How make usenet 100% safe?

[jordash]

My first instance was a DVD rip of "The Departed" before it had come out. Im still not 100% sure how its done but i think the studio itself releases it with some sort of tracker. The second and third(fuck im stupid!?) was a season of entourage which i had only taken one of the episodes i didnt have at the time.....at the time.
All three times i used utorrent at piratebay. With the departed i went back and looked at all of the comments and not one person had gotten caught. Since then when i scroll through the comments, at piratebay, before i download i sometimes see others that had the same thing happen to them and them warning others.
Id have to believe its not a random thing due to the fact that i had downloaded the same thing twice and was caught both times. When u try and get online when it happens they send u to there site(isp) and are given a letter from them saying such and such pictures tracked u downloading filename.avi. Please delete this file and contact us to reconnect your service.

[cola]

Never heard of this before, and I'm shocked they have the resources to target individuals here. Would you mind elaborating a little? Was the file a screener or something? I've always thought that with millions of downloads occurring every day (hour?) that the individual would never run into this situation. how common is this? TIA

Its pretty simple. The anti-p2p group uses a computer to connect to the tracker, then pulls a list of the IPs off the tracker. Letters are then sent out to the ISPs of those IPs with the DMCA information. It's all automated.

[Barr_2010]

if someone on usenet downloaded something illegal by downloading a big chunk of a newsgroup at once, would they be liable? I have read though that they dont know whats being downloaded. Is that true?

[cola]

if someone on usenet downloaded something illegal by downloading a big chunk of a newsgroup at once, would they be liable? I have read though that they dont know whats being downloaded. Is that true?

They don't know and don't care whats being downloaded. The logs would be too large to handle anyways. Now, lets say you were to download a large chunk from a random newsgroup and then went through a boarder crossing. If police found anything illegal during the search, then you would be liable.

Basically, any time a law enforcement agency searches your computer and finds illegal stuff, you will be liable.

[jb7]

how about this:

Subscribe to a monthly VPN
Use usenet that has SSL (e.g astrawebs)

Before downloading your nzb, log in to your VPN.

With VPN enabled, download your nzb using SSL

so two layers of security, that's probably as safe as you can get?

[cola]

how about this:

Subscribe to a monthly VPN
Use usenet that has SSL (e.g astrawebs)

Before downloading your nzb, log in to your VPN.

With VPN enabled, download your nzb using SSL

so two layers of security, that's probably as safe as you can get?

What are you trying to protect yourself from? No one ever gets in trouble for downloading.

People only get in trouble for posting.

edit: Even in your scenario, your IP would lead to the VPN. Whoever was tracking you would just ask for the IP that was using the vpn, which would still lead to you.

[jb7]

how about this:

Subscribe to a monthly VPN
Use usenet that has SSL (e.g astrawebs)

Before downloading your nzb, log in to your VPN.

With VPN enabled, download your nzb using SSL

so two layers of security, that's probably as safe as you can get?

What are you trying to protect yourself from? No one ever gets in trouble for downloading.

People only get in trouble for posting.

edit: Even in your scenario, your IP would lead to the VPN. Whoever was tracking you would just ask for the IP that was using the vpn, which would still lead to you.

Am from the UK, so recent events have made it necessary to increase security . So is there no point using a VPN?

[cola]

Am from the UK, so recent events have made it necessary to increase security . So is there no point using a VPN?

You'd be better off using an unsecured wifi connection or some wifi hot spot if you're that paranoid.

If I was that paranoid, this is what I would do:

Go buy a prepaid credit card with cash at a store. When you register the card use tor (or unsecured wifi or hotspot, or both) and enter in fake name/address. They won't let you refill the card, but its not a big deal.

Then while on tor, go buy a usenet acct using the same card.

Then use the unsecured wifi and/or hot spots to download from usenet.

Any activity would be extremely hard to trace back to you. Where as under your plan, the usenet account, the vpn, and your isp account would all have your real name tied to it.

edit: Oh and if you wanted to take it a bit further, you could change your mac address every time you connect to a hot spot.

[jb7]

Lol don't need anything that serious, was just wondering what the casually most secure way was. But thanks for taking the time to reply

[cola]

You're either not secure or secure. There isn't really anything in the middle. But you still have nothing to worry about unless you're posting.