If you use bittorents a lot,I will not be surprised if you told me you either received an email or letter from your ISP(Internet Service Provider) concerning a file your downloaded from the internet.Have you ever wondered how they get this information? Most Bittorent clients for downloading torrents give information such as IPs of peers(other people downloading or seeding the torrent) and the percentage of the file they have downloaded.The owner of the copyright for the file you are downloading can easily use a bittorent client to track you and then forward that information to your ISP.Your ISP then sends you a warning in email or writing.Below is a screenshot from uTorrent.
When you click the Peers tab on uTorrent,you can see the list of IPs and the clients other seeders/leechers are using.This is how they track you.They can even use the information from bittorent clients to determine what percentage of the file you’ve downloaded.
On the File tab(from image above),you can get information on what percentage of the file has been downloaded.This doesn’t apply to uTorrent alone,all bittorent clients readily have IP and other information available to any other person who is seeding or downloading the torrent.
To download torrents safely,the best thing to do is to use a software that blocks IPs of known organizations or people who track you.The best software to use of this is Peer Guardian.
Peer Guardian(image above) blocks IPs and makes it harder for them to track you.
When you click on the List Manager, in Peer Guradian you can specify which IPs to block.You can even create and add you own list if you have knowledge of IPs that track downloads.
Note that no software is 100 percent safe but using Peer Guardian will make it harder for you to be tracked.
