Please put my mind to ease! =0)

[sphynx]

Hi all,

Well I feel like a bit of a traitor coming in here and asking this question (hee, hee). Anyway here I go, lately I have started to use bittorrent a little bit more as I have found that some of the video files that I want are not on Limewire. I was wondering if it is possible for people to track you down and charge you when you use bittorrent or Limewire for downloading files? Can they find out your IP address and then contact your ISP and find out where you live, etc? Do ISP's know if you're using Limewire or bittorrent? If yes, do they care? I am only downloading T.V. episodes that aren't available where I live, however, apparently that is also still illegal.

Look forward to a reply.
Thanking you,
Sphynx =0)

Note: Someone was recently charged for downloading files off of the internet - could you please tell me how it is possible for this to happen?

[Only A Hobo]

Hi ..long time no see.. now we know what you've been doing

Yes. In theory you can be tracked down from your unique ip number but I think you will be safe from presecution or prosecution for the sake of a few TV episodes lol
Isps generally care how much you use your connection and some are more keen than others to help the authorities track down p2p users who may be contravening coryright laws. Some limit or block p2p use others do not care.
(Limewire and Bittorrent are p2p applications)

Residents of the USA are the worst at risk, and in the UK things are tightening up, apparently.

I'm not sure of the exact situation in Australia, but Sharing and downloading a moderate number of files should not get you into serious trouble. sharing over a few hundred files and downloading huge ammouns might attract attention.

I hope this somewhat vague answer helps a bit.

[Grandpa]

You might want to check out the link below it is a post from a person that got caught in a bittorrent trap and yes they can track.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15408051

[Lord of the Rings]

Indirectly answering your queries with some related side-comments, see http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum...fm/453605.html as this is a local forum that deals with local issues. It's not a direct answer but that over here, people are not chased as they are overseas. Bittorrent is the more risky of the 2 networks though. Our legal system has not been decisive about this issue as of yet. Unless people were selling bootlegs from their downlds, only overseas parties were involved in court proceedings, afaik. Such as what happend when an aussie bought the Kazaa business.

[Grandpa]

Oops guess I misread this one

[sphynx]

Yeah, I haven't been here for a while. Ooops! I guess I let the cat out of the bag by telling you where I've been. :-)

So is Limewire safer to use than bittorrent? Is it just me or does Limewire content seem to be diminishing. I have found so much great stuff on BT - especially old T.V. episodes.

Is there anyway that I can set the computer to change my IP address every minute or two?

Thanks,
Sphynx :-)

Originally posted by Only A Hobo
Hi ..long time no see.. now we know what you've been doing

Yes. In theory you can be tracked down from your unique ip number but I think you will be safe from presecution or prosecution for the sake of a few TV episodes lol
Isps generally care how much you use your connection and some are more keen than others to help the authorities track down p2p users who may be contravening coryright laws. Some limit or block p2p use others do not care.
(Limewire and Bittorrent are p2p applications)

Residents of the USA are the worst at risk, and in the UK things are tightening up, apparently.

I'm not sure of the exact situation in Australia, but Sharing and downloading a moderate number of files should not get you into serious trouble. sharing over a few hundred files and downloading huge ammouns might attract attention.

I hope this somewhat vague answer helps a bit.

[Grandpa]

You might find the link below interesting reading I gave ants a spin last night it is not real easy to use and was pretty slow the search results were all right but not great there is also mute you can find links to both in the Link they claim to be anonymous. I have installed both of them before but just looked them over thought I would try it out last night but I must say I was not overly impressed with ants but who knows after I play with it a while I may be able to get it to work better. It took 11 hrs to hash one share folder 60GB but it does use Edonkey and Ants network and hashed for both networks.

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=567

[noclans]

I bet you speed until you see a cop right?

If you download something questionable then immediately move the file out of your shared area.

This way you won't get caught in an upload trap which will be far worse than a download trap.

I'm a newbie to limewire but i can tell you a valid bail out excuse will be to say you though the file was something else and you deleted the file as soon as you realized there was an issue.

I say this because about 90% of the files I have downloaded so far have not one thing to do with the file title.

Not to mention the spamming limewire obviously allows since i downloaded a couple dozen files with different names and the content and file sizes were identical.

Why doesn;t limewire do a simple crc32 check and deal with the freebuie version spammers by limiting them to 1 connection at 1 kbps?

Is it because limewire is dead code?

I mean... they are on jre 1.3x which is dead.

they should be responsible enough to compile and release new versions that track the supported versions of java.

[Sleepless]

If they want to catch you. And that is when they get really pissed, they will offer you they same upload that everyone wants, (meaning the newest episode of what ever you are downloading) and then send FIRST a warning, (notice where I'm from and look it up on a map and you will see)

Stay away from BitTorrent if you want to stay safe. Just a heads up

And yes noclans, You are a newbie. You have no idea how nasty this can get to be. Limewire isn't safe, but I assure you that bittorents are worse.

I know this first hand

[cbgb]

I haven't used limewire for over a year. However, I would like to know how long limewire keeps their logs with users' IP addresses. I used to download a lot of songs, and I also saw some questionable content which I immediately got rid off. Would I have anything to be worried about? If anyone could help, that would be great. Thanks.