ain’t got none but hyptotheticaly, sure. better’n them gettin busted with a dcma or whatever cuz they dont know how to chekc for dns leaks and use failsafes to block non-vpn access. most of us started off and had to lern ho wto do shit the reight way. why nt help em do beter

i woldnt want my kibds to be soem kind of normies that dont even know wtf a vpn is

FOr anyone else reading this while slightly inebrinated, note: AR = AlphaRadio (a private tracker). Nothing happening to the Arr tools.

Everyone else, pardon my and my whiskey.

Is why I like to have multiple aliases and always connect via vpn… harder to sue me if they can’t figure out who I really am.

On that note, it would be really cool if there was a TOR-based github alternative (or even an I2P-based one) for hosting project repos somewhere that take-downs have no effect and servers can’t be seized. Anybody aware of anything like that? then again, I’m not even sure how I would configure git / ssh to use a TOR-based server lol

my bad. deleted my previous guesses since it seems i missed a few key words there

lol good points and so true. reading this just makes me think of the old quote If the penalty for a crime is a fine, that law only exists for the lower classes. When I think of record labels and big film companies, let’s just say that the first thing that comes to mind isn’t starving artists but coastal elitists getting pissy bc they can’t charge people even more.

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Now just watching uTorrent slowly download them all. Hopefully my VPN keeps the eyes off of me…

1. qbittorrent is better in many many ways compared to utorrent and hasa very similar interface. qbit is open-source, utorrent isn’t. qbit doesn’t have ads or malware, utorrent has or has had both many times. qbit allows you to bind to a specific network interface (e.g. you VPN connection instead of regular ethernet one) which offer better protection if your vpn drops. feel free to do your own research here or elsewhere on the web if you doubt any of my points.
2. if your VPN is a free one, that wont protect you at all. those guys will squeal and turn over server logs with ip address at the drop of a hat. Even a lot of paid-for VPNs are shitty lying bastards. So picking a good vpn can be challenging there are probably posts here covering recommendations but generally you want ones that have either been taken to court and were unable to provide logs OR ones that have been audited by a respected 3rd party firm that can confirm they are truly a “no log VPN”. I can recommend PIA, NordVPN, and Mullvad as some ones that are highly unlikely to turn over any logs (bc they don’t have them) but there are others and doing your own research isn’t a bad thing. The site torrentfreak.com does an article once a year or so that covers a few of the more popular VPNs and different aspects of thier privacy but they don’t declare a “best vpn”, just rate them on varius privacy and security aspects.
3. Even if you have a good VPN, check that you aren’t leaking your real IP via dns lookups: ipleak.net or dnsleaktest.com
4. Check that you torrent client set up not to leak: search for ‘torrent ip leak test’ and do one of the torrent ip leak tests. ipleak.net hasone of these if you scroll down on the page; look for “Torrent Address detection” and click “Activate” button and it will give a magnet link to start test with
5. additionally, you can set up a “vpn killswitch” to prevent traffic from going over regular internet if you vpn drops. If you using qbit, this probably isn’t strictly required but many people here like to have this as an additional safety. i can’t really provide details on this bc the process varies widely. A lot of VPN client apps have this feature built in. But even if they don’t, you can set something like this up in most firewalls but exact steps will vary depending on OS (Windows/Linux/Mac) and which firewall you are using (or I guess whether or not you even have one installed).

thanks. i know i how to use mediainfo tool. no clue how to convert from a x264/x265 command to an ffmpeg one tho

Very good comment. That said, for this part

Figure out how to encode and compress video so that it still looks good, you can still find some old scene rule nfo’s to have a better idea on what settings to use to encode. I use a gui called qvs to do encodes, theres also another one called staxrip, you can also learn how to just use command line arguments and just use x264 or x265 from the command line.

I’m wondering if anyone might have any ffmpeg one-liners that are pretty decent for converting larger mkv’s from makemkv or similar down to a more reasonable size for archiving. Basically looking to get something similar to the old ION10 / ION265 encodes from RARBG if that helps (720p or 1080p w 8- to 10-bit depth using x264 or x265).

Even better if someone’s got a link to a github or similar page with a few different tried and tested presets to study.

I’ve heard a few people mention bubblewrap but never really looked into it. might have to read up and give it a try. do you think it’s pretty easy to pick up coming from firejail?

thanks mate. much appreciated

not OP but nice guide. thanks man

Ive only done a handful in linux. mostly i use repacked gog stuff cuz its easy and i don’t have to deal with cracks. so easy that sometimes i end up legit buying to support the devs if the game is good.

lot of the time i also use firejail. haven’t run into many issues with it so far (i think there was one game where i disallowed net access but it wouldnt run until i granted it) and most stuff works same as without.

me too but im on linux so i can do firejail lutris (or firejail steam or whatever for legit stuff) and run that shit in a security container.

thanks guys, i think i am finally starting to get how it works a little

and know the basics of gdb

oi, how ye learn that? i use linux but don’t know gdb worth a damn. maybe cuz i drink too much to study lol

can confirm

im not really into crypto … Monero / XMR is a privacy coin

thanks… same here. so much so that until you phrased it exactly that way, I hadn’t even put together that “Monero” == “XMR” and thought people were talking about 2 separate coins 😅

frugal usenet and Blocknews actually have a cash payment option on the website at checkout, if you are worried maybe ask them the track record for receiving it.

good to know, thanks

If you are doing VPN to, Mullvad takes cash but you do not need vpn for usenet.

already have a paid, no-log VPN that I torrent with. Mullvad looks awesome but probably won’t check it out til mine expires. my current one says my payment and connection info is separate. no way to verify that but at this point, i’ve been with them over a year and if they were lying, i would be well and truly fucked anyway lol

ok thanks man. at least given me some more to go on. i don’t mind reading… i just get confused on a lot of this stuff

Thanks man, really appreciate you helping my dumb ass here.

Alternatively you could use a known account like paypal or zelle or cashapp to fund an initial wallet but then you have to make sure to send it to another XMR wallet so it’s anonymous.

That actually sounds pretty awesome in terms of not having big risk and being easy enough that someone like me can pull it off. But does just moving it to another wallet make it anon?

If you did something like:

(non-anon wallet) => transfer A => (anon wallet)

then would transfer A be trackable from the first wallet so you would need to do something like:

(non-anon wallet) => transfer A => (anon wallet 1) => transfer B => (anon wallet 2)

or is this just paranoid overkill thinking?

Also… maybe a dumb question and I know this is completely different but i’m used to having tools like ipleak.net to check for dns leaks and stuff like that. Is there a way to check if your current wallet is anonymous or can be traced back to you?

For text messages you can buy a temporary burner phone with cash, or if you’re lucky you can find a SMS service that works with the BTM - just be aware most BTMs don’t work with virtual SMS phone numbers.

yeah, learned already that most verification systems (not just BTMs) don’t work with virtual SMS. I have no clue how to tell if a service works or not so unless someone can specifically recommend one they know works, then will probably pass on that option. for the cash money burner phone, good idea. never tried it cz it cost extra money and figured they would locked that options down already

Or going non crypto you could technically just purchase a pre-paid credit card with cash, you’d just need to make sure the card would work with whatever services you are subscribing to.

that is an awesome idea. didn’t think of that at all. might be something to try and at least if it doesn’t work (like they require registration or some shit - i remember i got a prepaid card once that did require that kind of crap), i should be able to still spend the money on groceries or something.

PS - Not sure if your post is breaking rules here, this Lemmy instance is anti-cryptocurrency and does have a rule forbidding crypto shill topics. But it might be okay if you’re just asking a general question.

The way I read it was no spam / advertising / promoting for cryptocurrency, blockchain or NFTs… so I think I’m ok especially since is more asking about how to stay anon while purchasing services related to piracy than about any specific crypto but if any mods/admin reading this disagree, please let me know. def wasn’t trying to break any rules and happy to delete or revise if needed.