a chance to opt out, though typically such changes take effect automatically after a certain amount of time, whether or not you’ve read through the fine print. Consumers have assumed this risk without getting much in return. When the first draft of the human genome was unveiled, it was billed as a panacea, hiding within its code secrets that would help each and every one of us unlock a personalized health plan. But most diseases, it turns out, can’t be pinned on a single gene. And most people have a boring genome, free of red-flag mutations, which means DNA data just aren’t that useful to them—at least not in this form. And if a DNA test reveals elevated risk for a more common health condition, such as diabetes and heart disease, you probably already know the interventions: eating well, exercising often, getting a solid eight hours of sleep. (To an insurer, though, even a modicum of risk might make someone an unattractive candidate for coverage.) That’s likely a big part of why 23andMe’s sales have slipped. There are only so many people who want to know about their Swedish ancestry, and that, it turns out, is consumer DNA testing’s biggest sell.

Wojcicki has pulled 23andMe back from the brink before, after the Food and Drug Administration ordered the company to stop selling its health tests in 2013 until they could be proved safe and effective. In recent months, Wojcicki has explored a variety of options to save the company, including splitting it to separate the cash-burning drug business from the consumer side. Wojcicki has still expressed interest in trying to take the company private herself, but the board rejected her initial offer. 23andMe has until November 4 to raise its shares to at least $1, or be delisted. As that date approaches, a sale looks more and more likely—whether to Wojcicki or someone else.

The risk of DNA data being misused has existed since DNA tests first became available. When customers opt in to participate in drug-development research, third parties already get access to their de-identified DNA data, which can in some cases be linked back to people’s identities after all. Plus, 23andMe has failed to protect its customers’ information in the past—it just agreed to pay $30 million to settle a lawsuit resulting from an October 2023 data breach. But for nearly two decades, the company had an incentive to keep its customers’ data private: 23andMe is a consumer-facing business, and to sell kits, it also needed to win trust. Whoever buys the company’s data may not operate under the same constraints.

How can I use my VPNs port forwarding feature while also disabling global routing by adding “route-nopull” in the OpenVPN config? Using hide.me vpn

I found a relevant post, but the links to the anwsers don't work anymore: https://forum.netgate.com/topic/127557/openvpn-client-port-forwarding-route-nopull-issue

(i’m also gonna ambush my friends about Signal on sunday and coerce them to download it to get rid of the green bubbles)

How do you use BiglyBT to discover I2P torrents from different trackers? I tend to just go to postman.i2p and discover torrents there, but I want a way to discover torrents using BiglyBT and I2P. I know that BiglyBT has DHT capabilities, does that work over the I2P network to discover torrents (Perhaps through Swarm Discovery?)

Any seasoned captains out there?

I was looking for ways to bypass the Chegg blur. I came across this reddit thread (https://archive.is/Z4r5c#selection-2584.0-2584.1) and one of the comments read:

"There used to be a website (probably 5 years ago) that’d scrape answers when you post the link. I can’t remember the name though, but hopefully someone else here is privy to it (if it still exists)."

The comment underneath was removed by reddit, but I can't help but think that the link removed by reddit might be this website. Fuck reddit btw, glad we're in this ship now. Anyone here know which site they mentioned?

Crap, i forgot about last week. Time for another Skepticism Sunday!

Stay on topic:

• This thread is only for comments discussing the uncertainties, shortcomings, and concerns some may have about Monero.

• NOT the positive aspects of it.

• Discussion can relate to the technology itself or its economics.

• Talk about community and price is not wanted, but some discussion about it maybe allowed if it relates well.

• Be as respectful and nice as possible. This discussion has potential to be more emotionally charged as it may bring up issues that are extremely upsetting: many people are not only financially but emotionally invested in the ideas and tools around Monero.

How it works:

1. Post your concerns about Monero in reply to this thread.

2. If you can address these concerns, or add further details to them -- reply to that comment. This will make it easily sort-able.

3. Upvote the comments that are the most valid criticisms of it that have few or no real honest solutions/answers to them.

4. The comment that mentions the biggest problems of Monero should have the most karma.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

• Richard Feynman