I've been wanting to get into torrenting for a while, particularly contributing to private trackers related to music (and to a lesser extent retro games, though I don't have much original stuff to put there as it's harder to find rare games than rare music). FMHY recommends RiseUp if I must get a free VPN while I'm working on my financial situation, though I'm not sure whether it's been tested in court. What are my options, if any?

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[–] liliumstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can get into private trackers and trust them. Not recommended, but some do.

Generally speaking, the copyright trolls only target public trackers and DHT. There have been some instances of them making way into TL and others. Your ISP could also identify torrenting on private trackers if they wanted to, even with mitigations. In my experience and from what I hear, most ISPs do not go to these lengths.

So, there a risk doing the above. Whether or not it's worth it until you can afford a decent VPN is up to you.

Aside: Please do not use a free VPN for torrenting (or tor, for that matter). They are either like RiseUp and run on donations for people who really, really need them, or Proton which is commercial and specifically try to block or slow down the traffic. Either way, if ruins it for everyone else.

[–] theangriestbird@beehaw.org 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Either way, if ruins it for everyone else.

How does it ruin it for everyone else? One slow peer does not ruin the network.

[–] liliumstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 hours ago

I meant in the context of the VPN. It slows down the network for everyone on one which is run by donation. For commercial companies, it incentivizes them to further lock down what users can do or what speeds they get.