Hi all bit of a noobie here I’m utilizing NZBgeek + Frugal + NZBGet this to get content for my personal plex. How can I make sure my ISP doesn’t spy on my traffic? I have a Nord VPN account my dad already pays… I understand that to really hide my traffic I need a lot of steps but gladly I live in a country that cares very little about what you do in the internet (Netherlands). How can I protect myslef a bit?
Depending on how much you want to hide from your ISP:
- no SSL and no VPN: your ISP can see where you’re connected to and what you’re downloading
- SSL but no VPN: your ISP can see where you’re connected to but can’t see what you’re downloading
- no SSL but with VPN: your ISP can’t see where you’re connected to and what you’re downloading but your VPN provider can
- SSL and VPN: your ISP can’t see where you’re connected to and what you’re downloading. Your VPN provider can see where you’re connected to but can’t see what you’re downloading.
Unless your ISP provider is actively blocking or slowing down the traffic to your usenet provider, SSL without VPN is sufficient. However, you should always use SSL regardless of whether or not you’re also using VPN on top of that.
Your ISP knows who you are.
Just enable SSL in your download client and then they won’t be able to see what you download. They only know you’re contacting a newsserver. If you want to hide that too, then use a VPN.
Have you heard of the Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland?
Just use SSL for your provider and that’s it.
Downloading …they don’t care
Uploading/distributing …they care
pretty sure Nord doesn’t leak DNS but you can check it here:
Check your provider (ISP) DNS first then connect to Nord and recheck. Nord should be using different provider.
Good explanation but you forgot DNS. Making your querys also private would be the last step in this setup. Ideally with DNS over Https and a private resolver.
Mega noobie question. How can I check if I have already SSL enabled? Is that configured on NZBget settings? Does frugal provide SSL with their subscription?
Is there a way to figure out whether ISP is actively blocking or slowing down usenet traffic?
Do ISPs ever actually care what is being downloaded if not torrented? I’m not convinced no SSL is unsafe.
What this person said but fwiw if you aren’t uploading the odds of you getting into any sort of trouble is about 0.00000001 chance
…and consider using DNS over TLS/HTTPS, if your setup supports it
They don’t care about uploading, but they might forward a letter from someone who cares
Very true, but ISP could always pull the site name you’re connecting to from the SNI field of your TLS connection. To hide that, you would have to use VPN or ESNI.
Edit: added ESNI to cover all bases
SSL is included with frugal
Usually they don’t. But they can be asked to care.
Speaking just for myself, nowadays, I wouldn’t run anything that leaves my home network or my mobile devices without TLS/SSL.
Not enabling SSL imho is sort of odd choice. Overhead is typically very small, all providers offer it. It is essentially standard even for websites.
I look at it like locking your doors. Easy, low impact or effort. While it isn’t fool proof, for the effort it provides some protection if you ever need it.
ISPs don’t care about torrents either UNTIL they get a complaint.
It’s like I tell my team, don’t put yourselves in situations where others are complaining to me
about your performance. Other than that, just do your job when you can.