I wrote this post for a friend, I’m sharing it here for anybody it might help. I got asked multiple times how I download cracked music software so I figured it’d be easier to write it down once. It’s meant for people with very low technical skills who just want to start torrenting software without major risks, and it includes a bunch of safety tips that are already known in this community.
If you have feedback, let me know and I’ll update the post.
After a quick glance over your post, I have some thoughts;
Free: ProtonVPN
ProtonVPN is good for torrenting on the paid plan, not the free plan. Proton doesn’t allow torrenting on their free plan. They will block your connection if they detect that you are torrenting, or they will disconnect you from their VPN tunnel - exposing your real IP on the torrent.
Paid: Mullvad
Mullvad is a decent choice, though they no longer support port forwarding. You are still able to download, though you won’t be able to seed iirc
VirusTotal
The problem with a virustotal scan is that pirated software is often false flagged for malware. It’s difficult to tell what is safe from what you’ve downloaded. It’s best to download from a trusted uploader, though that doesn’t always guarantee safety as they can always go rogue (As an example, FTUApps were seen as safe until one of their uploads to 1337x contained malware).
Older uploads tend to have less false positives in my experience, though it can be very easy to become complacent.
edit; score out comment about mullvad seeding, others have pointed out that it still works fine! oops
@Deletecat @andscape mullvad works when seeding, false information.
I’ve scored out that part of the comment now.
I was under the impression that you couldn’t seed without port forwarding, guess I was wrong :p
@Deletecat it’s not necessary on a VPN level when your router has port forwarding configured properly. App tunnel splitting can be used to dox your IP but allows the DHT table and trackers to “find” you, then just disable it to hide your IP. Simple, but not recommended.
I can confirm that Mullvad tunnelled seeding still works even with the port forwarding changes
Just a quick question, have you port forwarded in Mullvad in the past?
They stopped people from opening new ports last month, September is when they will get rid of the remaining ports. If you aren’t port forwarding, I will edit my initial comment!
No port forwarding ever set up on my system! It’s bound to my interface and lockdown mode is enabled, all leeching and seeding is tunnelled fully.
Edit: as far as I’m aware, not being able to port forward only limits who you can seed to. Meaning you can only seed to those who do have port forwarding.
Could you please elaborate. What does it mean? Do still able to seed with Mullvad and default settings?
You can still seed without port forwarding, not being able to port forward only affects how many clients can seed from you. Not being able to port forward causes it to be limited to only other people who are able to port forward.
@ScratchySoft @Deletecat http://virusscan.jotti.org
Online file scanner
Are you sure that won’t also get a bunch of false positives because it detects that a file is a keygen or crack?
Thanks for the report about ProtonVPN, I haven’t used it in a bit so I didn’t know. Do you know a better free VPN which does allow torrenting? I know a paid one would always be better, but this is for people who are just not willing to spend money. A shady free VPN is better than none.
For VirusTotal I know about the false positives, that’s also why I included the reddit post on how to interpret the results. I still find a scan to be good practice to weed out the more obvious malware.
In that case, direct downloads (in conjunction with ProtonVPN free) would be a superior method. The article makes piracy sound synonymous with and exclusive to torrenting, but DDL and Usenet also exist. Many of the megathread categories have DDL links right at the top.
Cs.rin.ru is mainly gaming focused but has an FAQ that covers general DDL concepts like source trustworthiness/scene names and workarounds for filehoster limits. You could probably paraphase/quote or screenshot with credit (ironically) to save a login. The same people not wanting to sign up for a VPN might also look askance at a .ru domain.
The article makes piracy sound synonymous with and exclusive to torrenting
It was only meant to be a guide about torrenting pirated software specifically, not pirating software in general. I also started by linking to the megathread to link people to other resources.
I don’t really want to add a whole other section about DDL just because I feel I couldn’t do it justice, and people have probably already done a better job at that.
Do you know a better free VPN which does allow torrenting?
I don’t, sorry. There are free VPNs which have been recommended in the fmhy wiki, though I don’t know if they support torrenting and/or port forwarding.
Edit; just remembered about windscribe, you can torrent on the free plan, but data is very limited so might not be a good option either
Would you like to offer alternative suggestions to the vpn selection?
FWIW: I have a paid torguard and poaching my works license for NordLayer.
Both have their pros and cons. They’re generally good with anonymity and security and speeds.
I can confirm PIA fully works as long as you’re connected to one of the endpoints that supports port forwarding, and it works over wireguard which I prefer. My torrent client runs in a docker container that runs all traffic through it.
Whether or not you trust their claim of not saving any logs (especially after getting bought out a few years ago) is up to you, but there hasn’t been any evidence to suggest they are, and they’ve had reputable audits to suggest they don’t.
Does PIA have a free plan that works? Since the only free option was immediately debunked in these comments.
I don’t know of any free vpns for torrenting, though I believe ProtonVPN (paid), Windscribe (paid) and AirVPN (paid) offer port forwarding at the moment. PIA can be used to port forward, though they are owned by kape which is kinda sketchy to me.
You can use windscribe free for torrenting, but you will quickly hit the data cap they have in place
This is going to be a total noob (and thus stupid) question, but is it possible to selfhost a vpn?
No such thing as a stupid question :p
Yes, you can self-host a VPN! Though there are a few things to keep in mind if you are going to torrent using one:
- A self-hosted VPN on your own network isn’t good for torrenting. Your own IP is still shown to other peers on the torrent, you might as well torrent without the VPN.
- Depending on your server host, you may not be allowed to torrent on their network.
- If you are allowed to torrent, you will have to watch your bandwidth limit*. I have a cheap VPS - for other things unrelated to VPNs/torrenting - and the limit is 20TB of traffic
- Many hosts will respond to DMCA/Abuse complaints - very few are relaxed and ignore DMCA complaints, others may shut off your access to their services after a single complaint
*some hosts do not have a limit though cheap servers usually do.
From what I can tell, most server hosts don’t care about what you are doing with your server, unless your server is gathering abuse reports or using an excessive amount of resources constantly. I would go for a subscription to a VPN instead of self-hosting but that’s just me.
Running strange software grabbed from unknown sources will never not be a risky proposition.
Uploading the .exe you just grabbed to virustotal and getting the all clear can indicate two very different things: It’s either actually safe, or it hasn’t yet been detected as malware.
You should expect that malware writers had already uploaded some variant of their work to virustotal before seeding it to ensure maximum impact.
Getting happy results from virustotal could simply mean the malware author simply tweaked their work until they saw those same results.
Notice I said “yet” above. Malware tends to eventually get flagged as such, even when it has a headstart of not being recognized correctly.
You can use that to somewhat lower the odds of getting infected, by waiting. Don’t grab the latest crack that just dropped for the hottest game or whatever.
Wait a few weeks. Let other people get infected first and have antiviruses DBs recognize a new malware. Then maybe give it a shot.
And of course, the notion that keygens will often be flagged as “bad” software by unhelpful antivirus just further muddies the waters since it teaches you to ignore or altogether disable your antivirus in one of the most risky situation you’ll put yourself into.
Let’s be clear: There’s nothing safe about any of this, and if you do this on a computer that has access to anything you wouldn’t want to lose, you are living dangerously indeed.
What’s life about without a little risk here and there? And the really important stuff should be mirrored somewhere anyways, so: go for it! No fear!
You’re right of course, but it’s hard to communicate this level of nuance in a post targeted at newbies. If you don’t disable your antivirus, 9/10 times it will quarantine the KeyGen automatically, and you don’t get anywhere.
I’ve added a warning about the risk of infection. Do you have any recommendations on how to tackle this in a way that’s appropriate for non-nerds?
I honestly don’t know. The only advice I’d have for the layman would be “just don’t do this”, but I understand that’s little more than an invitation to be ignored.
So how do you tell if a keygen is a virus or if it’s just being detected as a keygen?
If it’s a keygen then you should just assume it contains a virus and run it in a sandbox. You’ll only need to run it once anyway to test the key.
Me: uses linux and doesn’t give a shit about my current OS
Step 1: Live in latam. Step 2: Sail the 7 seas.
