this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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42
Torrenting without vpn for EU resident (reddthat.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
64 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number and they say piracy is going to receive a huge blow. Obviously I have no intention of stopping but now I'll have to start using a VPN, if I want to continue my way. However, I do not trust VPNs a lot and I do not like the idea of paying for them (I could just pay for the movie in the first place)

I looked into using Tor network to torrent but it seems like it'd be a hindrance to the network itself, which is going to be a huge inconvenience for other users. Additionally I know that even if I found a way to throttle my bandwidth to remove this problem, Tor isn't exactly made for this sort of thing anyways.

Now, obviously it doesn't have to be torrenting, but I would gladly hear any suggestions on how to avoid paying and getting movies and shows without being caught doing it. Truthfully I was only streaming from websites for many years, so I do not know a lot about torrenting vs direct downloading either. Thanks in advance for any responses.

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[–] [email protected] 113 points 3 months ago (2 children)

EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number

no they're not.

the EU ruled that IP addresses are personally identifiable information (PII) for the purposes of GDPR compliance EIGHT YEARS AGO. this means that internet services cannot store your IP address without your consent and explicitly telling you why they need it, they have to delete it when they're done with it, and if they are to be stored in any way for aggregate data then it needs to be anonymised so that it can no longer be associated with you.

any change to associate IPs with you would break the GDPR.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Greece did it anyway and EU made us, actually. https://bernitsaslaw.com/2025/03/27/law-51792025-on-digital-piracy the "dynamic blocking measures targeting end-users" are connection of the IP with the equivalent of a social security number of the people inside the house where the infringement occurs.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

your link has nothing about the EU forcing the issue, in fact this seems to blatantly fly in the face of eu law.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yes, I have failed to find an english article that covers this issue properly, not much I can do if there isn't coverage. Maybe EU didn't force it and I was misinformed but the government passed it anyway as you can see.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Something similar happened in Sweden, the politicians said that the EU is forcing Sweden to store data about users. Like, "we don't want this... but we have no choice!" And then it turned out that what they did was actually against EU laws and Sweden was fined for doing what they did and ordered to stop.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Hope people don’t re-elect such dumb bricks…

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

That's crazy, maybe its the same thing over here.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

i can indeed see, and if the things the greek ad-article are saying but are not in the text of the law are true then it is very troubling and will probably result in sanctions from the EU, because the union have been on the asses of the greek government for years now to get them to curb corruption. it is also even more reason to get a vpn.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

To be honest our country is run by a Mafia that has been committing literal crimes for a while now, this would be a drop in the bucket. Ironically, one previous offense involved the use of software to spy on the personal electronic devices of politicians and influential people, both in the ruling party and outside of it. Another was a criminal neglect of the train system that ended up in a train crash with 57 people dead. Not to mention the subsequent cover-up which involved editing audio records of the incident before their release to shift the blame and many other false records, the politicians literally disguising themselves as random civilians that one time and appearing on TV saying how safe they feel travelling after the incident and other things that don't really come to mind right now.

If I may say, no, I don't think EU is coming to save us. They barely gave them a slap on the wrist for all these offenses combined.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

We have something similar in France for more than a decade. As you are torrenting, you are obviously sharing your ip with other torrent clients and this is where they get you. The agency (used to be called Hadopi but they change their name and can't recall the new one) is following some torrents, gets your ip from torrent clients and then ask internet provider to give name/address. You then received a warning letter, upon 3 letters received, you can get a fine or go to court.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

They are actually working on a simplified GDPR version. Nothing good into the pipe.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago (2 children)

EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number and they say piracy is going to receive a huge blow.

Sounds like an April Fools joke.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately needing a VPN is not.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I torrent without VPN in the EU. I've been doing so for years. Still no letters as of writing this comment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

It massively depends on the country - it's probably fine in Southern and Eastern Europe but not for example in Germany were if I'm not mistaken copyright violation is even part of Criminal Law rather than Civil Law as in pretty much the rest of the World.

Personally ever since I lived in the UK - which has the most insane levels of civil society surveillance in Europe, including of Internet usage - I got into the habit of doing pretty much everything behind a VPN, which also helps with peace of mind for the whole torreting thing no matter which country I'm living in at the moment, plus I pay 5 euros a month for the VPN which is less than a single streaming service, so in a way it pays itself (it's funny how piracy compensates for the costs of protecting myself from dragnet surveillance).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I live in Germany and my brother and me torrent and no letters for years so I do not know what you are on about.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You need to pay for a VPN. It's like a condom for the internet. Frankly, stop trying to avoid something that you should already be using.

Mullvad is a good start. Go purchase it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Didn't mullvad stop port forwarding? That ain't great for seeding.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yes, Proton VPN is a better option if you require that feature.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Perhaps? It works just fine for me but I'm a bit of a filthy casual who doesn't torrent all that much

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Unless this condom has a pocket dimension inside that absorbs all the "genetic information" that's in there and gives it up to someone else to put it in your partner anyways...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Iirc Mulvad doesn't save *any" information since they use a RAM only infrastructure. Yoy can also pay for them with either crypto or by sending them a letter with the money. There's your pocket dimension

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Well, by pocket dimension I meant some way to access and store my personal data without me knowing or consenting. There's merit to what you say but how can you be sure that mulvad doesn't save anything at all. Would someone be able to prove it if they did? If they randomly see one day the company is going under and decide to sell everyone out to make a quick buck before abandoning the ship for good?

Truly I may be a little paranoid but its why I'd like to find an alternative with a bit less gambling if it is possible. Especially since the fines will be pretty big if I am caught.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

they have been publicly audited multiple times, their stack is open source, they require no info about you at all (paying cash is possible), their architecture is tor-like in that connections bounce around inside their network before leaving for a destination.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

So the solution is to what... ? Raw dog it?

  • mutually assured destruction: if a VPN starts leaking network activity it's suicide for their business model
  • distribution of concerns: VPN services as a rule don't give a shit about your torrent traffic the way a copyright holder might care about your IP

If you're out here creampie-ing the whole internet you don't have either of those barriers but you still carry all of that risk.

Even condoms very rarely break that doesn't make them in general useless. Perfection is the enemy of progress.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you have some source for this IP thing in the EU? I wasn't aware of any new privacy laws.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

only sources I can find are in Greek since this is my home country where this was implemented, but basically EU forced us to do it so I thought other countries would also have this problem. https://techmaniacs.gr/episimo-syndesi-afm-me-ip-kai-prostima-se-osoys-katevazoyn-katanalonoyn-kai-diakinoyn-peratiko-periechomeno/ see if you can translate this to english, will come back with an uptade if I find something better. update: found this article in english only, but the “dynamic blocking measures targeting end-users” are connection of the IP with the equivalent of a social security number of the people inside the house where the infringement occurs.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

this is an ad for a vpn.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Unfortunately there's little coverage in English of this issue.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Where have you heard about this nonsense law?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I corrected it in my replies, maybe I should have corrected the post itself too, the law is in effect in my country, Greece. There are multiple articles about it and everyone is discussing it here in the country. Apologies for any confusion.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's a lifestyle, not a way to save money. I pay for piracy related tech more than a netflix subscription costs.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This. I don't do much but I have spent $1,200 on HDDs alone. Then there's the true saviors of the internet with hundreds of TB, even PB of backed up, virus-free content

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I don’t do much but I have spent $1,200 on HDDs alone.

this might interest you when its ready in a couple months. this is exactly the issue its working toward resolving.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Seedboxes go from €2 to €100+ a month depending on how much you will torrent and how much space you need on the box alongside other factors. My personal choices are Gigarapid and Ultra but there are others

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

EU is making a new law which makes your IP the same as (something similar to) your social security number.

If that's true, then even VPNs won't help. Not sure how they will implement such a thing, but it's obviously to protect the children !

There's also the I2P network, which is similar to TOR but with torrenting in mind and other nice tools and utilities ! However, it's slower, has less traffic/seeder and don't even bother to try and find some older movies/music or hidden gems.

It's getting better and some applications, like qbittorrent, are adding the i2p network. In the near future, when they have protected the children, I2P will be the place to be for a free and open Internet. However, you will probably be tagged as criminal...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I'm not sure what the entire EU is doing, but they did this in my country, Greece. They say it has already been implemented so I don't know what exactly this is going to entail. Will be checking this I2p thing out soon enough though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Update: Hilariously, while looking into finding english articles for said law in Greece, I stumbled upon one possible answer for my problem. The SSN that connects to the IP address has no way of pinpointing a perpetrator in a place with free WiFi like an internet Cafe. This method is not really safe, for the law has only passed recently but in extremely classic Greek government fashion, the law has many gray areas and potential loopholes! Tell me what you think about this idea.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Torrenting in a café? Get Mullvad and stop complaining.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

How about you don't go saturating some poor sods public WiFi that he is kind enough to provide to his customers? Cheapskate

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I use Tor to get magnet links and feed them to my clearnet torrenting client, no issues so far and the ISP would have to breach my privacy to provide my IP.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Try Tailscale.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Yo, 2 things:

  1. I too heard that about Greece, but I couldnt find any article about it, only stuff I heard from others which they probably read them on FB. Do you have any (reputable) article coverthing this? I just considered those roumors it as fearmongering and moved on.

  2. Yo, since I haven't seen you around, just to know, we have a sonewhat active greek community at https://fedia.io/m/Greece

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hey, thanks for the heads up on the Greek community, I'll be giving that a visit for sure. Also yes, I can find articles that are trustworthy but they are all in Greek, sadly xD. I might look again sometime though, will let you know!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

but they are all in Greek

Haha sure, send me the greek ones, μπορω να τα διαβασω:)

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