I cannot for the life of me with Private Internet Access, torrent. I get 0 out of 0 seeds and 0 out of 0 peers and it has me completely pissed of and wanting to say scre PIA for good. This is a joke!
Read the first post again, follow each steps. You can always contact support.
Hello, I recently subscribed to PrivateInternetAccess for use with downloading torrents. I followed the instructions provided by Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5863380/how-to-completely-anonymize-your-bittorrent-traffic-with-btguard and tested the the PROXY and everything worked fine. I was able to successfully use it for several day and download several files without issue. Then suddenly all of my seeds dropped to zero, as did all my peers. I initially chocked it up to the torrents dieing out, but I have since attempted to download some very popular files with no success. I have the same setup with uTorrent on 3 different Macs and all of my pending torrents have quit working on all 3 of my Macs. I beleive that I have narrowed down the issue to the PROXY but don't know exactly how I should go about fixing it.
To troubleshoot I connected to a different network with a totally different ISP in an attempt to rule out my router or ISP and still was not able to connect. This is basically what all of my torrents' tracker tabs looks like: http://i.imgur.com/QmRti3g.png
Edit: I guess I should mention that turning the Proxy feature off in uTorrent allows the connection to go through.
It seems to be alternating between Unknown Error -4 and Unknown Error -8
I have spent about the last 4 hours searching the web, these forums, and uTorrent's forums and can't figure out how to fix it other then disabling the Proxy.
So let me ask im a noob at vpn and utorrent- Iv put in my vpn details in utorrent and i cant seed anything back why is this? I find with socks5 (dont know what socks5 is lol) sometimes i cant download anything until i turn it off and bobs your uncle it worked so what do i do? Is there a link somewhere i can use to see how to do it properly? Also another noob question if my router is dynamic would that itself cause problems? I cant change it as its my landlords router and he wont do anythin about it. One more thing do i need to use the vpn only in utorrents or do i have to have it enabled on my pc aswell as utorrent. Big thanks in advance.
After a LOT of searching and using a different VPN company, I found this thread which answered most of my question. Many thanks to thisisme786!
Question about running the VPN in addition to the proxy. Of course the answer has been stated that both are recommended for the best/most privacy. But like others, I really don't care if my transmissions are encrypted or not, I only want to hide my IP while pirating software/movies.
I've read the way we're caught is as follows: Record and Movie organizations such as RIAA use software that poses as torrent users and record your IP when uploading (perhaps DL'ing too), and even keep a sample of what you uploaded. They then turn over their data to the appropriate ISP and the ISP sends the nastygram. If this is indeed true, hiding the IP with a proxy is good enough, no? Please tell me the reason for encrypting.
Using the VPN my browser speed test comes back at around 4 MBps, vs. the normal 22 MBps I get when naked. I've not even tried my torrent with the VPN. With just the proxy, I get better than 90% of my capability (speed).
Additionally, and if this is true, encryption would not help as the end recipient of our uploads (cops) has the unencrypted data anyway. Think about it for a minute.
My uTorrent works fine up and down with the settings supplied in this thread, BUT, the status triangle in the bottom right corner remains red. I suppose this should be ignored since it's working great.
If it matters, I used one of the IP's given in this thread instead of the resolveable name.
And this is really cool. If you want to check the IP your torrent software is displaying, go here for a test. Very easy.
The idea is to protect you from wiretapping, not just Whois lookups. If you feel confident that media companies will never be able to get wiretaps, you're fine using the proxy.
My *guess* is that they'd have to have already caught me to want to wiretap me. That, or they're wiretapping everyone which is logistically impossible.
Here's one source of the rumor I posted. There are many other sources if one looks.
Am i right thinking the mpaa or whoever put up a torrent loaded with a tracking malware that once gets on your pc captures your real ip and send it back?
If your using the vpn do you actualy need socks5 on utorrent? because they wont know your real ip and i dont use public torrents so im a little safer. or am i? and if i use the standad vpn settings my ip gets hidden but not the traffic? if so how does one hide ip and encrypt data in transmisdion?
I've not read anything about anyone slipping malware on anyone's computer. They only disguise themselves as torrent users and record your IP and what you shared.
Plus, when you unpack the files, you can see exactly the files you received when you unpack with *your* unzip/unrar software.
I'm not an attorney but I don't think a company can perform in an illegal way in the pursuit of any civil action against you. They'd have to demonstrate how they discovered your activities.
The VPN hides your IP AND encrypts data. If you're running VPN I can't see any benefit to also using the proxy.
If your using the vpn do you actualy need socks5 on utorrent? because they wont know your real ip and i dont use public torrents so im a little safer. or am i? and if i use the standad vpn settings my ip gets hidden but not the traffic? if so how does one hide ip and encrypt data in transmisdion?
@AP_2009: After the whole NSA reveals this summer, you still think wiretapping everyone is whateverly impossible?
The tap would occur on the proxy servers of course. That's easy and quickly done. The Netherlands also has a history of combating illegal downloads and file sharing.
@toshiba0199: It's possible. NEVER trust files you downloaded from the net. It's like sitting the sender of those files in front of your unlocked computer and then closing the door after you leave.
VPN: I do not think wiretapping everyone, and the resources to go through everyone's data is possible, or better, smart, especially given the light weight offense of music/movie piracy. There's 300 million people in the US comprised of 100 million households, about.
I'd really love to see them drag me to court after illegally tapping me and try to get me to pay a some legal suit, based on illegally obtained evidence -- the government stands nothing to gain. It's on the same level that the cops are going to catch every single person who speeds while they were involved in an illegal speed trap. Not enough resources to make everyone abide, given the resources to enforce such. The record and movie companies may care and may want to enforce copyright laws, but the government has better things to do.
Of course I don't trust the NSA, but neither do I think the NSA gives a hoot about our piracy offense. Bigger fish to fry...
If we were into bigger offenses, I'd be more careful. Given the circumstances I believe I'm as careful as I should be, no more, no less.
I respect what you've shared here. I'm simply suggesting to apply the proper amount of protection and use common sense. Not that you're not. I'm 45 and have been around a few days.
The head of the NSA either hires 1,000 new analysts, or pulls 1,000 analysts off their regular duties to wiretap all of America, looking for pirated data....
After two years of information gathering, the NSA has identified 546,961 systems in the US which have shared illegal content. The NSA is 65% complete in matching those systems with actual names and households. The NSA gathered most of this info illegally.
The crimes gathered by the 1,000 dedicated NSA employees amount to civil issues with record/movie companies.
The head of the NSA shares his findings and results with the American people and congress in a formal congressional hearing. During the hearing the director is probed and says indeed, it costs 5.9 billion dollars for the investigation and the result of the investigation is that we, the NSA, turned over our illegally obtained evidence to RIAA so they may file civil suits against the offenders and have their internet connectivity terminated -- which we've sort of identified with illegal searches.
Oh, and depending on the provider, the offenders likely get six warnings before termination of their service. Never mind the NSA illegally wiretapped all of America. lol
Congress: Are the American people safer? (putting it nicely)
See my point? Shall I go further? Think anyone at the NSA/CIA/FBI wants their behind on the line over civil piracy issues and illegal wiretaps and a gigantic waste of money and resources that amount to not a damn thing for the government? I think not.
I thought I'd offer another opinion. Please offer up any legitimate and plausible info you have to counter my thoughts. Calling me a troll is a distraction.
@AP_2009: I was talking about the technical ability to wiretap a single server/rack, using the NSA reveals as a way of saying "If someone can already do that much, how easy (from a purely technical perspective) do you think this will be?" Nobody said the NSA would use their resources to find movie pirates.
Your opinions are valid. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised if someone* at some point "caught" the proxy-only users.
VPN, I think we can agree. It might be possible to get discovered with proxy only, however, the risk I believe is worth using the much quicker proxy. I've yet to get a nastygram from my ISP and mine is supposedly strict, banning for life after the third offense.
If they start cracking down harder or I get warned, I have the VPN in my back pocket to use at any time.
I thought I'd offer another opinion. Please offer up any legitimate and plausible info you have to counter my thoughts. Calling me a troll is a distraction.
I never said you were trolling, I just forgot to add the right quote within the comment, sorry for that.
I actually dont care about the nsa. I doubt they care about illegal sharing of films. They only go after the very big fish who threaten the security of the world. Not me or you ripping of Disney.
This does not work on Mac. I have loaded several popular test torrents (Open Office) and none of them work. Has this article changed? I vaguely remember something about having to check the Port Forwarding box.
Either way, torrents are one of the top reasons why users choose to pay for a vpn service. I'm surprised that instructions on how to properly configure most vpn clients are not on the front page of the PIA site. It is particularly frustrating to read responses instructing users to figure out their connection problems with the torrent client.
Your screenshot of the proxy settings in uTorrent shows you've set it up correctly. The app settings really have no influence on proxy connections, it works with or without PIA Manager.
In other threads, users reported failing tracker connections. When you have no peers, you can't download. Are OpenOffice torrents using public tackers? Are you seeing any error or timeout messages? Which?
Comments
Excellent and easy instructions
I recently subscribed to PrivateInternetAccess for use with downloading torrents. I followed the instructions provided by Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5863380/how-to-completely-anonymize-your-bittorrent-traffic-with-btguard and tested the the PROXY and everything worked fine. I was able to successfully use it for several day and download several files without issue. Then suddenly all of my seeds dropped to zero, as did all my peers. I initially chocked it up to the torrents dieing out, but I have since attempted to download some very popular files with no success. I have the same setup with uTorrent on 3 different Macs and all of my pending torrents have quit working on all 3 of my Macs. I beleive that I have narrowed down the issue to the PROXY but don't know exactly how I should go about fixing it.
To troubleshoot I connected to a different network with a totally different ISP in an attempt to rule out my router or ISP and still was not able to connect. This is basically what all of my torrents' tracker tabs looks like:
http://i.imgur.com/QmRti3g.png
Edit: I guess I should mention that turning the Proxy feature off in uTorrent allows the connection to go through.
It seems to be alternating between Unknown Error -4 and Unknown Error -8
I have spent about the last 4 hours searching the web, these forums, and uTorrent's forums and can't figure out how to fix it other then disabling the Proxy.
I am running the Mac version of uTorrent 1.8.4
All of my uTorrent settings:
http://i.imgur.com/x3sUXc7.png
http://i.imgur.com/FvqgJEt.png
http://i.imgur.com/jzBndN3.png
http://i.imgur.com/yp9FHPN.png
Thanks for any help.
Question about running the VPN in addition to the proxy. Of course the answer has been stated that both are recommended for the best/most privacy. But like others, I really don't care if my transmissions are encrypted or not, I only want to hide my IP while pirating software/movies.
I've read the way we're caught is as follows: Record and Movie organizations such as RIAA use software that poses as torrent users and record your IP when uploading (perhaps DL'ing too), and even keep a sample of what you uploaded. They then turn over their data to the appropriate ISP and the ISP sends the nastygram. If this is indeed true, hiding the IP with a proxy is good enough, no? Please tell me the reason for encrypting.
Using the VPN my browser speed test comes back at around 4 MBps, vs. the normal 22 MBps I get when naked. I've not even tried my torrent with the VPN. With just the proxy, I get better than 90% of my capability (speed).
Additionally, and if this is true, encryption would not help as the end recipient of our uploads (cops) has the unencrypted data anyway. Think about it for a minute.
My uTorrent works fine up and down with the settings supplied in this thread, BUT, the status triangle in the bottom right corner remains red. I suppose this should be ignored since it's working great.
If it matters, I used one of the IP's given in this thread instead of the resolveable name.
And this is really cool. If you want to check the IP your torrent software is displaying, go here for a test. Very easy.
http://www.checkmytorrentip.com
My *guess* is that they'd have to have already caught me to want to wiretap me. That, or they're wiretapping everyone which is logistically impossible.
Here's one source of the rumor I posted. There are many other sources if one looks.
http://torrentfreak.com/this-is-how-we-catch-you-downloading/
I've not read anything about anyone slipping malware on anyone's computer. They only disguise themselves as torrent users and record your IP and what you shared.
Plus, when you unpack the files, you can see exactly the files you received when you unpack with *your* unzip/unrar software.
I'm not an attorney but I don't think a company can perform in an illegal way in the pursuit of any civil action against you. They'd have to demonstrate how they discovered your activities.
The VPN hides your IP AND encrypts data. If you're running VPN I can't see any benefit to also using the proxy.
The tap would occur on the proxy servers of course. That's easy and quickly done. The Netherlands also has a history of combating illegal downloads and file sharing.
@toshiba0199: It's possible. NEVER trust files you downloaded from the net. It's like sitting the sender of those files in front of your unlocked computer and then closing the door after you leave.
I'd really love to see them drag me to court after illegally tapping me and try to get me to pay a some legal suit, based on illegally obtained evidence -- the government stands nothing to gain. It's on the same level that the cops are going to catch every single person who speeds while they were involved in an illegal speed trap. Not enough resources to make everyone abide, given the resources to enforce such. The record and movie companies may care and may want to enforce copyright laws, but the government has better things to do.
Of course I don't trust the NSA, but neither do I think the NSA gives a hoot about our piracy offense. Bigger fish to fry...
If we were into bigger offenses, I'd be more careful. Given the circumstances I believe I'm as careful as I should be, no more, no less.
I respect what you've shared here. I'm simply suggesting to apply the proper amount of protection and use common sense. Not that you're not. I'm 45 and have been around a few days.
The head of the NSA either hires 1,000 new analysts, or pulls 1,000 analysts off their regular duties to wiretap all of America, looking for pirated data....
After two years of information gathering, the NSA has identified 546,961 systems in the US which have shared illegal content. The NSA is 65% complete in matching those systems with actual names and households. The NSA gathered most of this info illegally.
The crimes gathered by the 1,000 dedicated NSA employees amount to civil issues with record/movie companies.
The head of the NSA shares his findings and results with the American people and congress in a formal congressional hearing. During the hearing the director is probed and says indeed, it costs 5.9 billion dollars for the investigation and the result of the investigation is that we, the NSA, turned over our illegally obtained evidence to RIAA so they may file civil suits against the offenders and have their internet connectivity terminated -- which we've sort of identified with illegal searches.
Oh, and depending on the provider, the offenders likely get six warnings before termination of their service. Never mind the NSA illegally wiretapped all of America. lol
Congress: Are the American people safer? (putting it nicely)
See my point? Shall I go further? Think anyone at the NSA/CIA/FBI wants their behind on the line over civil piracy issues and illegal wiretaps and a gigantic waste of money and resources that amount to not a damn thing for the government? I think not.
I thought I'd offer another opinion. Please offer up any legitimate and plausible info you have to counter my thoughts. Calling me a troll is a distraction.
Your opinions are valid. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised if someone* at some point "caught" the proxy-only users.
*again, NOT the NSA.
If they start cracking down harder or I get warned, I have the VPN in my back pocket to use at any time.
http://www.checkmytorrentip.com
The app settings really have no influence on proxy connections, it works with or without PIA Manager.
In other threads, users reported failing tracker connections. When you have no peers, you can't download.
Are OpenOffice torrents using public tackers?
Are you seeing any error or timeout messages? Which?
Thanks for the response.
How long have you left it running like this?