Anonymizer and uTorrent?

I recently downloaded the free trial of Anonymizer, and before I buy it I was wondering if anyone here can attest to its effectiveness with uTorrent. Basically, my school doesnt like me downloading on their network, and if I get caught again I could be in some trouble. Does Anonymizer effectively mask your ip address from other torrent users? Will anyone connected to me in my peers list only see the fake addy Anonymizer presents to them? In short, will it make me anonymous on uTorrent? Thank you for your help!

PS I know relatively little about computers. If this sounds stupid, no need for sarcastic comments.

It's a tinfoil hat.

It doesn't actually protect you.

There is no real anonymity for criminal activity on the internet. You might be able to protect yourself against some data mining done by corporations when you visit their website or use other services using 'anonymizer' software but thats pretty much where it ends.

Becoming legally anonymous pretty much requires someone else to technically take the blame. And there is probably no company, application or anything else short of very loyal friends that will do that for you. And remember if there really was such anonymity easily available child-porn and other serious criminal activities would have free reign on the internet.

hey now, who ever said anything about criminal activity? nominally against school policy perhaps, but not criminal. no one will be "taking the blame" for anything. i just want to know if, while using uTorrent, my real IP address will show up to other users or the fake one Anonymizer gave to me. It seemed to work with every IP adress website i tried it with. Hell, can ya'll tell me IP address right now?

You don't have to answer that. Anyway, thanks for your help.

Have you ever considered that if you were completely hidden you couldn't run torrents at all?

You connect to a TRACKER...it has to know your ip.

You connect to peers and seeds...they have to know your ip if they are to connect back to you.

If they try the proxy ip instead of your real ip, it's probably not (port) forwarded...so you end up firewalled.

Even if the proxy works, µTorrent can be parroting out your REAL ip address...just like mine likes to report both its LAN and internet ip, which gets into my peer ip list for torrents I'm on. I had to BLOCK my own LAN and internet ip using µTorrent's ipfilter.dat just to prevent loopback connection attempts!

Ever heard of NTT America, Inc.? That's probably connected with the service you're using. I could pose as a copyright cop and probably get them to force them to give me your real ip using a DMCA cease-and-desist letter. They'd be basically forced to comply by law (even to a phony letter!) and at least deny you service. Or they could hand out a lot of personal details about you just in the hopes I go away and don't call lots of lawyers after them. That's basically how the MPAA and RIAA work. Extortionist blackmail-style threats. It pays to know in advance if your ISP will stand up for you especially if they think you're being falsely accused. Most won't. If you're file-sharing, they already treat you like a bad customer even if not like a criminal.

So, in short, I think what you are all getting at is that Anonymizer is not compatible with uTorrent. Couldnt uTorrent still work though, accept instead of connecting directly to other users it connects through a proxy? Does anyone know what program would work to keep out prying eyes? I don't need complete anonymity and I'm not worried about the law or subpenas (sp?) or anything like that.

I feel like a bit of an ass asking you guys all hese questions, but I really do appreciate your help.

No its ok.

As far as I can see Anonymizer is a web IP hider service. The web (aka world wide web) usually refers to the part of internet that is involved with websites / http. µtorrent uses a bit of http (for tracker communication mostly) but the actual sending of data doesn't go through http but Bittorrents own protocol. Web Anonymizer won't cloak you from other Bittorrent users and might actually mess up µtorrent because tracker communication is cloaked (depends on how Anonymizer works) but data exchange isn't. So it isn't going to work.

The only way to hide your IP from other Bittorrent users is by making a VPN connection or other secure relay system and connect to the Internet and thus other Bittorrent users using an IP that isn't directly linked to you. However because of the heavy bandwidth use of µtorrent there are almost no commercially viable solutions for this. Besides this would make the owner of the IP you do use to connect to the internet/µtorrent users responsible for your activities unless they can prove it was you (which companies that do actually provide this service will make sure they can).

In the end you pay a shitload of money and hamper your maximum speed to make it a bit more difficult for the RIAA/MPAA/Local Law Enforcement. And not even that much cos they need about the same evidence to get your personal info from your ISP as they would need to get your real IP from such a VPN/Relay service provider. It would be like having a second front door which can be opened with the same key.

As I said you can protect yourself from a bit of datamining through websites using such a service as Anonimizer but thats pretty much where it ends. Anonymous Bittorrenting is not gonna happen anytime soon (and I hope it never will because it will form a haven for some of the worst criminal activities on this planet). If you don't feel safe, don't download anything illegally.

µTorrent is designed to properly report its internet ip to the tracker and other peers/seeds. It's not so much being 'incompatible' with Anonymizer as being diametrically-opposed in goals. You'd never know for certain if Anonymizer was even working (right) with µTorrent without a lot of research and testing.

There is a real way to get on the internet and not get caught EVER. I don't want to say it over the form but it involes a cable modem and just a normal cable subscription (9.99 mo.) and you can do what ever you want. They can trace your ip and it will goto someone els house. And download anything you want and as much.

Yes. ISP connection hijacking would provide a large degree of protection.

But depending from ISP to ISP its hard, might be detectable or even traceable and the act itself is illegal and probably get you into more trouble then downloading a bit of copyrighted material if found out.

using vpn services like relakks.com you will appear to the tracker, and to other peers as an user from Sweden, connecting using labs2.se isp.

to be able to use that service you need to be able to get a VPN working (pptp port forwading...)

Yes. And relakks.com / labs2.se keeps logs of when you connected and who you are and what you did so that when the police comes with a court order they'll be able to point their finger at your IP. If they don't keep this info and/or cannot provide it to the police they are responsible for your actions.

No company is stupid enough not to cover themselves from this by logging you. As I said before, 'safe' requires someone else to take the blame. The trace the police follows will stop at the person/entity that cannot prove it was someone else.

You can make it very complicated for the authorities by being an American citizen connection through a Swedish VPN downloading illegal material owned by an American company. And indeed authorities might not go through the trouble of tracing you because it involves court cases in different countries under different laws. But VPN services either suck in bandwidth, cost a big pile of money or both.

relakks is good for that price.

i was only poiting out a way to do p2p traffic without being detected by your ISP (he said it's not allowed to do p2p on it's own network)

if he just want to do things that are illegal in his country he need to specify what is going to do!

actually you should check out azureus with TOR ( http://tor.eff.org/ ) exit node owners WILL TAKE BLAME of your actions.

If the problem is just the copyright he can just take a VPN in a really safe country were copyright counts NOTHING (pick up a random country not included into WTO ( http://www.wto.org/ ) and you will have high possibilities that over there copyright "violations" done via internet, without money profits are not illegal)

again: I suggested relakks becouse it's the cheaper and best working commercial VPN that i know, and that will be able to completly masquerate the traffic you are doing to your current ISP.

I would like to point out that Tor developers strongly recommend against using ANY p2p application over it, due to the massively increased strain it puts on the resources in the current network.

That's ignoring the liability issues.