I already have a seedbox, but I am realizing I paid for it with my credit card (dumb) even though I used a fake name and contact info. I am going to change providers and migrate my data, but I now need to actually pay for it securely (piracy in my country is only legal if only downloading) since I not only plan to seed to a private tracker and others but also would like to buy a larger box to help out with anna’s archive torrents. How do you all pay for your usenet / seedboxes?
I understand if crypto is recommended, but I dislike using it due to high overhead costs and general skepticism, so I would love some other options or providers that offer them (current provider only has crypto, stripe and PayPal).
Dissenting opinion - You don’t need to change your payment method, but you might want to rent a box outside your country.
The seedbox provider is providing you sufficient cover. They’re the ones who would have to make the link between the IP you’re using and you. That’s unlikely to happen because they’ve protected themselves.
A copyright owner (or their agent) that is interested in identifying you from your seeding would send a letter to the data center owner (OVH, Hetzner, etc) saying “Hey, one of your IPs is infringing our copyright! Tell them to stop.”
The data center owner might forward that letter on to the seedbox provider who is renting space in their data center. Either way, the letter will be ignored and everyone goes on with their day.
If the copyright owner is sufficiently motivated they can press the issue with some lawyers. Then the data center will provide a name, to make it all someone else’s problem. They don’t have your name though, just the seedbox provider’s, and the seedbox provider is smartly incorporated in another country, which makes litigation complicated (to say the least).
Now, maybe the copyright owner is a cabal of publishers looking to make a point and have buckets of money to spend. (You did say you wanted to mirror Anna’s Archive.) In that case they’ll work with local law enforcement in the jurisdiction that the seedbox provider is incorporated to go after them there.
That court case will take some years to resolve, but then your involvement will come down to whether the seedbox provider kept logs associating payers and IPs. They might or might not. If they didn’t, you’re just one person in a big pool of customers.
If they do have logs associating you specifically to that IP at the time you were infringing the copyright… well, who’s to say your credit card wasn’t stolen?
Thanks for the encouragement!
I might just do nothing, but I probably will go with crypto just to be sure.
The odds of you getting your own IPv4 address are pretty low, unless seedboxes have very different rules than I’d expect. Presumably you have a shared IP behind NAT, and they forward ports (not unlike a good VPN)
In that case, they would need the IP address, incoming port, and a very specific timestamp.
Thank you for this!
Paysafecard is perhaps an option to you. It’s like a giftcard in that you buy it in cash and receive a code.
It’s recommended to wear a fake moustache when buying the card, and make sure the color matches your actual hair color otherwise it’s an immediate giveaway!
I wasn’t even aware of paysafecard. Wow. Thanks for this info!
Why the satire? OP wants to do something illegal, admits doing it, and asks for tips how to do it in a larger scale online. What’s wrong with that?
Paysafecard is a genuine option. The moustache tip is important. I might be high atm.
The gold standard for anonymous payments is still crypto for now, monero can’t be tracked in any way. Besides, it has really low transaction costs.
What are the transaction costs?
Is it to the point where I can feasibly purchase it with a credit card and spend it as Monero without paying 25% more?
The current transaction costs for monero are 0.000006XMR, which translates to about $0.001 per transaction.
The costs you have to look out for are the buy and withdrawal fees of the crypto exchange you’re using. If you’re in the EU you should also know a lot of platforms do not allow trading to/from XMR.
Not affiliated with them, but MEXC works in the EU and has a 0 fee XMR withdrawal.
I’ve always paid with crypto.
But you might be able to buy a prepaid credit card with cash and then use that for the seedbox payment? Maybe just double-check that it would work with your seedbox provider e.g. in the U.S. most prepaid cards sold in stores are U.S. only and won’t process international transactions and since most seedbox providers are outside the U.S. they may not work together. Haven’t spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the right prepaid card for those scenarios.
My seedbox accepts crypto payments through Coinbase. Coinbase recently started requiring personal info when paying.
