Not sure if I used the correct terms but what is the difference in security and privacy between downloading from a public wifi (or a closed wifi; with password) and mobile hotspot (sharing 4G/5G data from your phone to your computer)? Which one is recommended or does it not matter?
I know I am paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Identifying and evaluating vulnerabilities is a critical component of any security plan. In a good one, any vulnerabilities will be well outside the scope of feasibility.
To cast FUD on piracy in general. To inextricably link “pirate” with “pedophile” in the mind of the general public. To convince the general public to treat copyright infringement as criminal rather than a civil matter.
They hire or extort someone to initially seed from some third world ISPs, and the swarm takes over from there. It never gets traced back to them.
You aren’t the objective, just the means. The purpose is to make piracy a truly objectionable practice in the eyes of the public.
None of this is a likely threat, but is any of it completely outside the realm of feasibility?
Yes. It’s well beyond being worth considering. You’re describing a massive conspiracy where hundreds of people from multiple countries’ governments as well as private corporations would all need to work together without any information leakage. All this to entrap some Canadian programmer who tried to torrent season 2 of a TV show aired in 1990. If any of this was worth doing, it would have been done by now, yet we hear of nothing like this ever happening.
I’ve gone my entire adult life downloading copyrighted material without using a VPN and it’s never caused me any problem. My contract with my ISP confers me a level of trust that I’m perfectly comfortable with. I’m familiar with the Canadian law around this stuff, and how it’s been interpreted by the courts in the past. I am under no threat of financial damages being pursued against me. My ISP has no incentive to log my online activity or report it to foreign authorities. And even if they did, the Canadian courts limit the pursuable damages to four figures; barely enough to pay for the lawyer that would file the suit.
What are you even on about? One person could conceivably add CSAM to a torrent that you eventually download, and you could find yourself subject to a criminal investigation.
“I’ve been fucking multiple partners weekly my entire adult life. without protection, and I haven’t gotten AIDS yet.” <— That’s you. That’s what you sound like.
You are giving your ISP every thing that a rightsholder needs to harass you, with your understanding that laws and corporate policies currently protect you from that harassment. But you ignore that those policies can be changed, and those changes can apply to data you’ve previously given to your ISP. When rightsholders start arguing “think of the children” and pointing at such torrents, that’s the kind of thing that gets laws and policies changed.
Why give them the information in the first place? Why not keep that information away from your ISP? Why trust them to do the right thing when you can easily deny them the ability to do wrong?