Thread: Bittorrent Paranoia and You!

I think the "proxy" section is too circumstantial to give it one security rating. It depends entirely on the proxy/VPN host. Same with the seedbox, proxy should /not/ be below seedbox in security, they both work essentially the same way. Nobody will get your info unless either one (proxy/vpn or seedbox) gives it up.



As I posted before in the other thread, I've read up a lot on AirVPN.org 's logging / privacy policy, and emailed the owner about legalities, how they protect user data, etc.

IIRC Where they are located, they don't have to keep any user information at all. If you pay with PayPal, it will be linked to you, yes, but they don't keep traffic information anyway, so it doesn't really matter. To get user info the gov would have to require that they monitor use in case that person connects again, essentially a wiretap, because they can't even request previous information, as they don't keep logs. They are purposely spread among multiple places to get the best laws for being required to monitor for a certain user to, I believe they only have to do it if it is a violation of human rights under the EU charter and the court specifically requires them to. So essentially, there is no chance of the gov or anyone tracking you unless it's something serious like terrorism, massive hacking, etc.

Originally Posted by Himanlickman

I think the "proxy" section is too circumstantial to give it one security rating. It depends entirely on the proxy/VPN host. Same with the seedbox, proxy should /not/ be below seedbox in security, they both work essentially the same way. Nobody will get your info unless either one (proxy/vpn or seedbox) gives it up.

As I posted before in the other thread, I've read up a lot on AirVPN.org 's logging / privacy policy, and emailed the owner about legalities, how they protect user data, etc.

IIRC Where they are located, they don't have to keep any user information at all. If you pay with PayPal, it will be linked to you, yes, but they don't keep traffic information anyway, so it doesn't really matter. To get user info the gov would have to require that they monitor use in case that person connects again, essentially a wiretap, because they can't even request previous information, as they don't keep logs. They are purposely spread among multiple places to get the best laws for being required to monitor for a certain user to, I believe they only have to do it if it is a violation of human rights under the EU charter and the court specifically requires them to. So essentially, there is no chance of the gov or anyone tracking you unless it's something serious like terrorism, massive hacking, etc.

Seedboxes are all pay to use. Thus they generally offer more security than proxies as a whole. There are no "free" seedboxes (someone is paying for the service). However, there are free proxies, so proxies go lower on the scale than seedboxes. Furthermore, not only will proxies get you banned almost anywhere, they have less functionality than a seedbox. My verdict would be, as a whole, that seedboxes are much safer to use on private trackers because not only are they a pay option, but most trackers allow them.

Well I didn't mean shitty web proxies, I meant paid VPN's. I thought BTguard was a VPN and thus you were interchanging the terms.

Hopefully if you informed your tracker that you were using a VPN with a certain IP range they would be okay with it. Maybe not though.

For right now, I think seedbox privacy is enough, but if SOPA or something similar passes, I'll be getting AirVPN and using it for everything. If I can't use IPT with it, I'll have to just go with public trackers.

very interesting discussion. I agree that seedboxes are more secure than private trackers alone. However, seedboxes are not any more secure than usenet. So what makes someone pick seedboxes over usenet? Maybe it is the pricing, I've never used either, but I would guess they are priced similar.

Originally Posted by tetorrent

very interesting discussion. I agree that seedboxes are more secure than private trackers alone. However, seedboxes are not any more secure than usenet. So what makes someone pick seedboxes over usenet? Maybe it is the pricing, I've never used either, but I would guess they are priced similar.

Usenet has a worse range of content in general. The pricing isn't really similar. Around $12 for unlimited download from Usenet.

Props for this thread. This is was brought me to TI and I eventually joined =)

Useful info here, though I am kind of wondering... seems like seedboxes would be less secure than a proxy that doesn't keep any logs?

Originally Posted by HiThar

Props for this thread. This is was brought me to TI and I eventually joined =)

Useful info here, though I am kind of wondering... seems like seedboxes would be less secure than a proxy that doesn't keep any logs?

A similar thread is why I joined, haha.
Well, I think I said before, if you had a VPN that definitely did not keep logs, that is pretty much the ultimate in anonymity. Free proxies are shit though. From what I've heard they just don't really go after individual seedbox users. (Unless you were the top uploader at a place that got busted maybe) They generally send letters en masse to public torrenters. (TPB, etc)

Cool thanks.... yeah I think I agree the proxy thing is a nice way to go for security.

I don't really care about speed and whatnot... I already have more things to watch than I could managed to watch for quite some time to come.

can anyone list the main differences between a proxy (supplied by your seedbox providor per se) and a vpn?

Is one safer/better than the other? Or are they practically the same; that is, if you have one, you don't necessarily need the other.