Feb 14, 2014, 16:50 pm
(This post was last modified: Feb 14, 2014, 17:13 pm by mnaussie. Edited 2 times in total.)
(Feb 01, 2014, 04:03 am)NIK Wrote: What's the difference between a VPN and a proxy?
Imagine you're a member of a club, and the club has a library of books, looked after by a club librarian. The club doesn't actually have a physical library, all the books are held by members and they're exchanged as and when required. The duty of the librarian is to keep track of all the books that are available and who has which.
When you want a book you phone the librarian and he tells you whether the club has a copy of that book and whose house it is at). You then drive over to that members house and pick up the book.
Now, if you wanted to keep your identity secret, you need to be able to hide your phone number from the librarian AND hide your car licence plate number from the guy you pick up the book from.
So, you could phone a friend and ask them to phone the librarian for you. That way the librarian wouldn't see your phone number. Your friend or, more specifically, your friends telephone, would be the "proxy".
But you can't get the book to your house via that proxy. It simply doesn't carry that type of traffic. You need to borrow your friend's car. When you go and pick up the book it's the licence plate number of your friend's car that the other club member will see. The car is the "VPN"
That's not a perfect analogy, but I think it covers the main aspects of your question.
To keep everything safe and secure, what I do is go to InPrivate Browsing on Internet Explorer. I also change the settings to delete everything and leave nothing behind.
Again, you're protecting something I'm guess you're not particularly bothered about. In this case, you're ensuring that if anyone gains physical access to your computer they won't be able to see where the movies on it were downloaded from. So your wife, or burglar, or the police if they ever confiscate your computer will be able to see that you have a copy of "big butt babes" but they won't be able to see that you've downloaded it from The Pirate Bay.
But nothing you've done will prevent the copyright owners of BBB seeing you downloading it.
I'm using PeerBlock. I don't know if it's any good,
It isn't. It's worse than no good, it's actually bad. Uninstall it.
but so far I've been protected.
No. So far you haven't been caught. But that's not because of anything that you've done, it's because the chances of getting caught are actually staggeringly low regardless of what you do.
All the measures you've described taking so far are akin to sticking a paper bag over your head, going outside in an electrical storm, not being struck by lighting, and then concluding that paper bags protect you from lightning.
will downloading too many torrents risk the chances of getting my ISP address spotted?
There is a risk with each download so, yes, the more downloads the more cumulative risk. But the risks are very very low to begin with so, meh. It's like being struck by lightening--the more times you step outside the greater your chance of being struck by lightening. But the chances are so small that you don't let the risk (which, though small, is very real) stop you.
