I’m sure almost you all used BitTorrent programs to download something from the Internet. A film, a MP3 song or album, a cracked software etc. But you can use your BitTorrent for legal activities as well like downloading a legit software or an update.
It’s sufficient the fact you are using the BitTorrent technology (at home or office) and you could be monitored. It seems everyone is using and downloading via BitTorrent is discovered and tracked within 3 hours. There is a research presented by School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK.
Researchers monitored the top 100 most popular products shared over BitTorrent and discovered there are different organizations involved in monitoring and tracking the BitTorrent networks. For each user downloading something from there , at least 10 organizations watch over.
What they claim?
“Someone who downloads a single movie will be logged as well”
“If the content was in the top 100 it was monitored within hours”
“Someone will notice and it will be recorded.”
In other words: if you download even a single movie, you are tracked and monitored. That’s quite impressive if you think how many organizations are involved in these activities. But the bad part is you may be monitored even if you download a legit item via BitTorrent.
It seems there is a huge monitoring mechanism up and running. They are logging and reporting information but we can’t know what they do with all the details they are getting. Only the future could give us the right answers. Anyway it’s not sure about the details, how they are logging, and if their data can be used to claim you are downloading something not legal. Ex: in the EU is not legal monitoring user activities unless there are legal authorities involved.
What to say: if you download software or movies via BitTorrent, you know you can be monitored and tracked. If you use BitTorrent legally you shouldn’t be worried about. We would like to hear from you, leave a comment below and tell us what do you think. Thank you.
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I beleive we are being monitored on all our internet activity no matter what you try to use to prevent this.
Enjoyed your article on BitTorrent but rarely use it anymore.
never used it, an I am not going to use it in the future
i use it, so u scared a hell out of me
I think almost everyone’s using torrents to grab things out there. You can do it but you know they “could” monitor your steps.
Same here
Interesting read…
q1. What about those sites which temporarily download a torrent file and then offer us the direct download link (e.g. put.io)? Who is being tracked- put.io or me?
q2. What about other torrent downloading apps like Vuze, utorrent, BitLet etc.?
q3. What about legit downloads like the different distros of Linux?
q4. Anything to panic???
q5. Who monitors? And what details are being collected?
1. I don’t know who is tracked, maybe in this case you are not. 2. I think no problem to use them unless you download films, music etc., 3. Don’t worry. 4. I don’t think so. 5. I don’t know this. I just reported what they claimed.
About 2: And what about other pirated stuff like e-books, software, games?
About 3: Do you mean there’s no risk with other torrent downloaders?
About 5: Maybe you can ask them as a webmaster…
To be honest, all this is sounding odd… Perhaps they are trying to frighten people from using torrents illegally.
Interesting attempt,but odd nevertheless… But since when are scientists considered normal???
i mean you can use Torrent for legit downloads. I would avoid illegal stuff. Dunno if they want to scare you of not. They claimed that and i just reported. Thanks.
What if I download through http://www.zbigz.com/
Is it possible to track me then?
Interesting question Noman, i’ll have a look into this
BTW, using Tor or (maybe?) other other proxy services isn’t going to help you.
Here’s an article on the subject.
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/bittorrent-over-tor-isnt-good-idea
The only way to be sure of anonymity is to use someone else’s internet service via wireless, such as a free hot spot.
Thanks Godel for the info
Regardless the browser or app you use, you “may” be tracked
What if you use “forced encryption” (and not allow legacy connections) => utorrent
And in combination with peerblocker (with all the necessary lists)?