this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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So.... at the risk of humiliating myself,
I've never once used a VPN in my entire life.
I pirated games, movies, shows, music, software... and the worst thing that happened to me was getting a letter from Telus once or twice saying "Hey. Don't do that."
That was 5 years ago
I know it's bad practice. But is a VPN 100% necessary? Even a free one?
While people sometimes suggest ignoring it because they say that your ISP is only sending you those notices because the laws compel them to and you downloaded something that was tracked, you may want to evaluate your risk.
Nothing has happened so far. Could something happen in the future?
Your ISP has built an entire portfolio of the things you’ve done online and which content you pirated. Who know how long your ISP retains that data, or which companies or regulatory bodies it shares this data with?
Laws may change.
Up to you on what you want to do with this information.
ISP can’t track bittorrent content without downloading the same torrent as you. They only see domain names of trackers and ip addresses of peers. The content itself is either obfuscated or encrypted.
Fair point. There is temporary obfuscation, and certainly not end to end encryption when torrenting.
The creator of BitTorrent himself has this to say:
In my opinion using a trusted VPN not just for torrenting, but also for sourcing pirated software or other content is just a best practice.
That's because you're in Canada. We don't need to worry like Americans can. It's not really necessary for us.
Same here. Started with IRC, then private trackers. Always force encryption. Zero issues. VPN is a waste of money for piracy.
I've only gotten two strikes in my life, 7-8yrs ago. And I feel like this was because my brother was downloading then recent, popular movies (which I almost never do). But before that, never did, without a VPN, and I used to pirate a lot more. Even further back, used to have a roommate who would go on movie and show torrenting sprees. We never got strikes. And that was when commercial VPNs weren't really a thing yet, but copyright strikes were well known. I've known others who've never gotten strikes either.
So I'd say no, not 100% necessary at all. But it's free or cheap enough to mitigate the risk. So that's why I use one when I do pirate, which is rare these days.
No, you don’t need it if you have trustworthy private trackers. Most people on here just use Pirate Bay or some shitty public alternative that’s seeded with all the planted stuff that the RIAA looks for