Do I have to expect a Copyright Strike?

Hello. I downloaded some stuff quiet a few times. Always care to have a VPN (Mullvad and Proton) active and also integrate it as an interface in BitTorrent. Regularly checked my network for DNS Leaks and downloaded Test-torrents to check my IP. So I thought I should be safe. I had no problems the last 6 Months.

About 2 month ago I switched my OS to Linux. Because I didn't was familiar with VPNs, Network Interfaces, etc. I stopped torrenting until I know what im doing.

One monthe later I bought a Homeserver and was planning to setup a little Seedbox to torrent 24/7. For training purposes I installed qBittorrent on a VM and downloaded some completely legal and official Linux Distribution. Never ever downloaded something which could cause a copyright issue.

Until I checked https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/ With my real, unprotected IP yesterday. As expected I saw that I downloaded the Linux distros. But between them, there showed up an entry for a Series and a Film that I never downloaded and dont even know. Timely very close together. In a period when I definitely didn't downloaded anything.

Cause I'm from Germany it drives me crazy. How reliable are the infos from iknowwhatyoudownloaded.com?

Anyways, I will definitely contact my Lowyer if I find a letter in my letter box.

14 comments

Is your ISP using CGNAT? If so, your IP address is likely shared with dozens of other people. Each user gets a different set of ports and your ISP knows which ports each person is using so they can send the nasty letter to the correct person.

iknowwhatyoudownload.com is pretty unreliable. It lists some torrents downloaded from that IP and then likes to add some torrents (mostly porn in my experience). I've tested this with many connections over the years, and it's not just sharing/rotating IP addresses that triggers this.
(My use case for iknowwhatyoudownload.com is mostly to see what public torrents other people have in their seedboxes.)
Also, I wouldn't worry too much in Germany unless you're downloading the latest YTS release or something. There are a few horror stories out there about being sued, but they are mostly exaggerated and not recent. That said, your setup sounds very solid and you should still use a VPN.
- I have the exact same history with that site and its... creativity when adding stuff to my household download history that I know for a fact no-one in my household would be downloading. Safe to say it's extremely unreliable.
- This is the (mostly) correct answer.
  An additional aspect, you may have DSLite, so you share your IPv4 with other people. So it was them that downloaded the movie and series, and your ISP knows that.
  Then again, the horror stories about Germany are true (depending on which exactly I suppose), but yes you'll only get a lawyer letter in the mail if you download very popular torrents of popular movies that just got released.
  And even that just for the production companies that care to employ the "lawyers" who do this kind of stuff (WarnerBros is one of them)

I [...] Always care to have a VPN (Mullvad and Proton) active and also integrate it as an interface in BitTorrent.
If you set your torrent client to only use the VPN network interface, it's much more likely to be CGNAT. In other words it's been some other customer.
If you still use BitTorrent, I'd recommend switching to qBittorrent. The former is outdated and ridden with ads compared to the more performant qBittorrent.
- It doesn't have to be CGNAT to be another customer. ISPs typically rotate people's IP addresses every so often so you're bound to share one with someone who pirated at one point.
  
  Everywhere I've lived, it's never changed, for years (current is 5 years).
  I guess it really depends.

If you're on a dynamic IP from your ISP then it may change, leading to that site showing data from other users.
If your ISP uses CGNAT then that site will show data from tons of users at once since they are all on the same IP.

- Yeah it's called CGNAT ,so pirating things not so scary when many other people under same IP downloading pirated stuff :D

I don't know how reliable that site is for actually tracking your IP activity, I just checked mine and it had nothing listed though my IP just changed recently. If you don't have a static IP it's possible the history on that site is finding someone else's activities
Anyway, I've used a docker container (deluge+gluetun) for any torrents for the past 5+ years and have never had any notices from my ISP. Using it that way makes it basically impossible for any leaks to occur.

Unrelated, but thanks for that site! Now I know what my neighbours download.

Are you sure you set your qbittorrent up correctly? You need to bind your network interface so it only works when connected to your VPN. It's possible it started using your regular network if your VPN went down or maybe even if it was a higher speed, I'm not sure.
I know for mine, I noticed a couple times that all my torrents stopped seeding. I pay for mullvad annually so sometimes I forget when I need to resubscribe. But it's a good piece of mind that if my VPN isn't active, qbittorrent won't seed or leech a single thing.
Try disabling your VPN on that device and see if you can still download Linux ISOs.

How reliable are the infos from iknowwhatyoudownloaded.com?
100% accurate. Either you, or someone who has/has had your IP (CGNAT) has downloaded those torrents in one way or another.

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