I know this is a dumb question... But i cant really aford a vpn like at all, is it possible to torrent without using a vpn in the USA or will i get in some trouble and go to jail if i torrent without a vpn?

The reason i cant get a vpn is because im just broke and im young enough to live with family so i cant really get a job.

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[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 15 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (2 children)

Do your ISP a favor and use a VPN when torrenting. They will know you're torrenting based on traffic patterns, but they won't know what you're torrenting. That way they don't have to serve you a notice or kick you off their service at the behest of movie or music studios. Your ISP may not care what you're doing, but those businesses do, and the law is on their side.

VPN makes it extremely difficult for your ISP to spy on you, which is the whole point.

[–] ftbd@feddit.org 4 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

How will they know you're torrenting if all they see is a lot of wireguard traffic? You could be uploading backups to a remote location for all they know

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Just gettin' a few linux ISOs

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 1 points 1 hour ago

I've been collecting over 10 TB of Linux ISOs this year.

[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 1 points 12 hours ago

The nature of uploads/downloads happening with torrents coming and going from disparate sources. Apparently it has a certain network signature that can be identified fairly reliably. ISPs don't really give a shit about WHAT you torrent, but they will try to traffic shape it so it doesn't affect other users on the ISP much.

[–] sun@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 hour ago

Unless you use a VPN that supports traffic pattern obfuscation. Mullvad VPN does this https://mullvad.net/en/blog/introducing-defense-against-ai-guided-traffic-analysis-daita.