Love the accent colour on the launcher too! Mind revealing what launcher that is? Rofi?Ulauncher?

HONK

Man, I love this. To my naïve eye it still looks a bit like a Windows install, but completely customized to suit your taste. This experience is what I want when I finally make the switch :P

That explains how I got caught🤣

Jokes aside, being part of the seed is all they care about, even if you’re just leeching? The wording in those letters sounds like they take issue in you uploading and sharing that file back.

But I’ve checked, you’re right. In their communication they don’t provide anything that proves that you uploaded a file or that you’ve done that for a set amount of time, they just use your IP address and time as proof.

So, to check if I got it right: “Never upload” is simply not possible because (1) the process of downloading something always includes uploading some information about the download and (2) copyright trolls don’t care how much you upload, what parts you’ve uploaded, what information you’ve uploaded or how long, they just care that you’re participating in the process of downloading a file, and that always includes uploading some information. They simply persecute torrenters because unlike with streaming websites, with a torrent they can easily monitor in real-time which IP is connected.

I’ve not gotten into self-hosting yet, but as someone who has gotten a Filesharing-Abmahnung amounting to roughly 1700€ I can tell you what I would do. All of this is of course purely theoretical.

Regarding torrenting and piracy, it is my understanding that German law (same with most other countries) has yet to find a decisive answer. But, to keep yourself safe, so far the consensus is as follows:

1. Don’t use torrents.
2. If you use torrents, never upload. ('Tis a trap, see below)
3. If you use torrents, use a VPN.

Now let’s put this into practice, with examples for each use case. Our goal here is to never break existing German law. The further you go away from option one, the higher the risk of breaking the law.

1. Don’t use torrents. If you never interact with anything regarding torrents, you cannot be sued for torrenting, and that’s really the only issue in Germany. As far as I’m aware, you’re not liable if you simply download or stream something from a website freely accessible on the internet. Examples are streaming sites like Aniwave or download (DDL) sites like DDLbase.net. Hell, you could click on one of them and watch something right now. No one cares. To make this a bit more organized one could even use Cloudstream, which is an app that can aggregate “streaming websites” through external add-ons and it gives you a beautiful UI for it. Available for Linux, Windows and Android.

2. “If you need or want to use torrents, never upload.” is what I thought, because it sounds reasonable, right? If you look around on the internet (and in my personal use case) the courts and attorneys that send out these Abmahnungen always seem to take issue with you sharing and uploading files. And mostly music, not movies or TV series. By uploading you’re sharing files that do not belong to you. So, if you deactivate uploads on your torrent client, you’re done, right? If you don’t share, you aren’t technically breaking the law, right? Wrong. And for two reasons: (1) The process of downloading something always includes uploading some information about the download. So while you might be able to stop uploading files, you can’t stop the upload of other information needed for the correct download of the files. Which leads us to the second reason: (2) These attorneys don’t care what information you’ve uploaded, how much you’ve uploaded, what parts you’ve uploaded or how long, they just care that they caught you participating - in any way, shape or form - to their tracked torrent. You participated, you necessarily both downloaded and uploaded something, you broke the law. If you want to make sure you don’t upload nor download anything, use a Debrid service like RealDebrid which downloads it for you. Of course you’re only using it to torrent Linux ISOs for you, so you’re not really breaking the law anyway.

3. Now correctly: If you use torrents, use a VPN. You either relegate it to someone else (a Debrid service or a seedbox like Ultra.cc) or you do it yourself by using a VPN. You’re not breaking the law by connecting to a VPN or a seedbox.

Now, to the point that you’re probably most concerned about. “What if one day sharing Linux ISOs becomes illegal, what if the program or kill-switch fails, what if the VPN actually does sell my data, what if the police use brute-force and physically take the datacenters, what if X or Y protection fails?” Enter layered protection. For example:

• Use a VPN, but also never upload. This way, even if your program accidentally uploads a file, it doesn’t matter because your VPN is there. Use a VPN, but also use a Debrid service like RealDebrid that downloads the torrents on your behalf. This way, even if your Debrid service sells your IP, it doesn’t matter because your VPN masked it. It is highly unlikely that both fail, and even if there’s still a risk, you’re statistically in a much better situation than you were before. You’re basically doubling your chances of success.
• Use streaming and DDL-websites, but use a VPN too. Let’s say your VPN does sell your data and everyone finds out that you, you, did a thing. It doesn’t matter, because you were just browsing streaming websites, and no one cares about those.

P.s. This approach doesn’t replace using good tools to keep you safe. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if you have 5 locks on your front door if they’re all made out of chocolate. Use a good VPN, use a good torrent client, use good trackers, etc. And lastly:

Don’t stress too much.

A friend of mine uses NordVPN, has a kill-switch on the VPN and uses Stremio with a Debrid service to make sure he never uploads nor downloads any torrents on his server, and paid for it with a Paysafecard that isn’t digitally tied to him. Is this perfect? No. He is the farthest away from option number 1 and is exposing himself to risks. He can theoretically be identified if you look up the security footage of where he bought the Paysafecard. NordVPN has not been proven to be as secure as Mullvad, has no diskless servers and the clients aren’t open-source. He paid the VPN with his credit card. The single kill-switch can fail. He is still dabbling with torrents by using a Debrid service. He is using public trackers. But remember: The FBI or in your case the Bundesnachrichtendienst will not invade Panama to shut down your VPN, then threaten the developer of your favourite streaming client to install a backdoor to see that it’s really you that is pirating this show right now, and then come knocking on your door because you pirated KissXSis or the latest season of Game of Thrones. You’re simply dealing with copyright trolls and to quote someone else in this comment section: “Trolls will look for the best return on their trolling”. As long as you take just two good precautions, you will be safe from most adversaries. And that’s really all you can and want to achieve.

Edit: corrected the “upload” parts. Thanks @[email protected]!

Got it, thanks! Very specific advice, I feel a bit more secure now and I’ll save this for when I have to replace the switches, that being hopefully never :P.

Good to know, I’ll look out for those signs then, thanks a lot!

Praise iFixit. Soldering required does mean that I’ll have to learn that first though. Do you have, by any chance, a recommendation for a sort of “intro to soldering” type of video/content that I can start with?

I can hear this comment °-°

So basically you’re saying that my beloved MX Vertical will 100% fail pretty soon? I freaking love this mouse, it’s so comfortable and elegant and a joy to use :(

It was @[email protected]’s pun ;) And I liked it too!

It’s because you will not take care of it immediately…

but instead mid-journey. Midjourney! Ahahahahah, get it!!! (I’m lonely pls send help)

This is freaking beautiful, gives me big Harry Potter vibes!

Holy sh** this to me looks practically identical to Windows 10 (at least to a noob like me), had to double check it was in fact Linux🤣 Good job!

A very interesting read, and indeed that’s exactly what I observed! Once I pressed on the [email protected] hyperlink that @[email protected] created, I might have “unlocked” (indexed?) it for lemm.ee because from that point on it found the community every time I searched for it in the search bar, even without being subscribed to it yet. Or maybe someone else had already searched for it after reading my post and was patient enough to let the indexing initiate. Anyways, it works, thanks for your explanation, hope this helps someone else too!

You’re right, it IS a bit slow! I tried it again with another community I’m interested in and after it said “no results” I kind of assumed it was done searching, but after 5 or so seconds the community eventually popped up. This happened while trying on lemm.ee through a browser, not through the app I was using.

I’ve read the “!” tip many times, but it just doesn’t work when using the Android app “Liftoff” or the webapp “Voyager” (yet). But in those apps one can set a search filter for communities when searching for something.

What did work was pressing on the hyperlink you generated when you typed the community with an “!” in front of it, so I guess that’s another way to reach a community. Anyways, thanks for all your help!