Thread: Is it necessary to hide P2P activity from ISP ?

To my understanding many P2P users hide download activity from ISP by using things like VPN, web proxies and Vidalia. Is this necessary solution for sharing safely?



If yes, what do you recommend for new users on PC or MAC ?

Thanks!

There are at least two aspects to this.

P2P traffic is a huge load on networks. And most ISPs don't practice net neutrality. So many will seek to throttle or even block p2p traffic. So obscuring the nature of the traffic will often boost speeds.

More important is exposure to possible legal action. The risk is arguably less with private trackers, but it certainly isn't zero. Your risk is greater in some countries e.g. US, Germany and will vary with content, the phase of the moon and other difficult to ascertain factors. So what can you do? Well, like investment advice.. what is your tolerance for risk? If you don't want to assume any risk, then you need to stay off the net.

In practical terms, there are applications such as peer block that will reduce your risk. But they also block a lot of legitimate torrent down loaders too. Probably for most, the better way to obscure the connection type and probably boost speeds too is to find the setting in your torrent client that sets the protocol encryption. And set encryption to "forced". And even better, consider a seedbox as well. Among other things it ensures that the first point of contact on the network is not the IP of your home PC.

Past that, VPNs are helpful for a lot of reasons.. but perhaps a pain or overkill for most. Proxies? You should know that a lot of trackers will ban you if you use a proxy, even a "transparent proxy". So look into that carefully before you do that.

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IMHO, it isn't necessary to hide it from the ISP, they don't care and won't take legal action against you. They may be forced to pass on legal notices to you, but I don't think they care about the details of what you are doing (as long as you are a paying customer they are happy). Furthermore, it would probably be a lot of work for them to try and track what the P2P traffic contains, so they won't do so, it would cost them a lot of money to put this into place. They want to make money, not spend it.

Being anonymous is good IMHO, your ISP won't throttle your traffic.

Once interesting aspect about private trackers is what would happen if a server is taken? Since they log everything, if a server was taken, it would contain a list of all the torrents you've finished downloading, how much you seeded back, etc. Not much you can do to avoid that. I guess in the end it is easier to pretend to be one of the leechers in a swarm and tracker which IP addresses upload content to you, so often the path of least resistance would be taken when trying to find out who is transmitting copyrighted data.

Originally Posted by Canadian

Once interesting aspect about private trackers is what would happen if a server is taken? Since they log everything, if a server was taken, it would contain a list of all the torrents you've finished downloading, how much you seeded back, etc. Not much you can do to avoid that. I guess in the end it is easier to pretend to be one of the leechers in a swarm and tracker which IP addresses upload content to you, so often the path of least resistance would be taken when trying to find out who is transmitting copyrighted data.

It wouldn't be the first time that this has happened. Fortunately there are usually easier targets to go after. But since there is a trend towards "honeypot stings" in some countries (notably the US & Germany).. this is probably going to become more and more of a concern.

It wouldn't be entirely unfair to say that some copyright holders approach this with the view that they can make a lot more money with the threat of litigation than they ever could have by selling the original content. Settle up & pay us a few thousand $ or we'll take you to court and try for ten times that in damages..

You could view a well constructed VPN as so much insurance in that kind of climate.

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basically it depends on the country u live, as far i m concerned any isp in my country dnt give a shit bout what one is downloading or frm where they r downloading.
but for countries like US users need to invest in things like vpn to remain on the safe side.
if u r too worried about remaining anonymous it would be better option to download the stuff from hosting sites hiding behind a proxy.


basically for new users i think seedbox is a best option for torrent users as it will fill in the seeding needs in addition to hide your ip from the direct source of download.
if a tracker is taken down as canadian has pointed out you r bound to get caught whatever efforts u do to remain anonymous

I have found in my years of torrenting, most ISP;s will just send the obligatory P2P infringement notice; but will not act upon it. Well in most cases.

Just get a seedbox and you won't have any P2P traffic to worry about since everything will be downloaded via ftp or http.

I agree with a lot of what others have posted.
However if you're still concerned or want to play it 'safer', perhaps you could consider getting a seedbox?
Purchase a seedbox from another country and download via SFTP or HTTPS to your home pc.
Obviously it's not fool proof but it's another layer of 'security' or 'peace of mind'
Imo not using public trackers is also a really good idea as well.

Getting a Seedbox is a fairly safe thing to do, but don't forget that your ISP can still monitor traffic from, and to, your PC, so even using a Seedbox is not fail-safe.
In any case, ISP usually don't bother with taking any action unless they are forced to give up information due to a law-suit or police investigation.

P.S
I'm still working on it Hullabaloo. ;)