Semi-noob trying to understand security

[jabberjaw]

I've been using torrents for quite awhile, but I really didn't know about private sites. I've apparently had my a** up in the air with all the public sites. I'm trying to get a handle on how to protect my privacy. I pulled a proxyjudge.com and found some questionable items. Can anyone here lead me to a good source for "educating" myself on how my online activities could be monitored by my isp or others? I'm firewalled and anti-virused and almost cloaked otherwise. I'm using uTorrent (was using BitComet). I belong to one private site (iptorrents). Am I screwed? Or is there a way to hide myself still?

[DigitalJunkie]

Sorry, if you use bittorrent or p2p then your ip address is open to everyone. Are you using peerguadian or a blocklist manager to block those bad ip addresses? They may not make your ip address invisible, but it's an added security anyway.

[cjules13]

DigitalJunkie is right. There is no way to hide. Anyone who wants to can see your IP and subpeona your ISP if they want. PG and safepeer are debatable for security, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt. Safepeer is a plugin to Azureus, but I see you're using uTorrent. Not really sure if uTorrent has a similar feature, but I suppose you could try PG.

It's just a risk you'll have to accept when you use BT.

Some argue private sites are safer but there's no data to back that up either.

If I could join the private sites, then so could the RIAA, MPAA, FBI etc.

[eivioolla]

I've been using torrents for quite awhile, but I really didn't know about private sites. I've apparently had my a** up in the air with all the public sites. I'm trying to get a handle on how to protect my privacy. I pulled a proxyjudge.com and found some questionable items. Can anyone here lead me to a good source for "educating" myself on how my online activities could be monitored by my isp or others? I'm firewalled and anti-virused and almost cloaked otherwise. I'm using uTorrent (was using BitComet). I belong to one private site (iptorrents). Am I screwed? Or is there a way to hide myself still?

Your ISP does not care what you do. The entertainment industry has hired separate companies to monitor filesharers and to gather evidence. Bittorrent is not designed to protect your identity in any way. You automatically share the pieces of the file you download and this can be seen by everyone who is participating in downloading that file, including the entertainment industry agents.

The only realistic way of protecting yourself when using Bittorrent would be an anonymizing service like relakks.com in which case all of your Bittorrent traffic would travel via their servers. This however costs money, from what I hear is unstable at times, and might slow down your speeds.

You might also concider using something else than bittorrent, which doesn't require you to share publicly, like IRC or newsgroups.

[shawners]

I never heard of IPtorrents. I know private sites may allow a certain amount of users, which is better then public in the sense of 5 million users. But if you really want privacy, do newsgroups. Other then that. Private sites can yield better security since they dont allow multiple IP addresses to be registered in the group, or may only make it a closed site or private site til users drop off by being banned, or inactivity. You can use uTorrent to encrypt the data from being throttled so your speeds will be constantly greater then without it. But the industries employ a large number of people to monitor downloaders, and they do it by starting up a torrent, and logging IP addresses that are sharing and downloading video and music.

[hoyasaxa]

DigitalJunkie is right. There is no way to hide. Anyone who wants to can see your IP and subpeona your ISP if they want. PG and safepeer are debatable for security, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt. Safepeer is a plugin to Azureus, but I see you're using uTorrent. Not really sure if uTorrent has a similar feature, but I suppose you could try PG.

It's just a risk you'll have to accept when you use BT.

Some argue private sites are safer but there's no data to back that up either.

If I could join the private sites, then so could the RIAA, MPAA, FBI etc.

Definitely true - it's not like the MPAA, etc., don't know those sites are there. How hard would it be for one of them to end up with an invite?

[cjules13]

Definitely true - it's not like the MPAA, etc., don't know those sites are there. How hard would it be for one of them to end up with an invite?

They probably all had multiple accounts before the sites event went invite! I remember when TB and FL were still signup, open to the whole world. Once you're in there you can trade an account to SCT FTN or whoever.

I think just legal stategies are being worked out. They want to make absolutely sure they make the right move.

I'll continue to milk it till the well runs dry, just hoping since I'm not in the most egregious batch of peole they'll leave small-timers like me alone.

That's a big "I HOPE" though...

[Stownplayer]

www.bluetack.co.uk

This is a great site for getting up to date on security.

[hoyasaxa]

They probably all had multiple accounts before the sites event went invite! I remember when TB and FL were still signup, open to the whole world. Once you're in there you can trade an account to SCT FTN or whoever.

I think just legal stategies are being worked out. They want to make absolutely sure they make the right move.

I'll continue to milk it till the well runs dry, just hoping since I'm not in the most egregious batch of peole they'll leave small-timers like me alone.

That's a big "I HOPE" though...

And there's nothing to say that the MPAA can just get an invite either. The idea that invite only sites are somehow "safe" or "safer" is, i think, just false. It's no more anonymous than anywhere else, especially not anymore.

You know - since I said that - it's funny, that recent stuff has really taught me that there really is no such thing as being anonymous on the internet at all, not really, do you think?

[Stownplayer]

And there's nothing to say that the MPAA can just get an invite either. The idea that invite only sites are somehow "safe" or "safer" is, i think, just false. It's no more anonymous than anywhere else, especially not anymore.

You know - since I said that - it's funny, that recent stuff has really taught me that there really is no such thing as being anonymous on the internet at all, not really, do you think?



I think there is. First you use an open residential wi-fi connection, and use tor and privoxy. If they can trace you over the onion network , They will only get to the wi fi connect your on but if your doing something you shouldnt then you'll be smart and only use that connection once and leave it alone. Also, if you really want to get nasty you'll replace the network or wireless card you used so they can't bust your mac address. Just remove and trash it. Don't log onto email or use nicknames that can be traced to you. Basically, just use your brain. For most people, using tor , privoxy and disabling java, javascript, cookies etc....will work fine. I'd like to hear what the other more senior members think about this......

[elitee torrent]

i nvr new any of this thnx!!