What's the deal with the private trackers?

I've read on reddit I think that if you are torrenting using a private tracker you're gonna be fine even without VPN. The question is: isn't the tracker is just a server that leads my torrent client to the pieces of the file on the seeders? And the connection between me and the seeders is p2p, isn't that type of connection is what makes your ISP snitch you? So what is different about private trackers? And where to find them?

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Torrents are registered. Only people who can access the private website get access to the torrent. It’s much harder for the bottom barrel legal teams that just sit on them recording IPs, like they do on public ones.
They can certainly get into a private tracker but will be found before long. This also depends on how the private tracker is run and by whom.
Use a VPN when doing illegal shit. Don't leave to a shady website.
- So p2p connection is not illegal unless it's transmitting pirated content, which they can only know it by finding my ip on the list of peers, yeah?
  
  This is accurate.
  Just downloading/consuming isn't the illegal part. It's why you hear about torrent users getting ISP notices, but not people who download from usenet or watch pirate sports streams.
  
  No protocol is illegal in and of itself. BitTorrent wasn’t created solely to aid in piracy. Most Linux distros have their OS seeded. Same goes for lots of the internet archive. I used to transfer work files all the time using it.
It's 2023. Use a VPN at all times.
- But torrenting on a vpn costs money, which is why some people are torrenting to begin with.
  
  Having your own internet connection costs money too. If being absolutely free is a requirement, go without a VPN on the McD's free wifi.
  
  Being fined also costs money.
Just a fun FYI: If you want to know what can be seen torrenting from your current IP, visit https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com
It wil show you anything publicly trackable and occasionally assign tags according to your habits. You can also check anybody else's IP you know of too, and look at what your IP-neighbors have on their name,...
Tags I've seen assigned are mostly 'Porn' if you torrent at least 1 known xxx and I even encountered a highlighted differently-colored tag twice in neigboring IP's that clearly state it's questionable content of subjects that did not go through the accepted minimum amount of birthdays yet.
Always an interesting tool to check when connected to a friend's wifi or a public shared one... 😅
- The site lists 4 torrents and none of them are mine. I assume this is because my ISP assigned a dynamic IP address
  
  Yeah, I have a 4G CGNAT router, so I'm not only constantly hopping IP's, I'm even sharing outside IPs with others simultaneously. I rarely see other torrents than mine, though it does happen. I honestly also had the bad content flag once for a file I certainly wouldn't download. 😅
- That's a cool tool.
  Gonna try it out, thanks for the recommendation.
Firms that sue you because you download copyrighted material don‘t sue you because they sniff your internet traffic contents, but because you appear on the tracker peer list. Ony public trackers this is easily visible, on private trackers it‘s not since you need access to the tracker in the first place.
- So it's not about p2p connection? And ISPs don't snitch? The owner of the material catches my ip address.
  Your house's ip address is static? Or they can get you even it's changing?
  
  They have the public IP and a timestamp, which lines up with the ISP DHCP logs.
  That said, at least for several major carriers in the US, your public IP changes very rarely. Like months or years with the same IP.
Unless you have a seedbox, I'd still use a VPN on private trackers. You don't want to expose your actual home IP address - anyone can see it when you're torrenting (in the peers tab). You are correct that most companies that DMCA aren't following private trackers and therefore it's unlikely that you'd get a "love letter" but again I'd use a VPN for your home ISP.
As for getting into private trackers, there's an OpenSignups community here. Otherwise, you have to usually know someone with invites to get in.
DMCA only come from trackers that are open to the world. ISPs don't snitch on you. They only do what is required of them by law, usually. (Forwarding DMCA complaints).
The copyright companies, connect to these trackers and perform regular torrent client requests, such as "hey, who is seeding this torrent". And the tracker responds. They take note of the IPs and do whatever they do.
Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) can only find out that you are doing a P2P connection and possibly torrenting. Which in of itself is not illegal.
With private torrents you are blocked from the DMCA copyright companies because they cannot find out what torrents are on the trackers because you need the metadata of a torrent & the password to get the peer list.
A VPN only solves the problem where the ISP is hostile to you, the consumer and obfuscates who you are connecting too. With DPI and packet analysis (which is slightly expensive) they could figure out you are torrenting via a VPN with a high degree of certainty. Butt at the end of the day, all they would see is encrypted packets. This data is no different than telling your torrent client to Force Encryption, which everyone should do and I get annoyed all the time when people don't have it on.
Tldr,
VPN only blocks ISP from seeing unencrypted P2P traffic and makes it harder to identify.
DMCA companies can only access public trackers peer lists where it gets its information from
- I think the OP's question is better worded on the second point as "What is preventing a copyright holder from joining a private tracker?" The answer to that is nothing. In theory, invites would only be handed out to trusted individuals, but the reality is you can just ask for invites and people will give you them.
- This is so informative, thank you.
Private Trackers are solid options if you're looking for some data in a specific niche that public trackers don't offer quite well. Their signups are controlled by admins which makes harder for media companies to go in and send cease letters to torrenters. This does not mean they can't however.
On a public tracker, anyone can be part of the seeding chain without any authentication; meaning they can monitor who's torrenting what pretty easily. However for each private tracker, there has to be a seperate infiltration. Combining limited signups and being invite only makes hunting for them difficult.
To find them, you're gonna either look at tracker forums' open signup threads as a beginner; or if you know people that could have access to these trackers ask them for invite. Most private trackers have strict seeding rules, so seed them according to their rules.
- Thanks, that's very informative.
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