Introduction to Bittorrent security
As I just posted an article on the CBC's first baby steps into Bittorrent distribution, I thought I should also post about some of the basics of Bittorrent security.
When you download something over Bittorrent, you leave tracks on a number of different servers that can be used to trace back to you. Media companies use this information to take legal action against doawloaders (in the US, anyway). If you are concerned about this, you can use Firefox, Tor and Peer Guardian2 together to help protect yourself.
Tor takes your internet traffic and makes it appear like it's coming from another random computer on the internet (all volunteers) so it can't be traced back to you. Firefox has a Tor plugin that lets you easily turn it on and off while you're surfing. Whenever you search for a torrent you enable Tor, which will keep your IP address from being recorded on the web server. You can then configure utorrent to use Tor which will keep you anonymous when you connect to the tracker that tells utorrent where the files are.
Now the only way that someone could tell what you were downloading is to connect directly to the same torrent you're connected to. It's not a good idea to run your actual download traffic through Tor (it's a big burden for the Tor network and makes things slow for everyone), which is where Peer Guardian helps. You can't shut out everybody from connecting to your computer when you download, as you need to trade files from them to get what you want. Peer Guardian keeps a list of the IP addresses of known snoops (mostly media companies and the companies they hire) and blocks them from connecting to your computer. It's imperfect, as the snoops can always change IP addresses, but it's still better than downloading without any security turned on.
Now this isn't actually necessary to download the CBC torrent, as they've made it perfectly clear they want you to download their files; but if you start clicking around mininova.org while you're there, you'll at least want to consider some of these steps.
Let me know if you have any questions, tips or disagreements!
Links:
Bittorrent Guide: http://dessent.net/btfaq/
Windows client: http://www.utorrent.com/
Mac client: http://www.transmissionbt.com/
Firefox: http://www.getfirefox.com
Article about P2P privacy: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/peersharing/a/peerguardian.htm
Article about Anonymous Surfing: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/internet101/f/anonymous_surf.htm
Peer Guardian2: http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
Tor: http://www.torproject.org/ (configure utorrent with Tor)
When you download something over Bittorrent, you leave tracks on a number of different servers that can be used to trace back to you. Media companies use this information to take legal action against doawloaders (in the US, anyway). If you are concerned about this, you can use Firefox, Tor and Peer Guardian2 together to help protect yourself.
Tor takes your internet traffic and makes it appear like it's coming from another random computer on the internet (all volunteers) so it can't be traced back to you. Firefox has a Tor plugin that lets you easily turn it on and off while you're surfing. Whenever you search for a torrent you enable Tor, which will keep your IP address from being recorded on the web server. You can then configure utorrent to use Tor which will keep you anonymous when you connect to the tracker that tells utorrent where the files are.
Now the only way that someone could tell what you were downloading is to connect directly to the same torrent you're connected to. It's not a good idea to run your actual download traffic through Tor (it's a big burden for the Tor network and makes things slow for everyone), which is where Peer Guardian helps. You can't shut out everybody from connecting to your computer when you download, as you need to trade files from them to get what you want. Peer Guardian keeps a list of the IP addresses of known snoops (mostly media companies and the companies they hire) and blocks them from connecting to your computer. It's imperfect, as the snoops can always change IP addresses, but it's still better than downloading without any security turned on.
Now this isn't actually necessary to download the CBC torrent, as they've made it perfectly clear they want you to download their files; but if you start clicking around mininova.org while you're there, you'll at least want to consider some of these steps.
Let me know if you have any questions, tips or disagreements!
Links:
Bittorrent Guide: http://dessent.net/btfaq/
Windows client: http://www.utorrent.com/
Mac client: http://www.transmissionbt.com/
Firefox: http://www.getfirefox.com
Article about P2P privacy: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/peersharing/a/peerguardian.htm
Article about Anonymous Surfing: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/internet101/f/anonymous_surf.htm
Peer Guardian2: http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
Tor: http://www.torproject.org/ (configure utorrent with Tor)