torrents and so on, your thoughts?

**jape** · 05-06-2011, 12:41 AM

Never used them much but just started a large file (new Ubuntu image). It downloaded five times as fast as normal download server so quite worthwhile and as far as I can tell from googling, it is a trustworthy torrent client, utorrent.

I have set up a separate windows partition for this on which I shall browse a little, download torrents when required and nothing else, thus I don't think I have to worry about hacking and all those things, except to use standard MSE anti-virus and firewall of course. I assume no keyloggers or whatever that may get through can read other partitions on the hard drive where there is other OS and data; is that a safe assumption?

I am not too worried about needing anonymous usage yet as I intend to download only 'legal' torrents such as this .iso of Ubuntu. My download costs (stuck with slow wireless BB) are too high to make much of anything else worthwhile anyway, cheaper to buy!

I noticed after the download, it started 'seeding'. I assume this is when my part of the bargain, uploading, happens? I shall alllow this, a few megabytes anyway as is only fair.

Any thoughts, warnings etc from experienced torrent users?

**Nuhaus** · 05-06-2011, 01:18 AM

This is a good place to start if you're looking for more info in Utorrent or just torrents in general. You should probably check out the rules in your ISP regarding uploading of data as that limit could be far less than your download amount.

I believe that in Australia you have some rather strict laws regarding copyright and upload download caps. Is this correct?

Have fun with the new Ubuntu. I tried to get a Ubuntu partition on my machine last month but it wouldn't recognize my monitor so I coudn't even install it. Have used it in the past though and it's loads of fun.

**jape** · 05-06-2011, 02:02 AM

Thanks nuhaus, I will give that a good read over the weekend.
Never heard of caps on torrents on my provider

I think they may only apply depending on the particular plan you have and maybe then as a percentage allowance so it isn't abused.
Australia is very right wing in all matters to do with law and regulation, you have to come from outside to see it, they don't because the government and media foster an illusory 'mateship/larrikin/fair-go' personna; most would say in public they would jail copyright abusers but would use torrents in private for porn and movies! Hypocritical and cynical bunch.
But I love 'em.

**Nuhaus** · 05-06-2011, 02:39 AM

Originally Posted by jape

Never heard of caps on torrents on my provider

I think they may only apply depending on the particular plan you have and maybe then as a percentage allowance so it isn't abused.

Caps don't specifically apply to torrents, it's the amount in total that you download, whether it's web surfing, torrents, IRC, or using a web cam on Skype. (Scuse if'n you already knew that). I once got charged an extra 100$ cuz of exceeding my download cap in Canada when I was on Bell DSL. I think the cap at that time was less than 3 Gigs.

Another knowledgable Australian you might be intereted in reading is this guy. He's got some very interesting and well researched (and cited) things to say about the internet in Australia, Australian copyright law, computers, and gadgets in general.

**milton** · 05-06-2011, 05:48 AM

Originally Posted by jape

I have set up a separate windows partition for this on which I shall browse a little, download torrents when required and nothing else, thus I don't think I have to worry about hacking and all those things, except to use standard MSE anti-virus and firewall of course. I assume no keyloggers or whatever that may get through can read other partitions on the hard drive where there is other OS and data; is that a safe assumption?

No, that is not a safe assumption if you just carve out a Windows partition with intention to insulate your torrent/browsing activities from your other "private patitions". The correct way to do that is to install a "virtual machine" through VMWare or something similar.
Cheers.

**lightend** · 05-06-2011, 04:22 PM

umm regarding new partitions,
if you download a worm that isnt in your virus definition data base, then it will still destroy your windows directory, just means you will have to format teh whole computer, ie ecery drive to get rid of it. also some nasty people put hard drive killers in torrents :-(
utorrent is ok, are you using utorrent agent to download or just utorrent database ? if you are using other torrent files then using utorrent agent wont give you any help, you may as ywell use the blue bird thing the chinese use

**lightend** · 05-06-2011, 04:26 PM

regards to keylogers yes, you can have usb hard drive with qa key logger installed and it will read every thing written in the main OS, new partitions are only really usful to have so when yuou need to reformat it, you dont loose all the data you have.

**slabo** · 05-07-2011, 03:39 AM

I'm most concerned about leaving the machine on all the time. Mostly concerned about the life of my hard drive, the rest of the components will probably die because I dropped the laptop or some other mishap.. So a separate partition won't really do the trick. I'd say get yourself another hard drive. Better yet, if you have a machine dedicated for torrents, then you wont have to worry about viruses and such. Question: keyloggers can activate them selves? Just by downloading the executable? Won't you AV catch them?
Well you prompted me to look into this more.. here's what I came up with for low power home servers. to take it further, you can extend these servers to be motion detectors. look for zoneminder for linux.. emails or calls you when it detects an intruder. Good project considering you want to leave your house for year and come to China::

http://www.tonidoplug.com/ this is basically an embedded pc running linux, and you get can attach as hdds as big as you can afford.
this looks promising.. http://www.dansdata.com/n299.htm A NAS that can also download torrents..
A router like the Asus WL-500g .. you can connect a usb flash drive or hard drive to this, and if it's running OpenWRT.. it can download torrents.
The WD MyBook seems extensively hackable .. http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/transmission for torrents .. and as extra .. http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum...mon-for-mybook for rapidshare downloads..

also read this :: http://ask.metafilter.com/82736/Down...-while-Im-away

Ok, now that I wrote all this, time for me to get one for myself. An old laptop. Ahh.. i have something, i have a headless ASUS eeepc somewhere.. Thanks for the reminder guys.

**Nuhaus** · 05-07-2011, 03:49 AM

Thanks for the inspiration Slabo. I happen to have an old laptop sitting here that I have not fired up in a few months. Gonna set it up for torrents and see how it works.

**moilami** · 05-08-2011, 11:18 AM

As people has said, a separate windows partition on your windows system gives you practically no more security.

If you have seeded some torrents without notable traffic it just means there are tons of other seeders or none wants download. So depending on the torrent, your computer can seed tons of data, nothing, or anything between.

Also usually if you DL a torrent your torrent application will begin to seed it immediatly. I think when you finished downloading the torrent your comp said it is now only seeding it (and not downloading) - when most probably it had seeded it all the way while you downloaded.