Is a seedbox for me?

[Recbon]

Hi. I've been pondering using a seedbox for quite a while and so I thought I'd finally start asking some questions! My main three main motivations (in this order) are (1) protecting my vulnerable little US IP address from sewage, (2) improving download speeds, and (3) improving my ratios.

Up until now, I've just been using Usenet and enjoy the security/speed that comes from using that, but its selection leaves something to be desired at times. Can a seedbox offer comparable safety to Usenet? I'm fairly familiar with installing/running software on Linux and running SSH terminals, so I'm guessing that should be an adequate level of knowledge for administrating a seedbox?

Finally, how is pricing? My needs are relatively small (if what I've been reading here is any indication of typical usage) and I doubt I would ever download more than 60GB of content in a month. I don't have a lot to shell out, but at the same time I'm not the kind of guy who will go through 50TB of bandwidth per month.

Thanks in advance!

[stacker]

If a record company, or whatever, wants to find you bad enough they will.Yes, a seedbox does improve security somewhat, but you are not completely safe.There's no such thing.

My advice would be to get a slot on one of slayer2005's shared boxes.60GB/month is nothing and there's no need to pay for a dedicated server if you download only such a small amount of data each month.

[Recbon]

Yeah, I know there's no such thing as a sure thing. But, honestly the chances of getting sued by downloading from Usenet are pretty close to non-existent. Would using a seedbox be similar?

[stacker]

60 GB/month is nothing.The RIAA or the MPAA won't go after you, unless they sue you by mistake(yes, we all know they've done this before, suing people who had no clue about p2p!).

But you are going to use paypal/cc, or whatever, to pay, won't you?That's how they could trace you, if they wanted to.Unless you open a bank account with a fake id that is, which would get you in a lot more trouble than file sharing.

I think you are safe.They go after pre-releasers, not people downloading a few GBs.Not worth their time.Since we're talking about private trackers and you are not a pre-releaser or someone downloading TBs of music you are pretty much safe.

[kondrae]

i dont agree that they only go after people that download a lot or release. For example limewire users, bittorrent users - on public trackers mainly, etc.
Music and movie industry have been suing their customers for a while now and its getting more popular.
now even game industry is suing - source
By staying on private trackers, you reduce your risks by a lot. -and if you only join the smaller private trackers with good security, - even better. like avoid TL.

i dont think you should get a seed box to be safe, just to download. only if you were an uploader.

recommend join a few smaller trackers that are know to be secure.
You can dl popular new releases off usenet to reduce risk, while everything else off torrents.

[slayer2005]

Some time you can just be plain unlucky.:-)

[yayyyyyy]

Security will not increase... It might decrease as the ISP instead of sending you a DCMA email that you will reply on you own will snatch into your hard drives to see if you are violating something... and there big troubles appears

If you are concerned about security and privacy you should move away from the USA... works better

[Recbon]

If you are concerned about security and privacy you should move away from the USA... works better

Not really an option for the time being though it had crossed my mind.

Seriously though, where are most seedboxes hosted? I mean it's not going to be obvious to anyone that the person in the swarm is actually me in the US if the seedbox that does all the work is in Germany. So wouldn't that have an effect on how likely they are to fling sewage?