There are many layers we could talk about when we say “privacy”.
First about IP:
publicly broadcast your IP: this is done if you announce yourself to one or multiple trackers. Their jobs is to list the clients sharing specific torrents. They maintain a list of IPs and respective progress on the torrents so all clients can connect with each other depending or their needs. You can use this to bootstrap your client need and leave instantly if you don’t want to be found (defeat the purpose of torrent…).
there is also the DHT protocol that will distribute the list of IPs amoungs clients so no one has the full list. I am not well versed into it yet. You can search for more info.
finally PEX is a peer exchange protocol to get new clients from the one you already have.
There’s also traffic monitoring:
like https you probably want to encrypt your traffic if you don’t want people to catch it. Most decent clients have the option but it’s never set strictly so the choice of encryption is optional on default. ISP love to sniff your traffic, I usually don’t care but whenever I need to download an other Linux distro image I need to use a VPN or be throttled. I’m not even doing it to hide anything, just to use my internet connection…
The op question makes no sense to me though. Torrents are just file you want to get/share, there’s no privacy involved in that. Maybe they meant torrent clients.
To add to what the other person said, if you are not using your own IP (as in a VPN), then that isn’t much of a concern as long as the connection between you and your VPN server is properly secured and encrypted.
If you do solid research on it, it shouldn’t be a huge concern. Considering all my charges for my VPN are processed through Gibraltar and they post third-party audits on data retention and clarify what is logged, then I’d trust mine.
Care to share why those are terrible? Because from what I’ve seen Proton and Mullvad are pretty reputable.
I agree NordVPN isn’t a good one, they have had a bad rep for breaches in the past and tbh that site used to be more credible a year or two ago before they reformatted and inserted all the ads in there.
Maybe share actual reputable VPNs then than talking down?
Technically speaking, if the people really wanted to remain fully anonymous they could’ve used a VPN to login to their email and the information could’ve then pointed to a VPN service which would have to comply with the authorities. Not sure how much they have to comply with Swiss orders in those regards but it seems like this is unfortunate but not fully on Proton imo.
Don’t torrents reveal your IP?
There are many layers we could talk about when we say “privacy”.
First about IP:
There’s also traffic monitoring:
The op question makes no sense to me though. Torrents are just file you want to get/share, there’s no privacy involved in that. Maybe they meant torrent clients.
To add to what the other person said, if you are not using your own IP (as in a VPN), then that isn’t much of a concern as long as the connection between you and your VPN server is properly secured and encrypted.
But then you need to trust your VPN.
If you do solid research on it, it shouldn’t be a huge concern. Considering all my charges for my VPN are processed through Gibraltar and they post third-party audits on data retention and clarify what is logged, then I’d trust mine.
This is a decent list from a trustworthy website, although the one I use isn’t on there.
@simsymbiote @SrEstegosaurio
This is a terrible list top 3
Mullvad, IVPN, ProtonVPN
NordVPN shouldn’t even be listed what 🤡🤡🤡
Care to share why those are terrible? Because from what I’ve seen Proton and Mullvad are pretty reputable.
I agree NordVPN isn’t a good one, they have had a bad rep for breaches in the past and tbh that site used to be more credible a year or two ago before they reformatted and inserted all the ads in there.
Maybe share actual reputable VPNs then than talking down?
Proton busted some French environmental activists IIRC. Mullvad sketches me out because of where the servers are located lol
So it seems like it was ProtonMail that handed over the information and not their VPN service. Just for clarification.
Technically speaking, if the people really wanted to remain fully anonymous they could’ve used a VPN to login to their email and the information could’ve then pointed to a VPN service which would have to comply with the authorities. Not sure how much they have to comply with Swiss orders in those regards but it seems like this is unfortunate but not fully on Proton imo.