Got a warning... how can I download safely?

Last year at the end of the year I recieved the email from a member of my university's administration:

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Dear Madskater212:

Early this week, <school president> received the attached files from the RIAA. They sent them to inform him of their awareness of file sharing activity on campus, and to highlight cases where extensive sharing was going on. Two individuals were cited in the communication.

<some guy> asked ITS to research the information so that we could communicate with those people. I received the names of those individuals today. As <school's> copyright officer, I’m writing to let you know that the RIAA has ready access to this kind of information and they used it as an example of illegal file sharing on our campus network. The RIAA did not ask us to provide your names or take action per se, and we have not provided that information to any external group.

Nevertheless, you should take this as a warning. If you continue to participate in illegal file-sharing, you are at risk of legal action. Please take this information as a serious warning and consider other, legal options. As you know, <school> now offers a legal music service on a subscription basis. You may want to look into that option before you leave campus, as you can use it over the summer.

Please let me know if you have questions,

<adminstrator>
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The attachment was a word document with this in it:

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"Name","IP Address","Physical Address","Location","OS","Title","Status"
"<my last name>, <my first name> - Desktop","<local ip address>","00:11:2F:26:76:80","<room number>","Connected","Connected"
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In the email, there was apparently one other person who was being watched. That was a friend of mine, and both of us had been using i2hub (www.i2hub.com) a lot. Neither of us were sharing, and apparently that program uses DC++ (i think), but only people on verified college campuses can connect to it, so I thought the RIAA couldn't see. Whoops.

This year, I have tried to resist downloading, but it's getting hard to do.

I want to find a way (I know I can not guarantee being 100% invisible) to download without being caught. I have looked around a lot but I don't know what is really secure and what is not.

A friend of mine told me he uses linux and doesn't have to worry about it because its a different operating system. I installed linux, but I would need to find a way to download decent p2p software, and also a way to transfer files to my NTFS hard drive. And I have TRIED to figure out how to install programs on linux, but there are always dependency issues and I can never figure out how to make things work.

Is there any software that I can use and be reasonably worry-free? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

newsgroups are suuppose to be hard to trace. If all fails, you'll have to stop.

why not just get other people to download for you, spread it out ove rseveral computers. Crash Dummies are great.

as maebach suggested, it's probably time to give up on p2p filesharing if your tastes in files run toward the kind of thing that the RIAA, MPAA, etc are keeping an eye on. usenet/newsgroups seem like a pretty safe bet right now, 'cos it's a traditional "just you and the news-provider's server" connection as opposed to opening your folders for other users (and copyright owners) to look at. you can use it for pure downloading, with no obligation to share or display your own files to anyone else.

personally i've been trying to limit my p2p activity to things that are so obscure that the big media-corpz prolly have no claim or interest in 'em, like mp3s of old out-of-print punk & indie rock. no major label stuff. anything else, i look around on usenet for it.

consider using peerguardian, and stay away from public torrent sites..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 3RA1N1AC

as maebach suggested, it's probably time to give up on p2p filesharing if your tastes in files run toward the kind of thing that the RIAA, MPAA, etc are keeping an eye on. usenet/newsgroups seem like a pretty safe bet right now, 'cos it's a traditional "just you and the news-provider's server" connection as opposed to opening your folders for other users (and copyright owners) to look at. you can use it for pure downloading, with no obligation to share or display your own files to anyone else.

personally i've been trying to limit my p2p activity to things that are so obscure that the big media-corpz prolly have no claim or interest in 'em, like mp3s of old out-of-print punk & indie rock. no major label stuff. anything else, i look around on usenet for it.

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Sound advice...indeed.

Peace bd

Newgroups, IRC seem to be a good source of files... Stay off fastrack (kazaa) too.

REmember to use a IP blocker like PeerGuardian (get it from http://peerguardian.sf.net and NOT methlabs.org) or Protowall (http://www.bluetack.co.uk).

Thanks for the suggestions. Do all newsgroups require a monthly fee? I don't know much about them, but I used one a long time ago.

I think IRC sounds like a good choice. I'm going to miss the good 'ol days though where everything was simple and within a p2p program.

Your ISP might provide one.. If it does, stick with it. Hell, its free..

There are other free newsgroups available, however their service is horrible. Not even worth getting.

You can get a paid newsgroup. Its pretty cheap and most of them have great service. :)

Basic unlimited newsgroup service from "newshosting.com" is $15 a month. A good DVD burner bundled with a pack of DVD+R 16x discs costs $80. If you want to get lots of free movies and music, you've gotta pay for it... but the speed and reliability are worth it. I usually connect for 550kb/sec, and it takes about 3 hours to download a full 4.5GB DVD movie. My ISP (Cox) has a maximum limit of 40GB/month for downloading, so I can't get EVERYTHING I want immediately, and you have to be lucky enough that someone posted the movie or music or video game that you want.

UPSIDES: Fairly secure, so far as I know (what i've read on this thread). FAAAAAST connection. Makes you feel smart when you figure out how to use it. Oodles of content.

DOWNSIDES: You have to pay to get a decent connection, so if you don't have a credit card and you're under 18, good luck getting daddy to pay for your debauchery. You are no longer contributing to the P2P community. There is a learning curve. You can only download what has been posted: I've been looking for the Blues Brothers in NTSC format for 2 months, and they only have it in PAL right now, so i'll have to wait or convert (which takes a while).

another good newsgroup binaries archive site is http://www.easynews.com - retention times are excellent. you are given a quota of downloads per month (about 15 gig istr) but you can roll unused quota over to the next month.

just be smart
dont download things that will get you caught
dont waste time
cover your tracks

just dl as much as you wan't, never stop!

1st RIAA asked for investigation, then the University checked for activity! They discovered you as probably one of many, using p2p programms! Not the RIAA.... RIAA just asked, .....
Did they know what you were sharing? Or just that you used p2p progs... If so just state that you were exchanging freeware, like linux ditributions. Wich is not illegall and the use of p2p progs for that purpose is simply the best :)

If otherwise i just misunderstood the 1st post...

Good advice, but his school may block or limit NNTP I would check this out before dishing out the cash. The most secure downloading you can do is with a usenet provider who offers secure tunneling. Basicly and SSL connection to your server so no one but you and the news server can see your traffic or what groups your in.

A little off topic but I have to share this with someone, I work for a large university and today I got this in. This is not a user saying this, this is the helpdesk escalating a ticket to me.

"user seems to have uninstalled her internet. she needs to have her computer reset up so that she can connect to the internet."

I love my job

thats gotta suck. You have to be very careful now.