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A years-long investigation just unmasked a major torrent pirate, the how remains unclear
(www.techspot.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2026
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It's a pretty consistent theme with these guys that get caught that they're not even taking basic precautions. Many pirates have openly bragged about seeding or even selling pirated material under their real name prior to their arrest. I don't think we have to brainstorm a million different ways the authorities might have tracked him down - he's probably just stupid like all the others before him. Uploaders and providers often seem to develop massive egos that become their eventual undoing.
It's also possible he got sloppy. If you've been doing something for a long time, that can happen. Like forgetting to double check if your vpn is connected for the 10000th time after 10 years of not facing issues.
That and you get cocky, because you've been getting away for it so long, that you think you're unstoppable.
This applies to all repetitive tasks, for example as an experienced driver there comes a point where you get sloppy about checking mirrors, because 99.999% of the time it's ok. And then bam.
For this very reason, I have my VPN set up so that if it's off, the whole internet connection is shut off. And as a backup, my torrent app will only work through the VPN interface, not the general network. I know what I'm like, and would definitely forget this all the time lol.
IME it's not even a question of forgetting. The so called kill switch doesn't always work, even for an instant. Scary stuff. Luckily you can bind Qbit to your VPN of choice, as you've also done(also qbit?), so that prevents leaks.
On an entirely unrelated note, I don't recommend surfshark. LOL.
But it still really sucks. One small leak and they can tie your IP to everything.
Yeah I use QBittorrent, and Mullvad for a VPN (although I'll probably switch soon once my subscription runs out.)
Why are you switching away from Mullvad? My Nord subscription is ending soon, I was planning on subscribing to Mullvad for the privacy.
I'm switching for political/ideological reasons TBH. It's a good service and it works well, but one of the company's co-founders recently made a huge donation to the Örebro party in Sweden (as in, big enough to account for 72% of the party's entire income for 2025.) The party's leader, Marcus Allard, has called for mass forced remigration of immigrants, including people born in Sweden, and has referred to immigrants as "damn parasites."
In fairness, this isn't the political position of Mullvad the company, it's a personal donation made by one of the founders and the CEO and others have expressed discomfort with it. But the fact still remains that if I keep giving the company money, it will keep funding the co-founder, who will (presumably) keep funding the party and I can't in good conscience send money if I know it's going towards something I disagree with that profoundly, even in a roundabout sort of way. I only have about 30 days left on my subscription anyway so I'm going to just let it run out and then switch to something else.