Private sites safety

[WhiteWidow]

I am relatively new to private trackers and bittorrent generally but i use peerguardian and i have as many if not more blocked ips happening as in public trackers. I thought seeing as you have to upload at these sites that it would be safer but it seems as though they keep ratio's or are always getting new accounts. And im not talking about demonoid, tl etc.. sites higher up the chain. If their uploading i would have thought this would be entrapment no? Can someone explain how these guys operate, would be intresting read.

[Kronithus]

First, regarding the blocked IP addresses, make sure you disable DHT in your BitTorrent client. If it's enabled, you could very well be uploading to people outside of the tracker too, which defeats the point security-wise; not to mention it could hurt your ratio in varying degrees.

Private trackers are safer in that the respect that a lot fewer people have access to them, so they become a lesser target. Public trackers generally get nailed simply because of the sheer volume of people using them, so it makes for a nice easy target. However, it is certainly still possible for someone to join any private tracker with the intent of collecting IP addresses - just not as viable.

In addition, most private trackers keep your information tied with your IP address on their servers, and should that server be raided, you have a chance of getting busted. So overall, private trackers actually somewhat facilitate getting nailed by law enforcement - but an organization would have to go through extra work to join the tracker, and they would have a lot fewer possible targets than if they chose to examine one of the many public alternatives.

Kronithus' bottom line: Don't do anything you aren't willing to take the punishment for.

[WhiteWidow]

Thanks for that i was not aware about DHT, disabled now will see what difference it makes, could be why i see so much activity.