Bittorrent and Privacy

[Gish]

being a member at a bunch of file sharing forums and trackers for a long time now, I find that many forum threads talk about safety. like how can I protect myself when I Download on bittorrent. but the realistic answer of course is there is nothing you can do to be 100% safe and there is always going to be a risk no matter what you do. this is as most people realize very true.
on the the other hand there are things you can do to improve you your safety, not Guarantee it!
I just wanted to see what other people do to help improve there safety like the use of:

peerguardian-
many people realize that unless you use limewire etc for you file sharing needs , peerguardian is not much help in the way of stopping anyone from seeing your IP.

IPblocker-
when used with you bittorrent client I have seen the IP blocker personally block timewarner, RIAA, Sony etc..

Proxy-
I have heard of people using their bittorrent client threw a proxy or something like tor but is something I know nothing about.

using Private sites-
more safe than public maybe? but not by much.

Let me know what you people do to improve your privacy on Bittorrent

[DaMan05]

tbh... i really dont care bout my privacy just yet... go ahead, see what im downloading

[LaPistola]

i run all tracker activity on public trackers through tor, it doesn't tax the tor network to much and really helps your privacy, i also use ipblocker

[nanajeebus]

It seems you don't actually understand the security measures you mentioned.

Peerguardian (and other tools like it) IS an ipblocker and blocks the dangerous ips and ranges. Exactly what it blocks is up to you based on what list you choose. It would in no way prevent anyone from seeing your ip and doesn't claim to do so either.

Proxies. Eh. Public ones are slow slow slooow, and it would kind of defeat the purpose to use commercial ones anyways. Tor is relatively fast, but I'm not sure how secure it is.

Private sites could easily be infiltrated. And probably have.

It's probably just not as pronounced as when there are obvious fake files on public trackers.

[game1283]

CAn a firewall help? i'm just using a firewall..

[nanajeebus]

No. All firewalls do is monitor your network traffic and filter whats allowed through.

So if you're downloading a a torrent file it wouldn't hide you IP or block antip2p organizations from connecting to you.

(At least I don't think so. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

[Gish]

It seems you don't actually understand the security measures you mentioned.

Peerguardian (and other tools like it) IS an ipblocker and blocks the dangerous ips and ranges. Exactly what it blocks is up to you based on what list you choose. It would in no way prevent anyone from seeing your ip and doesn't claim to do so either.

Proxies. Eh. Public ones are slow slow slooow, and it would kind of defeat the purpose to use commercial ones anyways. Tor is relatively fast, but I'm not sure how secure it is.

Private sites could easily be infiltrated. And probably have.

It's probably just not as pronounced as when there are obvious fake files on public trackers.

well I do understand quite well and I'm not saying peerguardian or IPblocker is perfect as you saw from my first post but they can help if someone is sitting in Riaa headquarters but who is to say someone working for the riaa is not using their home connection to get their info. like I said before nothing is 100% also it is a well known fact that Private trackers have been infiltrated but so far not one member of a private tracker has been taken to court that I know of(not yet)

[nanajeebus]

well I do understand quite well and I'm not saying peerguardian or IPblocker is perfect as you saw from my first post but they can help if someone is sitting in Riaa headquarters but who is to say someone working for the riaa is not using their home connection to get their info. like I said before nothing is 100% also it is a well known fact that Private trackers have been infiltrated but so far not one member of a private tracker has been taken to court that I know of(not yet)

Oh, yeah, they're definitely not 100% safe. Nothing could ever be developed that was. But they do help. http://torrentfreak.com/do-p2p-block...keep-you-safe/

[LackOfInterest]

using Private sites-
more safe than public maybe? but not by much.

My friend has only used private sites since he started using bittorrent. He also used peer guardian. A few weeks ago he got a letter from his ISP, which happens to be Charter, which had a list of everything he downloaded over the course of about three months. In this letter they had the exact dates of each download and his IP address. I guess private sites really arent that much safer than public ones

[th0r]

no one is completely safe. even if you use a proxy or peerguardian or whatever, you're still at risk. fortunately, there are measures you can take to make yourself safer