Questions about seedboxes (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 week ago by schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I decided to ditch the cable connection and drive my internet through my cellphone. It sort of works, but it makes me a piece of shit because I can't seed (slow uplink, minimal storage, battery drain).

Enter seedboxes, where I can ul a little better and store a little more.

Most of the guides are written by seedboxes themselves so I thought I'd turn to the community for the nitty-gritty. Questions:

How do I protect my anonymity from the seedbox company if I'm paying them?
Do seedboxes protect their own anonymity or do I need to also hook up a VPN to the seedbox?
Recommendations for cheap seedboxes with minimal storage? I'm really only an occassional d/l'er and already have quite a backlog, so I doubt I'd be moving more than 40gigs/month. \

Thanks!

*The dedicated seedbox forum is pretty darn dead.

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[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 week ago

A lot of seedbox providers accept crypto if you want to be anonymous.

When you transfer data between the seedbox and your computer, you usually use SFTP or FTPS. Those are both encrypted, so nobody can see what you are transferring.

I've been using Ultra.cc, which is pretty cheap, but they did raise their prices recently. If you only occasionally download stuff, you may be better off with usenet and a block account.

[-] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

Usenet is still kicking around? Wow! So if a place says it has 10 year retention, that means it has every usenet post for 10 years? That's gotta be an enormous frickin' library! And it might help me build my music library, which is pretty sparse since I can't soulseek through a mobile connection (ports)....

My only real concern is software availability/usability on Android. I remember downloading from Usenet on desktop back in the day and it was very fussy.

I think this might be the way to go. Thanks for thinking outside the seedbox!

[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 6 days ago

Yes, it's still around. The retention is how long they keep the posts. Some providers will have lower retention for binaries than text, so check the fine print. I looked for android clients and found Usenet Panda. It looks like it supports everything needed to find and download binaries.

[-] nywuma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

With sftp/ftps, it’s true that they don’t know what you’re copying, but the metadata contains the ip address and the file size, so if someone’s specifically interested in trying to get you, then it’s easy for them to guess what you’re doing. That’s why we’re all torrenting Linux ISOs and AI models.

But that’s just my take on it, most don’t use a vpn when using seedboxes.

this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2026

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