What's the deal with torrents these days?

[crunk]

I've just gone to download a few shows that are made by HBO, and alot of the people who leave comments about the quality etc are talking about how HBO has been tracking these torrents and sending out warnings to the service providers, who in turn email the downloader with a nasty ultimatum.

How does that work? Can I stop it somehow? And do you think this situation would be a US problem or a international issue.

I'm hoping for a Jitz length explanation on this one

Cheers brus!

[Smacktalks]

With Virgin Media in the UK, thy monitor any torent downloading and if your caught downloading one of the torrents that are being tracked they'll send you a warning letter. You get 3 letters and then they cut you off and/or threaten legal action.

[jitz]

There's two really simple and easy things you can do to help save your arse, and make you hard enough to track down that they won't bother - they'll just go after the shit loads of people that don't do these two things.

1. Turn protocol encryption on in your torrent program, it's usually off by default.

2. Hide your IP with an IP proxy.

Now you've really got your net stealth going on. Still steer clear of the child porn though.

[Jonny]

With Virgin Media in the UK, thy monitor any torent downloading and if your caught downloading one of the torrents that are being tracked they'll send you a warning letter. You get 3 letters and then they cut you off and/or threaten legal action.

I have virgin media and I use torrents regularly. I haven't had a single warning or letter from them.

But then again, with virgin media doing so, they would be losing customers, which is the worst thing for a business, especially in the state of our economy. It's nothing but scare tactics, which will not work.

Edited February 25, 2009 by Jonny

[Nemo]

i got a letter the other day for downloading fallout 3. its my 4th or so : \