I have recently received a message on my computer stating that my Internet Service Provider has been monitoring my traffic and have recorded me downloading several torrents that they have marked as illegal. If I download any more torrents, they are going to shut down my Internet access, which I desperately need.

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I have spoken to those who are representatives of my ISP and I have explained this situation. The torrents I download are not illegal at all. The contents are artwork that has been submitted online for all to see. I find these artwork albums and download them in bulk.

I have done nothing wrong, yet they still threaten to shut off my Internet if I download any more torrents.

If I click a magnet link say for example on The Pirate Bay while using the Tor Browser, will that data be monitored by my Internet provider?

Edit: To everyone who has given me advice thank you so much. I have made sure the people that I have talked to are representatives of my ISP. I just called them an admin because I didn't know what else to call them. I don't know too much about my ISP except it's my college's who unfortunately still wont budge on my issue. I guess I'm just going to have to change my ISP... Anyway, if there's any other info I could give you to help me I'd be more than willing. Thank you for all of your help!

5 Answers

Answering Your Question

I can answer your question, but if you would like details, I would have to know who your ISP (Internet service provider) is.

Tor Browser, simply put, is a repackaging of Mozilla Firefox configured for the Tor SOCKS5 proxy and maximum anonymity. When you click a magnet link, Tor Browser should warn you that an external application would open.

The external application is your BitTorrent client (Vuze, uTorrent, Transmission, etc.), which is probably not configured to use Tor. Your ISP can still see that you are downloading torrents.

More Grave Concerns?

When you wrote,

I have recently received a message on my computer

and

I have spoken to those who claim to be the admins

something seemed amiss to me. Did you mean that you received an email? If ISPs are to notify you that you are violating their terms of service, they ought to notify you reliably.

If you received a popup on your computer, then more than likely, a virus is tricking you into thinking that your ISP is going to terminate your Internet service.

You should know who your Internet service provider is, so you should also know how they send you notifications about their service. If you received an email, check the sender for authenticity. A fake email can be identified by lots of misspellings, a suspicious 'From:' field, low quality JPEG images, mysterious links, etc.

Furthermore, I've never heard of people who work for ISPs call themselves 'admins'. Every time I call AT&T or Time Warner Cable, they connect me to 'representatives'. That's another suspicious hint.

It really doesn't matter if you use a proxy service like Tor or a VPN. All traffic still needs to go through your ISP at some point. If you're using a VPN, your ISP has to forward the packets to the VPN that you're sending, or in the other direction.

As far as my knowledge goes, there really isn't a good way to hide from your ISP. I would go with what @Deltik was saying and make sure it is not a virus. If it really is your ISP I would look up their policy and see if they are allowed to monitor your traffic, or see if there is an ISP that respects privacy a bit more.

If you aren't doing anything illegal, you could also try emailing them back and telling them you are not doing anything illegal, it's inappropriate to see torrent usage and assume piracy. Lots of small businesses use torrents to minimize the cost of hosting files. Lots of open-source initiatives push you to use torrents to download their stuff.

Is it allowed?

My Internet Service Provider has been monitoring my traffic and have recorded me downloading several torrents that they have marked as illegal.

Since you are apparently using BitTorrent to download and upload stuff with the copyright holder's permission, it's unlikely that they actually marked these torrents as illegal. Instead, they can probably see that your incoming and outgoing traffic uses the BitTorrent protocol, and based on that fact only they claim you have been downloading illegal content¹.

You should look into your ISP's terms of use: are you allowed to use the BitTorrent protocol on their network?

^{1) The content is (probably) not illegal, the Torrent files or magnet links are also not illegal. Instead, it is one's actions that would illegal (distributing copyrighted content without explicit consent from the copyright holders).}

BitTorrent over Tor

I don't know of any BitTorrent clients that can stream their data over the Tor network, so by default it will not work. Also, BitTorrent over Tor isn't a good idea.

To be clear: there is no relationship between Tor and BitTorrent, despite the similarity in their names.

Encrypting traffic

Since you are not the only one whose BitTorrent traffic is monitored, throttled, inhibited or blocked, most BitTorrent clients (including µTorrent) allow you to encrypt the protocol header:

The goal is to prevent internet service providers and other network administrators from blocking or disrupting bittorrent traffic connections that span between the receiver of a tracker response and any peer IP-port appearing in that tracker response.
_{BitTorrent.org}

However, this is not fool proof: it does not make you anonymous, it will not hide your IP or the torrents you are downloading from everyone. Given enough determination, your ISP can still identify your BitTorrent traffic (as explained here).

ISP's send warnings AFTER they have received complaints from the copyright owners of whatever it may be you are downloading. As far as I know, your ISP doesn't care or doesn't have the resources to monitor all of your traffic. At least, this is how it works with my ISP. You receive an email that describes who the complainant is, and the consequences of future ongoing complaints. Maybe because your ISP is your university, they have some way of monitoring everything you download, but I would think they would just block access to the torrent sites in the first place if they didn't want you to engage in file-sharing....whole thing sounds odd. Funny that a university would be so keen on restricting access to information.

I cannot answer your explicit question about the “magnet link”, but I may be able to shed some light on the general, implied question. There’s something new called the “Copyright Alert System (CAS)”, wherein ISPs are taking a proactive role in deterring piracy. See articles on Bloomberg Businessweek, the BBC, Wikipedia, and Ars Technica. But these references (and this article on InfoWorld) say that they aren’t supposed to cut off your Internet access altogether, or at least not right away, and there is supposed to be appeal process (they call it a “challenge” process), so I don’t understand why the ISP would refuse to listen to your explanation. (Did they happen to mention a $35 fee?) Good luck!

P.S. The bad news is that switching ISPs quite probably won’t help.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged bittorrentisptor or ask your own question.

While file sharing is controversial and often accused of being 'music piracy,' millions of internet users continue to share their files and download files from others, and thousands of new torrent users are added every day.

Before getting started, install reliable anti-virus software on your computer to thwart any viruses you may get while torrenting. Then, read the articles below in order from top to bottom.

Important Reminder About the Legality of Torrents

In short: not all torrents are legal, and you could be reprimanded for downloading illegal content.

There are lots of illegal files floating around through torrents. It's important to remind yourself that just because the torrent downloads themselves are free, it does not mean that the torrent data you're downloading is free from copyright. Some countries have laws protecting copyright holders, so that should be considered before downloading torrents.

Not all torrents infringe on copyright laws; there are tons of free images, movies, music and documents that you can share with an unlimited number of people for free. However, it's also really easy to share and download other data too, which might be considered illegal.

Torrents 101: Understand How Bittorrent File Sharing Works

If you are new to torrent downloading, then you will definitely want to read about how the system works.

Torrents (.TORRENT files and magnet links) are pointer files that help torrent software locate the computers of other users who are sharing that specific file or group of files that you're wanting to download.

With the torrent file, you can then tell the software to connect to those private computers for copying their music, movies, documents etc, to your own computer.

Torrent Software: How to Use Torrents

Torrent downloading requires special software that can read the .TORRENT file or magnet link. These torrent software products also need to provide management control over download and upload speeds, priorities, and cataloging.

Torrent programs aren't just downloadable tools that work from your desktop. You can also download torrents through your web browser so that you can access the files anywhere and sometimes even stream media files without downloading them.

Torrent Download Sites: Where to Find Torrent Movies and Music

Once you understand torrent swarming and have the right torrent software or online service necessary for using the torrent data, it's time to find the right pointer files that will get you the files you're after.

Nearly all torrent sites are easy enough to use because you can search through their database pretty quickly or browse relevant categories, though some might be littered with advertisements. Other torrent sites are much cleaner private communities that closely guard their catalog of torrents.

Warning: How to Spot Fake Torrent Files

Sadly, there are vandals, thieves and scammers out there who use phony torrent files to put malware on your computer. By disguising their nasty software as attractive movies and music downloads, these scammers seek to deceive you into installing their stuff.

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A few of the ways files masquerade as healthy torrents is through RAR, WAV and password protected files.

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Another is by renaming a file from something seemingly harmless like videofile.mp4 to videofile.mp4.exe. Instead of an MP4 video, this particular file is an EXE file that can cause serious damage to your computer.