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Piracy Starter Pack
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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the most important thing to have when pirating is common sense
the second most important thing to have is a vpn
Still don't know why I'd need a vpn. My country doesn't go after individuals pirating (yet). That's the only reason, as far as I understand, to have a vpn for pirating. So until they start to take come after individuals, I'm gonna save my money.
You only need a VPN in very few countries, some countries where it is needed to avoid fines/getting your internet connection cutoff from your ISP are the US, Germany and a few other countries somewhere in western Europe, also don't pirate polish films without a VPN if you live in Poland, the rest of the world doesn't care about people downloading movies online.
I am in Greece pirating without a VPN, and even after the new anti-piracy law passed, I haven't received a notice (yet).
Oh I didn't know that, are you using public trackers and leeching popular stuff too ?
Yes.
Also, I kinda should use a VPN anyway but I don't want to buy it yet.
In Germany they won't cut off your Internet connection. They'll send you a cease and desist for a few thousand euros.
That's even worse 😳
I think you've exactly described why some people need a VPN. My ISP does 3 strikes when they get complaints :/
Also VPN makes you rather anonymous. The sites won't track you and sometimes the trackers on public torrent files are notorious for tracking.
That is not true, the sites do still track you. VPNs don't prevent tracking, they just make sure the tracking is done through a secure tunnel.
The extra hop adds a significant barrier for the website in knowing the actual source IP. The fake source IP is likely used by many other users, and the user you are trying to track can easily rotate VPN IPs.
Its one less identifier for them to use.
Adtech relies on the OpenRTB 2.5/2.6 spec for tracking, you would have removed 1 identifier out of a hundred (one that isn't really used anyway given SSAI is so popular). In addition to that, cookie expiry timers are typically set to 365 days meaning you're VPN would need to enabled at all times to not invalidate multi-hop. WebStorage API based trackers tend to be indefinite.
ORTB spec: https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/OpenRTB-API-Specification-Version-2-5-FINAL.pdf
EDIT: If anyone is looking for more specifics about WHY IP addresses and multi-hop don't matter, the spec includes a mention:
The issue is that mobile is so prevalent and mobile networks rely so extensively on CG-NAT that even with XFF headers, there's no good way to tell if you are going to get an IP address that actually matters. You could potentially put in a lot of auction time trying to figure that out and still just end up with a private address that's unusable. So, aside from the devicetype and the geo object which is used for geo targets and fencing, the device object isn't useful in tracking. Instead adtech uses the user object. This object should contain all your GDPR specifics, any EIDs, 1st party cookie IDs, etc. Even if those change, there usually exists backend mapping that allows for vendors to correlate different user IDs as being the same user ultimately.
So it can matter.
barely, efectively meaningless
Yeah, multi-hop is pointless for tracking. The logic to it is crazy too. People think VPNs make them anonymous (they don't), but they also think multi-hop makes them MORE anonymous. So anonymity is kind of an absolute concept. Either you are or you are not anonymous. You can't be more anonymous than anonymous. There is no +1.
Whether multi-hop matters to tracking is far and away a different discussion than whether multi-hop "makes you anonymous".
I too disagree with the original comment, but also believe the pendulum swung too far the other direction in your replies.
Situations differ. Threat models differ. More hops can, from direct personal experience, make the difference in tracking. Your claim of "...multi-hop is pointless for tracking." has too broad of a scope to be correct.
What specifically about multi-hop makes you think it improves your security? Be specific. What is your "direct personal experience"?
I haven't mentioned security.
I'm sorry, that isn't evidence.
I'm unsure what evidence you are referring to.
if your security breaks, so does your privacy alongside it
Remember to read the rest of that sentence:
So, no. Not really.
It doesn't change the contradiction.
You almost had the rest of the sentence there:
That doesn't change the contradiction.
You're trying to argue without evidence (like I had provided). To summarize these exchange so far its:
Is there some evidence you'd like to provide or is it going to be another "nuh-uh!"?
I'm sorry, but that isn't correct.
I'm sorry, but that isn't evidence.
I'm unsure what evidence you are referring to.
Evidence, or it isn't true.
That is a good point indeed, but also applies for regular internet use..
It’s a general rule, there are exceptions. I’d think it would be obvious why a VPN is needed for some even if you don’t need it.
I think it's the older way around. There are really only 3 or 4 countries where using a VPN to pirate is needed. I'm just willing to bet you live in one of those countries.
You want a tray of cookies for that original line?
Oatmeal please. If you want to be anonymous on the internet, use TOR not a VPN.
We disagree actually, it's to have well written tutorials and not to rely on the idea that people can just know things from nothing.
We get the frustration in this meme but honestly, we never liked this kind of attitude in tech spaces, it's exclusionary, gatekeepy and harms people. We understand not wanting to answer every single question but some well written tutorials etc to link to are better than having everyone starting in ignorance and getting in trouble or being harmed for it.
Especially if said tutorials keep up to date and add more answers to people's questions over time.
After all, being helpful actually helps the pirate community in that more people seed, so helping others is actually win-win. There's really no downsides whereas expecting others to know everything or being rude stops this from happening and thus is a loss for all of us.
Tutorials can't cover everything. Once you encounter something completely new, you need common sense to extrapolate from your existing knowledge (which could be from a tutorial or experience, etc).
In the end, whether we're talking about piracy, work or life in general… You need to be able to adapt to situations, not just read guides.
That's not to say well-written tutorials shouldn't exist, but the common sense part is still more important IMO
Sure, but the problem is that people aren't taught those skills necessarily. So it does help when people are willing to help out in case those skills or ability to do that or for many other reasons aren't possible.
We get that not everybody can or wants to, but a quick "I'm unable to help you" is fine, yet we see so mahy people being rude instead. Leave space for those who can or want to help instead 🙂
Dunno man. Common sense for us in IT is different compared to layman. For example, I thought it was common sense to treat incognito mode only as a shortcut so I wouldn't have to clear browsing history and local cookies everytime. Then I read about users thinking incognito mode actually protected them against snooping or fingerprinting.
😉🤭
third most important is a good torrenting application
You don’t need a VPN if you have a good enough private tracker.
Verizon sends me a letter every time I pirate something newer than a year old. Congratulating me I guess because they never do anything else.