this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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In other words, your computer is downloading stuff from other computers, that's potentially receiving stolen property, but a potential argument might be that you didn't know that it was stolen. It's not a good argument, but it's an argument. So you're an individual who potentially broke the law. Depending on how much money you have, you might get a knock on your door.
But then, you also distribute that potentially stolen property to other computers, because that's how BitTorrent works, and now you're part of a distribution network dealing with stolen property. The chances that once you've discovered you come away with just a slap on the wrist are slim to none.
How do they find you?
Through your IP address.
How?
By figuring out who owns that address, who loaned it to you to get online at that specific time. One packet at a time the research will bring them closer to knocking on your door.
So, is it a big deal that your public IP address is linked to torrenting? Yes it is.
Is this the whole story? Not by a long shot, but it's not my job to teach you how to break the law.
It sounds like it's literally not against the law where this person lives. Like The Pirate Bay when it began, they responded to US lawyers sending them takedown requests by pointing out that US law didn't apply to every country on the planet.
That could change in the future, sure, but I think that this person probably has a better idea of whether that's a possibility in their home country than we do.
Meh. I don't know about OP but where I live ISPs are forced to relay the legal notice, but nothing more happens. There is no prosecution and nobody will knock on my door.
I have been torrenting on and off since the protocol exists and never once hid my IP. My ISP relays me the threats from the industry, I ignore them, and continue what I was doing before. Same for everyone in my country. Those that end up paying for a VPN and hiding their IP are just intimidated onto doing so, because of the threats. But again, aside from getting that threatening email, nobody will knock on your door for torrenting here.
In Australia an ISP went to extreme lengths to have a ruling, spending four years in litigation:
https://torrentfreak.com/iinet-isp-not-liable-for-bittorrent-piracy-high-court-rules-120420/
That's excellent for their clients. I'm guessing it set a precedent and the industry stopped trying anything else.
I didn't follow the most recent developments here in Canada but AFAIK, a decade ago the industry tried to sue individuals that were "pirating", and lost because they couldn't proof that an IP could be associated with a single person, or something like that. Then the industry pretty much stopped trying to sue individuals from that point. They still send the threatening letters, but they don't do anything else because past experiences with our courts didn't go well for them.
Of course, there is a very very slim chance that the industry will try to sue a few individuals to scare others and create a new precedent, but it's going to be a civil suit because it's not even criminal here.
it did, basically in Australia content owners are free to demand restitution for the actual loss suffered (ie the cost of a dvd) and if you ignore them, they are free to take you to small claims court over it, wearing the cost of doing so. so it essentially ended copy claims
Yeah i agree I torrent only occasionally and I haven't ever received an ISP angry letter but that's sounds right to me ...
The only thing I never understood is if I use a VPN my traffic is passed encrypted to a remote server somewhere else but from there on its unencrypted so the servers owner ISP should notify him about my inlecit traffic and it make sense he will notify me back so what's the point in relocating an angry letter... ?
Torrent on public access wifi from McDonald's, the local library, your neighbor's unsecured router, etc...
If you think that will protect you, there is a lot for you to learn..
Pray tell how they would find the user from an IP address that will resolve to a location other than where they live that they connect to anonymously?
I think McDonald's makes you make an account these days to use their WiFi, I could be wrong, however. This means you now have identifying information about you and your connection on McDonald's servers, which can be subpoenaed in an investigation.
Local libraries generally require you to have a Libary Card, which is associated with your library login. Because lots of people need library computers, they need to be able to get people to leave the computer without having to physically remove them. One of those ways is with tracking who is connecting by associating their account with a library card and disconnecting them automatically after a period of time. Your library usually wants you to live (or at least exist in) the neighborhood, and will have your name and address on file. This can also be subpoenaed in an investigation.
MAC address spoofing is trivial, sure, but a lot of folks don't know to do it, and in any one of these cases, if they used the MAC address that was burned in when the product was sold, they have a real opportunity to nail down which specific device connected. They would subpoena the manufacturer for records of where that device was sold, they would subpoena the records of the local retail outlet, and have information on the sale of the device used to connect.
In your neighbors case, you could just be condemning them to civil or criminal liabilities, depending on the laws in your jurisdiction. That's a pretty "not nice" thing to do.
I'm sure there's plenty of others. Those are just off the top of my head. Most of the reasons involve "companies keeping information about who uses their services and how," often called "logs."
There's a lot more information than just an IP being sent in a TCP packet.
To be clear, I'm not the person you were responding to originally and I think OP is fine if piracy is legal where they live, you just asked how it would be possible and so I tried to think of ways related to the suggestions you made. Cheers.
What if my neighbor is an asshole who deserves it tho? :p
lol ya got me
“I’m going to offload my need to be technically literate in order to pirate to my local library and let them deal with the problem because I’m an entitled asshole who shits where I eat and doesn’t realize I’ll get in trouble anyway.”
A lot of businesses and libraries block the ports needed to torrent or do much of anything beyond basic web access. Some places, especially libraries, will also have web filters in place to further complicate access to torrent sources. Even if by chance you could find a place that has those ports open and can get past the filters, as others have said, it is still possible for them to have enough information to identify you.