Welcome back everyone! Today we are going to continue what is going to be a three part series on how to pirate wisely. Last time we touched on this topic by explaining that peer to peer file sharing is out while torrents are in and that the best way to be safe is to use traffic encryption built into your torrent client. So now what else can we do? People don’t know what you’re doing anymore right? Well, not exactly. Let’s use Azureus’ built in plugin installer to be a little more sure, and a little more safe.

Open Azureus, click Plugins, then click Installation Wizard. You’ll see a new window asking what source you would like to install a plugin from. Choose the first option “By list from sourceforge.net” then click next. Yes, you are going to see many neat and eye catching plugins. For now ignore than and locate the plugin named SafePeer. Note this list is in alphabetical order (duh). Check the box beside SafePeer, and click next. From here your plugin will be installed and once done, you will be prompted to restart Azureus. Do this. Once back up, click plugins, the click SafePeer. Make sure this is enabled, and ensure that asyncronous loading is disabled (this means that your torrents will begin downloading before your lists for SafePeer are updated, which you do not want). Lastly make sure periodic updates are enabled, and save your settings, then restart Azureus once more. You are now much more safe than you were previously. Do you feel it? Does it feel good? Yes it does.

So what did we just do? Let me explain with an example of another dirty trick turned by those wanting to incriminate you for your actions. Often parties will connect to popular torrent trackers (servers which assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol. – from Wikipedia) and have a look at the IP addresses which are connecting and using these trackers to share packets. This IP can be used to link to your ISP, then you. What SafePeer does is constantly update a list containing known parties performing such actions, and blacklists them from pinging your IP address. This makes sure that for the most part, anyone who shouldn’t see you cannot see you.

This concludes part 2. Tune in shortly for more information on how you can pirate wisely.