Idk, i never gave aa fuck.

I wouldn't join a private tracker that requires me to expose my real IP. It doesn't sound serious at all.

Just use Usenet.

Private trackers really aren’t masters of op sec. They thrive through security through obscurity which the worst kind of “security”. And generally even fail at that (PTP, BTN, RED, OPS are so widely known)

That said I use them and I also don’t use a VPN so I just take that risk. It’s up to you

IP2 definitely sounds intriguing as truly (or close to) anonymous peer to peer

I've never had one that required an interview, but my primary private tracker requires you to log into the webpage not on a VPN. They still suggest heavily that any torrenting is done on a VPN though.

If the owners of the site are competent, they're gonna hash your IP for their logs and not store the actual IP. Hashing is a one-way process, they won't be able to reconstruct your IP from it. If they're storing your raw IP, probably stay away. (Honestly, you can't do nearly as much damage with an IP address as people think, but it'd be a hint to way worse security practices elsewhere)

I just never cared. People treat their IP like some secret identity. It's not as precious as some people think. I go to trackers without VPN all the time. My transmission client is always behind a VPN.

I did mine at an Airbnb. It is a home address but not mine. Make sure you're on a resedential IP though. You can often tell them your using a VPN and there by never share a real IP.

I have never trusted private tracker security who usally depend to security through obscurity which is BS.

Your home IP is most likely just used for the initial signup. You can torrent via a VPN afterwards.

FWIW, I've been using multiple private trackers over the past decade and have never, not even once, gotten a letter of doom from my ISP. I'm currently seeding probably over 1TB of shit on my UNRAID server to multiple private trackers as I type this. None of that is behind a VPN.

Now, public trackers are a whole other story, I always will use public trackers from behind a VPN. The couple times I have forgotten to download from behind a VPN using them I have gotten insta-emailed from my ISP to cut it out.

You can definitely join one that doesn't mind you signing up through a VPN. There are a handful that are picky, of course. I'm mostly fine with those that do have my real IP logged. The reality is that they can't prove it was me because someone from my IP happened to sign up to some site months or even years ago.

I've used private trackers for 13 years, including BTN & PTP, and never gotten a letter or anything.

I never had an issue. I recently started using a VPN, but not because of that. It was for privacy, but since it works with torrents, I use it for that as well.