So thaaats why orientation is in the office across the street…

For me, Usenet isn’t about availability; but speed, risk exposure, and convenience.

Torrents take longer, even with lots of quality seeds and fast network speeds; mostly because of the seeding process. Plus, while you are seeding: you have to publicly expose yourself as a content host, even if just through a VPN. Hosts are what copyright holders target, they don’t GAF about the people downloading, they try to take down the hosts to stop the spread. Finally you have to keep the content you downloaded in the format you downloaded, at least until seeding is done.

I prefer to use Tdarr to automatically transcode downloaded content into h265 (HEVC) to reduce it’s size. Most content is found in h264 (AVC); converting it, on average, reduces its size by ~30% while maintaining good quality. Overall this step has saved me at least ~7TB so far (Tdarr reports it’s saved 4.8TB, but I converted a ton of stuff with Embys convert feature before implementing Tdarr). That conversion can only be done after seeding or the torrent breaks as the original files are no longer available to seed. Usenet removes the seeding step completely, so I can do whatever I want with the files as soon as they’ve downloaded, which in it self only takes 5min.

You’ve done a pretty good job here, so I’ll just add this:

A map of providers and some info on their benefits.

https://www.ngprovider.com/current-usenet-map.php

There’s also a ton of info about usenet, how it works, and what to look for, on that site. (you may have to manually go to the homepage to see the rest)

I don’t have time atm, I’m literally leaving for work rn; but I’ll write up some details later tonight if nobody else has.

This was one of my biggest motivations for moving to usenet. I don’t like exposing myself by seeding. I have a giant folder full of copyright notices forwarded by my ISP because of it, and I don’t want to pay for a vpn as it’s far more expensive than usenet and just moves the problem/target to the vpn provider.

But an ssl connection to a usenet server goes unnoticed… Plus WAY faster download speeds, far more consistency in available files, and less spam/garbage content (at least in my experience, anecdotal).

Torrents took anywhere from an hour to multiple days before either completing or giving up and trying a different torrent. And then there’s the seeding process ontop.

NZBs (usenet) take at the very most, 5min to finish or fail, at which point a new one can be tried automatically by sonarr/radarr if it had failed. Requests for media are now pretty much always ready to watch within 25min of requesting, and most of that is waiting for the library scan to trigger (I’m using SAMBA so filesystem updates can’t trigger scans automatically, they’re on a timer instead)

I mean, that’s what happens when you install spyware; it infects things…

Anecdotal; but I spent 5ish years pirating via torrents from my home in Canada. Never once used a VPN and received an emailed copyright notice forwarded through my ISP about once every 3-5 days.

They never went further than that. The ISP isn’t permitted to give out my personal contact info short of a court order, and the copyright holder(s) can’t be bothered to pursue it further to get that info.

As long as you never reply to the notice; all they have is an IP, a time stamp, and a copy of the letter they sent to the ISP. They don’t know who I am to drag me to court; so first they’d have to sue the ISP for that info. Even then, tieing one specific individual to an entire IPs traffic is next to impossible. Was it the IPs subscriber? Another person in the household? A guest? Someone with unauthorised access? Too many variables/possibilities to prove ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ in a court of law.

Now a days however I use usenet. $12/year for an indexer, and ~$5/month for access to a usenet provider/server. Fast reliable downloads that always complete within 5min. No more waiting on slow or seedless torrents that potentially take days before giving up and trying another. This is all done though an ssl connection to a private server, so there’s nothing to snoop/get reported for.

If you have a static IP address, you can just use A records for each subdomain you want to use and not really worry about it.

If you do not have a static IP address, you may want to use one single A record, usually your base domain (example.com), then CNAME records for each of your subdomains.

A CNAME record is used to point one name at another name, in this case your base domain. This way, when your IP address changes, you only have to change the one A record and all the CNAME records will point at that new IP as well.

Example:

A example.com 1.2.3.4

CNAME sub1.example.com example.com

CNAME sub2.example.com example.com

You’d then use a tool like ACME.sh to automatically update that single A record when your IP changes.

THEN PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD!

Nobody breaks the law on my watch! I’m conficscating your stolen goods. Now pay your fine or it’s off to jail!

Pay the court a fine, or serve your sentence.

THEN PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD!!!

Not everyone can afford big guns and heavy armor; nor have the training/licensing required to cary/display them.

3D printed whistles are a cheap and easy aid. Every bit of resistance helps.

a whistle won’t stop these goons from harming you.

No it will not, but it will alert everyone around you to ICEs presence so they can have an opportunity to be somewhat prepared.

You’ll at least give your neighbours a chance to put some pants on, hide, barricade, or even arm themselves; before ICE tries to kick in their door.

It also calls others to your aid; quickly forming mob that out numbers ICE, forcing them to focus on crowd control instead of targeted kidnapping.

Back in my day, (shakes cane), Teamspeak and Ventrillo were the big voice chat platforms/tools. Both have text chat and channels/rooms; but their focus is voice chat for gaming.

6’4" 430lbs

Your ISP could snitch on you for tons of ‘illegal’ traffic, but they don’t because that would require deep packet inspection on an absurd amount of traffic and they gain nothing for it. Instead they pass on notices when they receive them from third parties, and take enforcement actions (like cutting off their service to you) only when they’re directed to. They want your money after all.

Torrenting for example; only gets flagged when copyright holders join torrent trackers, then send letters to ISPs that control the IPs found in those groups. That’s not the ISP hunting you down, they’re just passing on a legal notice they’ve been given and thus are obligated to pass it to you.

From and ISPs perspective; a VPN connection doesn’t look any different than any other TLS connection, ie https. There’s nothing for them to snitch because a) they can’t tell the difference without significant investment to capture and perform deep analysis on traffic at an absurd scale and b) they have no desire to even look and then snitch on customers, that just costs them paying customers.

The ONLY reason this can be enforced at all, is because comercial VPN companies want to advertise and sell their services to customers; so lawmakers can directly view and monitor those services.

Lawmakers have no way of even knowing about, let alone inspecting an individuals private VPN that’s either running from private systems or from a foreign VPS.

All that’s not even touching things like SSH tunneling - in a sense, creating a VPN from an SSH connection; one of the most ubiquitous protocols for controlling server infrastructure around the globe. Even if traffic was inspected to find SSH connections, you CAN’T block this or you disrupt IT infrastructure at such an alarming scale there’d be riots.

So rent a VPS abroad and run your own VPN from it. Comercial VPNs have a business to maintain so they’ve got to comply to keep operating and public advertising, but a privately run VPN just for yourself is just another TLS connection in a sea of other traffic.

The phrasing in your previous comment comes across very rude to someone that’s just trying to provide a solution for you. There’s better ways to ask for clarification.

I apologize if hostility was not your intention; but, food for thought.

Yup, and if you opened the webpage within a VM, you could easily screenshot it without the DRM blacking it out for you.

You’re in a piracy community asking for tips on pirating content. If you’re going to be an asshole when they’re given to you; you’re welcome to fuck off somewhere else.

A lot of DRMed content that prevents screen recording can be played within a VM, with the host recording the display output window.

Or so I’ve heard…