Well, After hundreds of GB of torrents downloaded, I slipped up. I've been changing around linux distros recently and i believe i configured my VPN wrong or forgot to turn it back on after doing something. Well, I finally got hit with a copyright warning. Just your typical "we had to send this" type of warning but none-the-less, I slipped up.

Sharing this because the day before it happened, I read a post about not only having your killswitch on but also binding your client to you vpn interface for situations like this. Needless to say I didn't take that precaution. For those who are on linux, I found a great post about how to set this up on reddit and wanted to remind people to "double wrap" because why not be safe lol.

The steps were more or less as follows (for QBitTorrent at least):

Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced Settings
Under "Network Interface", select your vpn interface. To test, check what shows with your vpn on, and then turn it off and re-navigate to this part to see what dissapeared. Thats likely your vpn interface if the name wasn't clear. (Do not be seeding/downloading torrents while doing this in case).
To test, download a non-copyright torrent like the Ubuntu ISO torrent. In the middle of download, disconnect or close your vpn connection. This should stop the download.

Not sure if reddit links are cool here but here is the guide source if anyones interested. Binding VPN to Torrent Client

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[–] Spectrism@feddit.org 21 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Same thing also happened to me at the end of last year. I usually only use torrents on my PC, but that day I decided to also use them on my laptop and of course I forgot to change the network interface to that of my VPN in qBittorrent because I'm an idiot. After around 2 weeks, I got a cease and desist letter ordering me to pay ~1000 € and sign their cease and desist declaration. Was able to negotiate down to 600 € and only sent back a modified declaration, still pretty expensive for such a silly little mistake. I'd say you can consider yourself lucky to just receive a warning :)

Unfortunately for me, German law makes torrents a very lucrative business model for some law firms who do nothing but send cease and desist letters, thousands each year.

I only got caught for a few seconds according to their letter, but that was enough to get me into trouble. Not sure what the reason was, perhaps I started the VPN too late or maybe systemd was stopping the VPN service before qBt got closed when I was shutting the laptop down. Either way, this probably wouldn't have happened if I had set the correct network interface in qBt and I've learnt to always do that first whenever I install a torrent client. I can only advise everyone to also check the publicly visible torrent IP with tools like this, just to be sure.

Smooth sailin' me hearties! 🏴‍☠️

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

The IP checker you linked likes to flag false positives. I just checked it on my phone and it claimed that my IP address was being leaked, despute me using a VPN and the IP they listed being my VPN's server

[–] Spectrism@feddit.org 4 points 3 days ago

Ignore that orange banner, it's an ad. In fact, ignore all banners telling you something like "Your IP is exposed", because those are all just trying to sell you a VPN and can't possibly know for certain if an address belongs to a VPN server or not. Always compare IP addresses manually.

What's important in this case is the address listed in the table below after you have opened the magnet link in your torrent client. If everything works correctly, it should be different from your actual IP address (which may or may not be the one displayed on the site, depending on whether you're using split tunneling).

[–] JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oh dang, well so far it's only a letter they sent to my ISP, in which they relayed that someone on my network was doing it with or without my knowledge.

My ISP has records I can look up the see the original email sent from the person who claimed the copyright. I was like, where did I mess up? They must not have very clear evidence.

Well.. I was dead to rights Lmao. IP, movie name, times, data downloaded, etc. I'm hoping that's the only thing that leaked in that time period and there isn't more just qeueing lol.

But yeah, that's why I wanted to share this post. Some people aren't in countries where this matters, but for those of us that are, stay safe. Learn from others. Im lucky so far but someone may not be and get fined like in your situation.

I used Usenet but honestly I love being able to publicly seed for others. It feels like giving back so it's a risk I'll take over using usenet.

Much love to the community 🏴‍☠️

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 5 points 2 days ago

Obviously you kicked the former friend off your network after you learned of their illegal activities and admonished them to pay for their media instead nudge nudge