Before I say anything further, yes I know how much the recommended VPNs cost. I can read. Please do not interrogate me about it.
I've been wanting to get into torrenting for a while, particularly contributing to private trackers related to music (and to a lesser extent retro games, though I don't have much original stuff to put there as it's harder to find rare games than rare music). FMHY recommends RiseUp if I must get a free VPN while I'm working on my financial situation, though I'm not sure whether it's been tested in court. What are my options, if any?
If you don’t have the money for a proper VPN provider, you definitely don’t have the money for a legal defense if it came to that. Save your money and only begin once you can afford reasonable protections.
I used to do that at the Burger King that was next to my old house. I'd prop my laptop up by the window the faced the restaurant and start downloading.
Then at some point they added something to the WiFi that, after you've been connected for like 30 minutes, disconnects you. You wouldn't be banned or anything, it would just cut the connection until you go back to the captive portal and click "I Agree" again.
I feel like a lot of public WiFis these days have data caps and throttling to circumvent downloading.
Go to the small local library, they usually have free wifi, sometimes without registration and if you're lucky they don't filter any traffic.
There is also a map of open wifi hotspots online which work without registration also, but I'm too lazy to dig out the link.
Ask online for somebody to share their VPN. Many subscriptions explicitly allow inviting friends and family and allow multiple simultaneous connections.
Local library worker here. Can confirm we don't track connections, we only tally how many use our wifi if we can figure it out. Basically the tally just includes whoever brings out their phone in the library.
Just be aware that the state can supply your library with free internet, and I'm not sure how that's set up. I personally don't like connecting to random open wifi, official or no.
In my younger years we hid an RPi with a large USB stick in our library. A seedbox of sorts, connected to wifi with semi-random schedule (public hours mostly) and random mac address to avoid detection. Worked like a charm!
You could also consider looking into a private tracker. It’s not 100% safe but much more safe than a public tracker. It’s also kind of fun getting into it, but hard to get invited.
There’s a few free vpn providers out there. You could do a little homework and see if they are a good option. I tend to mistrust free services like that (if I’m not paying, who is, and what are they paying for?), but if you’re in a pinch it’s something to research.
Another option is to look for deals. Sometimes VPN providers will have a super sale a few times a year. I think once I got a NordVPN subscription for THREE YEARS for like $60. It’s more expensive than a single month of anything, yes, but if you can afford a onetime expense it’s nice not to have to worry about a recurring monthly cost.
Your other option is to not use torrents. Usenet is still the grand daddy of file sharing and is pretty much anonymous. Most Usenet hosts are paid, but back in the day even ISPs ran their own servers. It could be worth looking and seeing if there’s any free or low cost providers there.
You can get into private trackers and trust them. Not recommended, but some do.
Generally speaking, the copyright trolls only target public trackers and DHT. There have been some instances of them making way into TL and others. Your ISP could also identify torrenting on private trackers if they wanted to, even with mitigations. In my experience and from what I hear, most ISPs do not go to these lengths.
So, there a risk doing the above. Whether or not it's worth it until you can afford a decent VPN is up to you.
Aside: Please do not use a free VPN for torrenting (or tor, for that matter). They are either like RiseUp and run on donations for people who really, really need them, or Proton which is commercial and specifically try to block or slow down the traffic. Either way, if ruins it for everyone else.
You're going to need to find VPNs you don't need to pay for, such as spys.one/ stuff, although most of those will not work for torrenting. I leave the rest to you as being able to figure it out is the good kind of gatekeeping.
this is like asking how to safely hook up with strangers at the bar if you can't afford condoms to help protect you from STIs. if you can't afford a VPN, you can't afford to get disconnected by your ISP for three strikes, let alone afford a settlement because some copyright troll logged your IP as a downloader. just don't do it until you can properly put some safeguards in place.
Look at newsgroups - some indexers are free, others have a lifetime fee that's reasonable. I moved to nzbs and haven't looked back - I can't get dinged for sharing copyrighted stuff if I'm only downloading, never uploading.
Without passing any moral judgement on you whatsoever, if you posted this without a VPN, your post is permanently tied to your IP address and thus your home and is evidence of your intent to commit a crime, even if you said it's "for research". I wouldn't do that again and now I'm worried for you in general if you weren't worried to post this.
Generally nobody can afford to lose their privacy. It's $1/device/month per person if you get 5 other people to share a Mullvad account and you shouldn't do it because you're trying to pirate. A VPN is not a tool for piracy. You should be conducting all internet activity in it unless you do not care about the government seeing it.
Focus on fixing the most obvious issue then. Don’t waste you time on watching some dumb content, pirated or otherwise. Unless of course you plan on pirating stuff that would actually help you sharpen your skillset, helping you land a better job. But to ease the pain by watching some dumb shit, just don’t.
Uhmm, I know that it might come off as begging, but may I also have an invite? I've been using RuTracker for 5 years at this point, but some stuff is just isn't there.
RiseUp is slow and intended for activists and the politically vulnerable. It's not for poor people who cannot afford a $5 a month VPN. You will be fucking over people with much more legitimate use cases than yours if you start using it for torrenting.
Why not use less well known foreign public trackers? Rutracker has a stupid amount of content, including a lot of niche music content.
If you are worried about Rutracker being too well known, you can try Mazepa Torrent. This is only relevant for movies and shows. Their collection isn't as good as rutracker, but they have most new releases. While the default audio language is Ukrainian, English is always included (this would an issue for non-English language ьщмшуі, but English subtitles are usually included).
Move down under to New Zealand - although we do have a 3 strikes law, the clament has to pay all fees upfront to thr ISP and get a court order first...
If you use private trackers, a VPN is irrelevant. All you need to do is fully encrypt your traffic in your torrent client so your ISP can't see what you're doing. It's been working just fine for me for 15 years, and I've never gotten a letter.
I scrolled through the comments and didn't see anybody mention this... You know at least one VPN has a free tier, right? I tried proton's free tier and liked it so much I became a customer. I know posts from their CEO have recently became controversial around here, but it's hard to argue with free.
I mean you can avoid all that. If you're just interested in music and retro games then just use soulseek and use the rom megathread. both of which are going to be either peer to peer or direct downloads. no torrenting.
Rom megathread (web search it) has quite literally everything. no need to search, no need to torrent, it's all right there. And soulseek with Nicotine+ just works like napster. sign up, be sure to share your music library, and then have at it.
Surprised no one has mentioned using a remote seedbox. There are providers who allow public torrent use, even if some of them discourage it. You can download torrents via a remote server, and then connect to that server via ssh, syncthing or sftp, which are all encrypted, and has the added benefit of giving you a shot at getting into private trackers, if you ever snag an open invite, where having a seedbox is almost essential.
I been using torrents since they became a good option a little over twenty years ago. I’ve torrented using public and all manner of private trackers both with and without vpn or tor.
I have received letters from various ISPs during those years. Here’s what it all boils down to:
What’s most important: turn off peer exchange and dht, turn on require encryption.
What’s also important: only use private trackers.
What’s less important, but good to have: use a vpn with port forwarding with your client bound to its interface. It doesn’t matter if you don’t bind the client to the vpn interface so make sure you do that.
Air traffic at Landvetter Airport outside Gothenburg was halted Thursday evening after drones were sighted near the airport, prompting an immediate closure of the airspace and the deployment of Swedish Armed Forces and police units.
Transportation officials are preparing to reduce air traffic by 10 percent at 40 major airports across the country, a move expected to disrupt travel at several major hubs starting Friday.
Aviation News – Transportation officials are preparing to reduce air traffic by 10 percent at 40 major airports across the country, a move expected to disrupt travel at several major hubs starting…
Any queer person who works on climate and energy issues—utility issues, especially—in a technical capacity of any kind is a marvel. A statistical miracle.
It's been almost a week since the launch of Keepers of the Flame, and our team continues to monitor community feedback. Over the past few days, we've deployed several hotfixes and a patch to address some of the issues players have been experiencing. In this news post, we'd like to outline what we're currently working on.
We are re-assessing the rewards from Breach monsters in map areas with an eye towards making the league mechanic encounters more rewarding directly, and thus more worth the time to engage with.
We're aware of the feedback regarding Hive encounters, with players frustrated by having to spend too much time destroying walls before the encounter. We're investigating an option to allow a large number of walls to be destroyed at the start of the encounter.
We have another batch of Foulborn uniques which didn't quite make it into launch and will be going in with the next restart patch.
Outside of Breach-specific changes, we are aware of feedback from players that late endgame farming strategies are currently lacking in diversity and progression. We are putting together a list of adjustments to address this, with an emphasis on making currently underperforming strategies more competitive. We are targeting next week for the release of these changes. A larger amount of changes to this area are planned for 3.28.
We plan to deploy some of these changes, along with additional fixes and improvements, next week. Keep an eye out on the news for the full list of changes. Thank you for your continued feedback!
Fixed a bug where packs of monsters near Shrines were not spawning if the Shrine was located within a Breach Hive.
The 'League Interface' bind (default 'V') can no longer trigger actions other than Breach encounter skills while in range and the encounter is in progress.
Fixed a bug where Foulborn United in Dreams quality was not applying immediately to minion gems.
Fixed an issue where the Black Scythe Arbalist monster from Expedition was dealing more damage than intended.
Fixed an issue where Quick Currency UI can be unusable on object such as Strongboxes when using a controller.
Fixed an issue where the player was unable to create Solo-Self-Found characters if they didn't have Scion unlocked when using a controller.
Fixed two client crashes.
Fixed an instance crash.
This patch was deployed without restarting the servers, you'll need to restart your client to patch the client changes.
The U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirms it suffered a cybersecurity incident after a suspected foreign hacker breached its network, potentially exposing sensitive data.
Trump looks increasingly out of touch and his disapproval rating is at an all-time high – which partly explains Tuesday’s election results
It’s the economy, stupid, as the timeworn saying goes, and affordability in particular. The age of aspiration has given way to the age of anxiety. The price of incumbency is that restless voters always believe that the grass is greener on the other side.
A year ago Democrats were punished for “bad vibes” around the cost of living for the middle class, however much they protested that the economic data was positive. In that climate Trump represented change: at rally after rally, he promised to lower prices from day one. Many voters felt it was worth taking a gamble in case he was right.
Now the tables are turned. Trump occupies the White House but inflation remains hard to crack. The period from July to August saw the biggest month-to-month jump in grocery prices in three years. And average grocery prices in September were about 2.7% higher than they were a year earlier. There have been especially steep increases in the prices of coffee (up 18.9%) and beef and veal (up 14.7%).
When thousands of people illegally download books, music, or films, and their internet service provider knows about it but keeps collecting monthly fees from the pirates anyway, should the company face consequences? That’s the question at the heart o…
The dye industry, heavy on the use of petrochemicals, is one of the world's biggest polluters. Now dyes can be made by microorganisms that -grow- colors.
FBI Tries to Unmask Owner of Infamous Archive.is Site
The FBI is attempting to unmask the owner behind archive.today, a popular archiving site that is also regularly used to bypass paywalls on the internet and to avoid sending traffic to the original publishers of web content, according to a subpoena posted by the website. The FBI subpoena says it is part of a criminal investigation, though it does not provide any details about what alleged crime is being investigated. Archive.today is also popularly known by several of its mirrors, including archive.is and archive.ph.
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Nolan's Batman film repeated a line that didn't land with me at the time but I have since understood: "it's not who you are, it's what you do that defines you."
At the time, I thought myself a temporarily embarrassed progressive, thinking all these good thoughts and waiting for my sleeper-cell handler to activate me. I'm a good person, I am ready to do good when the need arises, as long as I have nothing else scheduled that day.
But the malaise of the socially progressive 90s lulled me (and other Gen Xers) into a false optimism that things were just going to get better on their own. Our brains were also cooked by decades of deregulation propaganda. And TVs were getting bigger and cheaper, so who were we to complain?
Weiss is the next generation of this detached ideology. She's been simmering in absurdism and pageantry so long that I don't think she has a handle on what she really wants to do. I'm not excusing her behavior, but I can't devine a coherent platform for her. I'm not sure any of her contemporaries actually have one, either. Just for the grift? It doesn't make them less dangerous, but hopefully it makes them less intimidating for those of us who have felt the tap on the shoulder to enlist.
In conclusion, she sucks, she says inane things. Don't be surprised but also don't roll your eyes and move on. Find what you can do, no matter how small, and do it. You will instantly be steps ahead of the performative competition.
If you’ve been following the story so far, with the rise of the second Trump administration, renewable energy is out, fossil fuels are back, in particular fossil gas, personified by the selec…
first, i am not very notable so don’t bother trying to determine who i am lol. i am very close to 100,000 followers—just to demonstrate my minor success and relevancy to the topic.
i hate every algorithm-driven video sharing app. they are absolutely fantastic for the consumer; finding their likes and interests and exploiting them, but terrible if you are a creator whose content others regularly consume. i struggle to be seen by 10% of my audience. most days i wont crack beyond 400 views. Four hundred. And you might be thinking that’s 400 of my audience; maybe some new people in there as well, so at least a few are coming back regularly.. right? no lol. according to my analytics, about 98% of my viewers are not following me. they’re from recommend pages and outside of my followers.
…so… what the hell? these people followed me because they wanted to see what i had to make. these companies are keeping viewers distracted with their recommended feed so they never check out who they’re following and only consume whatever the algorithm demands be seen. 2% of my audience are followers. that’s about it. i’ve seen it as high as 3% but never beyond.
i make content because i genuinely enjoy it and always will do it. i love the art of comedy and spreading laughter. i want a big audience to make more people happy. truly, i primarily create for myself as personal enrichment. the money aspect is enticing and makes me long for a chance at making this work professionally.
but it’s so unreliable.. these algorithms are not rewarding, and they will zap you of your humanity and creativity. the cash i’m paid is like a reward i get for playing their game. it isn’t something i earn. i happened to do it their way accidentally to my benefit and theirs.
which app, exactly? Are you experiencing this with long-form platforms like Twitch and YouTube, or are you more active on short-form platforms like Tiktok and Insta? I would expect this issue to be more endemic to short-form video, but I wouldn't be surprised if the long-form platforms are screwing you over, as well. It seems like users on the shorter-form platforms are more likely to let the algorithm decide what they should watch. Personally I'm spending most of my video-consuming time on the longer form platforms, but i also tend to just stick with the 5 creators that I'm always watching. Good for those creators, not so much for new ones. I'll let the algo guide me every once in a while when I have a lot of extra time, but I am very leery of any short-form platform. They just seem so tailor-made to addict you, and I don't need another addiction.
i am on TikTok and Shorts, so yes, short-form videos. it is a huge problem over here and it suuuuuucks ass.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the long-form platforms are screwing you over
not yet but YouTube has its own headaches! lol
They just seem so tailor-made to addict you, and I don’t need another addiction.
you aren't wrong. they know what you like very, very well. it's disturbing. but if i'm gonna be forced into this dystopia can an online comedian get a little break here, eh????
ahhhhh i'm sorry to hear it. Those spaces are so calcified these days. Used to be that anyone with a half-decent online presence could break through as a creator, so online entertaining had that grassroots advantage over traditional venues and broadcast platforms. These days, it kind of feels like we've ended up right back where we started: platforms are dominated by the most popular (or most wealthy) entertainers, and everyone else is fighting like crabs in a barrel in the hopes that they'll get lucky and break through.
I guess that's a half-decent motivation to try making a name for yourself in your local community? It seems to me that creators that do break through do so by becoming popular in their local community first. People love to find a new, local comedian that they vibe with - it's a source of local pride. You build connections and get exposed to new audiences that never would have found you on TikTok. I don't know if you have any disability or other physical barriers to achieving that, but if not, and you aren't already doing open mics or whatever, that could be one way to go?
Don't use sideloading. It's gaslighting word they planted.. we own the device.. should be just called installing.. they are stoping you from installing what you want.
Downloading is copying a file from the network onto the local device. Installation extracts files to the appropriate directories, makes config changes, etc.. "Installed from a local source" doesnt make sense, as any file you would install you would first need to download or pull off of some other media.
You don't say "downloaded from a cd" do you? No, you install from a cd. If the primary delivery method for PC was via app store, you'd say "sideloaded" there too.
Downloading from an app store doesn't place an installer APK from an app store on the device's storage, like you do when downloading on a PC.
This difference is why the term "sideloading" was coined, to differentiate from using the primary delivery mechanism, the app store.
No it not. If I have a local .exe file on my HD and install it on my PC you don't say " I side loaded this software " you usually say " Iinstallled this piece of software ". Don't succumb to the conditioning these companies want us to believe.
I'm gonna keep using the word "sideloading" because it is a perfectly legitimate act and I refuse to let them redefine it to demonize us. I'm not sure why you're helping them.
If you're wondering if you would still be able to plug your phone into your computer to put files on it, let me ask you a related question: Do you think Google would kill the ability to plug your phone in and take pictures and video off of it? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious.
I'm not sure about the medium-term future, but in the short-term you'll still be able to install APK files after the changes go through. Google is retaining installation via ADB for now, and applications like anyapk make it so that you don't need to plug your phone into a PC and open up the terminal.
I know there's many people who cannot understand why others like to watch media on their phones, but that is how it is. You basically have that device anywhere with you, screens are big enough to watch stuff on.
Especially if you have saved movies/series on it, no matter if piracy or not, you got sonething to watch on that long train ride to work, or in your lunch break, or when you wait for some appointment.
Source: me, I am one of those. I am not taking my laptop everywhere. Even the smallest feasibly usable laptop is much bigger than my phone.
One of my co-workers has no computer, laptop or desktop, and does all his digital-seas sailing on his phone. I've been trying to convince him to finally get around to actually getting something low cost, but his "setup" has been working for him for years now
Ogni tanto, nonostante le cose marce… insomma le mattinate marce che promettono e professano giornate marce per intero e persino più (nel senso che poi il malumore facilmente si trascina addirittura ai giorni dopo, sopravvivendo persino il grande sonno a cui mi sottopongo… a cui in realtà non tutti i giorni posso sottopormi, ahimè e […]
Ogni tanto, nonostante le cose marce... insomma le mattinate marce che promettono e professano giornate marce per intero e persino più (nel senso che poi il ma
Tu souhaites découvrir le mouvement et savoir comment t’engager ? Nous organisons une réunion d’accueil des nouveaux et nouvelles en présentiel. Le RDV sera à l'adresse suivante : La ressourcerie Le Poulpe - 4B Rue d'Oran, 75018 Paris. La salle est accessible via l'escalier en entrant à gauche, monter les escaliers et juste à la sortie des escaliers à droite il y a la porte de la salle.
Pour t'inscrire ne clique pas sur Participer mais clique sur ce lien !
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has inserted himself into discussions over the site’s “Gaza genocide” page, saying that it has issues with neutrality and “requires immediate correction.”
Nexperia, Chinese-owned but based in the Netherlands, makes billions of simple but ubiquitous chips that auto suppliers use in parts ranging from brakes and electric windows to lights and entertainment systems.
Nissan Motor will cut production of its top-selling Rogue SUV in Japan by about 900 vehicles from next week due to a short supply of chips from Nexperia, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Germany, home to major automakers such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, said it was lobbying China in the interests of German customers of Nexperia through all available channels.
European carmakers and suppliers have rushed to apply to China for Nexperia chip export exemptions, which need to be paid for in Chinese currency, or have sought alternative suppliers.
Nissan will reportedly trim production of its top-selling Rogue SUV in Japan due to a shortage of Nexperia chips, while Germany said it is discussing the matter with affected companies.
The whole trade situation taken over the news and missed why the company was nationalized in the first place. It was mismanaged and used a personal fund by the CEO. It was under investigation long before the trade war.
The move followed an emergency hearing by the Dutch Enterprise Chamber on October 7, which concluded that there may be “valid reasons to doubt sound management at Nexperia under the leadership of former CEO Zhang Xuezheng”, a statement from the company said.
New court records published by the paper allegedly show that Chinese executive and founder of Nexperia's parent company, Wingtech, Zhang Xuezheng, forced Nexperia to place an order with his privately owned chip factory, WingSkySemi in Shanghai, worth over $200 million. That, despite it actually requiring less than $100 million worth for its own production needs.
Sure and when was the last time a company in Europe was nationalized for similar reasons? That's right, it never happens, except to targets of the empire. Mismanagement? Corruption? Tax fraud? They are ubiquitous. European politicians see it as their foremost duty to protect the guilty CEOs, stakeholders and companies.
So-called Cum-Cum and Cum-Ex tax schemes are still costing many European countries billions in lost revenue. In Germany, questions are mounting why the state is doing so little to stop them.
I'm not disputing that company being tied China had an impact in the assessment, but presenting it as the only reason is disingenuous and that seems to be the narrative the media.
To give a few examples: Talvivaara Sotkamo Ltd in Finland, Parex Bank in Latvia, Snoras in Lithuania.
[em]Apologies in advance if I misrepresented anybody or missed any crucial bits of information.[/em]
[hr] [ul]
[li]Julian (myself) and Ted ([url=https://mastodon.social/@TallTed]@tallted@mastodon.social[/url]) began the session discussing moderation tool
Apologies in advance if I misrepresented anybody or missed any crucial bits of information.
Julian (myself) and Ted (tallted@mastodon.social) began the session discussing moderation tools in USENET
There are comparable systems to how the threadiverse propagates content. Messages are sent to a remote server who is then responsible for distribution.
In relation to moderation, there was more ambiguity. Local users could set up their own kill file but whether moderation could be done from the remote server was not discussed.
We discuss more about actions done to contexts (aka topics, threads)
Dmitri (dmitri@social.coop) joins at or before this point, and points out that there continues to be confusion over the context property and @context.
Example actions are offered: Removing a context from an audience, and locking a context from new contributions
Re: crossposting, Ted discusses the need for implementor changes to allow for contexts to be a part of multiple audiences
ed: much of the discussion at this point shifts away from ForumWG terminology and toward email nomenclature for ease of understanding. ForumWG nomenclature is used for these minutes
Dmitri points out that a breaking change to AP might be needed in order to break apart header (addressing/recipients) and body
Julian asks why, and Dmitri mentions signing difficulties wrt bto and bcc.
Julian asks if anybody uses bto and bcc, and Dmitri says "yes, absolutely", and said we should check out darius@friend.camp's Fediverse Observatory for the answer
Julian says that as currently implemented, resolvable contexts do not necessarily need to be inherited. Lemmy explicitly does not want to inherit contexts, and their published contexts always refer to a local representation (ping nutomic)
Julian steps through an example. NodeBB A federates context /topic/1, NodeBB B receives the topic and assigns it /topic/4bdffa. A later Removes the context. B doesn't know what A/topic/1 is so needs to resolve it, get its' root post, and see if it matches any know context on B, then act on it.
Ted and Dmitri caution that this is difficult and messy, and strongly recommend that the root-level context must be inherited
For what it's worth, Ted and Dmitri convinced me that we need to move toward a strict inheritance of the root object's context. It means a little more work upfront but will make it easier down the line.
This post is where we continue that discussion, asynchronously, so stay tuned!
only if the "root" (of the reply tree, i assume) has the same context you want to participate in. there are plenty of situations where you *don't* necessarily want to do this. replies can cross contextual boundaries, so you need to account for this.
trwnh@mastodon.social Yes, you're right. There are nuances and situations where you would explicitly not want to inherit the root object's context.
I am dealing with the typical day-to-day use case of replying to an object with the expectation that is be part of the same existing context.
However I am more than happy to make this clear in the FEP and spell out alternative situations where context inheritance would not apply.
The situation I found myself in was one where anybody can (and does) include whatever context they want. In that case, it's difficult to determine whether disparate contexts are actually referring to a common set of the same objects, or whether they were disparate on purpose (i.e. a fork.)
To that end, it meant that as a receiver there was no guarantee that any contexts I'd be sent would map to any contexts I know.
Strict root-level inheritance for the common use-case would at least disambiguate a lot of this.
> The object SHOULD inherit a context other than its own. It is RECOMMENDED that the object inherit the context of the object it is in reply to. Doing so will allow for all members of a context collection (per FEP f228) to refer to the same context. > > The object MAY inherit context further up the chain.
to
> The object MUST inherit the context from the root node, if one is reported. Otherwise the object MUST NOT publish a context. Doing so will allow for all members of a context collection (per FEP f228) to refer to the same context. > > Implementors SHOULD map that inherited context to a local identifier (if applicable) to support future use-cases/activities.
trwnh@mastodon.social ForumWG moving toward recommending that the root node's context MUST be inherited is not incompatible with 7888 per se, but 7888 does allow for creating your own context.
I think this might be a blessing in disguise. In situations where the root node doesn't contain a context at all, then creating your own context has its place. I am not sure how this would work when you try to do moderation actions against a context that isn't really yours though.
i don't think that's the right way to look at it. the reply tree and the context are separate things. you can *try* to find the root of the reply tree, but even if you do, there is no hard requirement to copy that context vs any other context. you get to choose which conversation you want to be a part of, including choosing *not* to be part of a conversation. also, any id may be equivalent to other ids. what you want is to arrive at the same information.
so generally creating your own context is something you'd want to do if you e.g. "fork" the thread, but you can also be like what lemmy is proposing and just always create your own local context, as long as you give consumers a way to link/merge equivalent contexts together (via something like as:alsoKnownAs or owl:sameAs, or otherwise something like rel=canonical)
California-based startup Reflect Orbital aims to build a swarm of 4,000 giant mirrors in low Earth orbit to "sell sunlight" to customers at night. Experts warn that the mirrors could mess with telescopes, blind stargazers and impact the environment.
Reflect Orbital, which was founded in 2021, has recently taken the first step in a scheme to sell sunlight at night by bouncing solar rays off giant "reflectors" that can redirect the vital resource almost anywhere on our planet. By doing this, the company aims to extend daylight hours in specific locations, thus allowing paying customers to generate solar power, grow crops and replace urban lighting.
But experts say it is a wildly impractical plan that should never get off the ground. What's more, the resulting light pollution could devastate ground-based astronomy, distract aircraft pilots and even blind stargazers.
hydrashok
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •like this
adhocfungus e dhhyfddehhfyy4673 like this.
seathru
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •Use someone else's wifi.
I used to park my car in a Home Depot parking lot when I went to work with a laptop torrenting until the battery died.
like this
adhocfungus, dhhyfddehhfyy4673, Triumph e DaGeek247 like this.
RoabeArt [he/him]
in reply to seathru • • •I used to do that at the Burger King that was next to my old house. I'd prop my laptop up by the window the faced the restaurant and start downloading.
Then at some point they added something to the WiFi that, after you've been connected for like 30 minutes, disconnects you. You wouldn't be banned or anything, it would just cut the connection until you go back to the captive portal and click "I Agree" again.
I feel like a lot of public WiFis these days have data caps and throttling to circumvent downloading.
comrade_twisty
in reply to seathru • • •whoever loves Digit
in reply to seathru • • •HelloRoot
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •Go to the small local library, they usually have free wifi, sometimes without registration and if you're lucky they don't filter any traffic.
There is also a map of open wifi hotspots online which work without registration also, but I'm too lazy to dig out the link.
Ask online for somebody to share their VPN. Many subscriptions explicitly allow inviting friends and family and allow multiple simultaneous connections.
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Eyedust
in reply to HelloRoot • • •Local library worker here. Can confirm we don't track connections, we only tally how many use our wifi if we can figure it out. Basically the tally just includes whoever brings out their phone in the library.
Just be aware that the state can supply your library with free internet, and I'm not sure how that's set up. I personally don't like connecting to random open wifi, official or no.
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hietsu
in reply to Eyedust • • •maxprime
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •like this
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i_stole_ur_taco
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •There’s a few free vpn providers out there. You could do a little homework and see if they are a good option. I tend to mistrust free services like that (if I’m not paying, who is, and what are they paying for?), but if you’re in a pinch it’s something to research.
Another option is to look for deals. Sometimes VPN providers will have a super sale a few times a year. I think once I got a NordVPN subscription for THREE YEARS for like $60. It’s more expensive than a single month of anything, yes, but if you can afford a onetime expense it’s nice not to have to worry about a recurring monthly cost.
Your other option is to not use torrents. Usenet is still the grand daddy of file sharing and is pretty much anonymous. Most Usenet hosts are paid, but back in the day even ISPs ran their own servers. It could be worth looking and seeing if there’s any free or low cost providers there.
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liliumstar
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •You can get into private trackers and trust them. Not recommended, but some do.
Generally speaking, the copyright trolls only target public trackers and DHT. There have been some instances of them making way into TL and others. Your ISP could also identify torrenting on private trackers if they wanted to, even with mitigations. In my experience and from what I hear, most ISPs do not go to these lengths.
So, there a risk doing the above. Whether or not it's worth it until you can afford a decent VPN is up to you.
Aside: Please do not use a free VPN for torrenting (or tor, for that matter). They are either like RiseUp and run on donations for people who really, really need them, or Proton which is commercial and specifically try to block or slow down the traffic. Either way, if ruins it for everyone else.
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LisaTrevor [she/her, they/them]
in reply to liliumstar • • •dumfuq
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •HumanPerson
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •mistermodal
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •bss03
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •frongt
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •_cryptagion [he/him]
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •like this
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whoever loves Digit
in reply to _cryptagion [he/him] • • •_cryptagion [he/him]
in reply to whoever loves Digit • • •hey hows about you go fuck yourself
whoever loves Digit
in reply to _cryptagion [he/him] • • •_cryptagion [he/him]
in reply to whoever loves Digit • • •plateee
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •hexagonwin
in reply to plateee • • •metaStatic likes this.
cooper8
in reply to plateee • • •PastafARRian
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •Without passing any moral judgement on you whatsoever, if you posted this without a VPN, your post is permanently tied to your IP address and thus your home and is evidence of your intent to commit a crime, even if you said it's "for research". I wouldn't do that again and now I'm worried for you in general if you weren't worried to post this.
Generally nobody can afford to lose their privacy. It's $1/device/month per person if you get 5 other people to share a Mullvad account and you shouldn't do it because you're trying to pirate. A VPN is not a tool for piracy. You should be conducting all internet activity in it unless you do not care about the government seeing it.
ScratchySoft
in reply to PastafARRian • • •hietsu
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •danisth [he/him]
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •mustlane
in reply to danisth [he/him] • • •Uhmm, I know that it might come off as begging, but may I also have an invite? I've been using RuTracker for 5 years at this point, but some stuff is just isn't there.
Thanks in advance!
Ilandar
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •like this
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J-Bone
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •An alternative that hasn't been presented yet.
Why not use less well known foreign public trackers? Rutracker has a stupid amount of content, including a lot of niche music content.
If you are worried about Rutracker being too well known, you can try Mazepa Torrent. This is only relevant for movies and shows. Their collection isn't as good as rutracker, but they have most new releases. While the default audio language is Ukrainian, English is always included (this would an issue for non-English language ьщмшуі, but English subtitles are usually included).
BlueÆther
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •Move down under to New Zealand - although we do have a 3 strikes law, the clament has to pay all fees upfront to thr ISP and get a court order first...
We mostly raw dog it down here
Jessica
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •janNatan
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •I scrolled through the comments and didn't see anybody mention this... You know at least one VPN has a free tier, right? I tried proton's free tier and liked it so much I became a customer. I know posts from their CEO have recently became controversial around here, but it's hard to argue with free.
protonvpn.com/pricing
Pricing
Protonwhoever loves Digit
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •TigerAce
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •rozodru
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •I mean you can avoid all that. If you're just interested in music and retro games then just use soulseek and use the rom megathread. both of which are going to be either peer to peer or direct downloads. no torrenting.
Rom megathread (web search it) has quite literally everything. no need to search, no need to torrent, it's all right there. And soulseek with Nicotine+ just works like napster. sign up, be sure to share your music library, and then have at it.
Cevilia (she/they/…)
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •I would suggest don't.
For downloading, look at DDL sites.
For uploading, if you can't do it safely, don't. Stash it all, make backups, keep it until you can do it safely.
kugmo
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •See if Tribler works or fuck it and download anyway.
Just do it.
XNX
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •yardratianSoma
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •stupid_asshole69 [none/use name]
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •I been using torrents since they became a good option a little over twenty years ago. I’ve torrented using public and all manner of private trackers both with and without vpn or tor.
I have received letters from various ISPs during those years. Here’s what it all boils down to:
What’s most important: turn off peer exchange and dht, turn on require encryption.
What’s also important: only use private trackers.
What’s less important, but good to have: use a vpn with port forwarding with your client bound to its interface. It doesn’t matter if you don’t bind the client to the vpn interface so make sure you do that.
CaptainBlinky
in reply to ScratchySoft • • •