Is a VPN necessary for torrenting? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Alextheacceptable@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I don't live in the US, so my ISP doesn't really seem to care what I torrent, but the megathread vehemently recommends to always use one. Since VPNs aren't cheap and I'm on a strict budget (wouldn't pirate otherwise), is it really that dangerous to torrent without one?

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[-] fell@ma.fellr.net 0 points 1 year ago

Makes me think... if you exclusively use IPv6 you might be fine because they can't geolocate you that easily 🤔

[-] SolOrion@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago

Would that really matter, though? Afaik, they could still just.. ask your ISP who that IP was assigned to, which is what they're going to do with IPv4 anyways.

[-] fell@ma.fellr.net 0 points 1 year ago

@SolOrion They don't deal with ISPs outside the country, because they can't sue them at a German court.

So they need to know it's a German ISP beforehand so they can request personal information accordingly. But maybe they could still figure it out from IPv6 address ranges... I'm not entirely sure.