Hypothetically speaking...

what is the real risk profile of using bt on the public ip network via tor/i2p?
a friend got a letter, ok the letter. are we talking landmines or eggshells?

i'd like to 2nd that...

hypothetically answering ....

the risk profile depends on a number of factors.

your activities.
some activities are marginally more policed than others. for example movies and
music are probably more dangerous than tv shows and certainly more dangerous
than ebooks.

your location.
some countries (namely canada) have different laws regarding downloading
copywrite protected files, so they may not be as actively targeted. also most of the
people being targeted seem to be from the u.s.a.

your protection.
think of p2p like having sex ... (if you know what having sex is like) except
your having sex with thousands of people. its one big flaming orgy. now people
in this orgy may not have your pleasure in mind (think of them as having an
std.) now your protection can be done in two ways. you can join private networks
and hope to try to monitor the people you interact with. there are benefits and
drawbacks to this option. (namely speed of releases, speed of downloads and
maintaining a good sharing ratio.) if your going to use the public for your
interactions its good to run some protection on your end of the "sex". i (and
many others) use peer guardian 2. http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/ . others use
filter lists in their applications like safe peer in azerus. your protection
need to remain current so update your lists all the time.
<b>this protection is by no means 100%</b> but it is certainly better than no
protection at all.

in conclusion,

cover your arse whenever possible.
it is landmines if your in the usa.
its eggshells most everywhere else. (some people have been prosecuted overseas.)
the vast majority seem to be in the u.s.a.
but still dangerous.

tonsar

uhh, ok.....

tonsar thanks for the advice...

ok - yes i'm a donut but if you dont ask you will never find out

i have downloaded peerguardian2 - updating daily and thanks to another post
about to fix a problem with the p2p update

is there anything else i need to do - does it need to be linked to
utorrent/azureus for example or am i no longer 'going commando' and doing
enough to hopefully cover my rear!!

thanks