I'm brand new to torrenting and was looking to pirate some audiobooks off AudiobookBay. I followed the Wispy Docs Torrent Client Guide on VPN Binding Mullvad VPN with qBittorrent. (I know Mullvad isn't ideal but I want to use up my pre-existing subscription.)

My concern is that in Mullvad's BitTorrent guide (no longer maintained) they suggest the following additional changes:

Enable anonymous mode.
Disable DHT
Disable PeX
Disable Local peer discovery
Select TCP as Peer connection protocol

I tried searching on Reddit if I should follow any of these settings changes but people were very unclear. Some said they're outdated because "private trackers yada yada" (I'm new so am unfamiliar with the reasoning) but I'm not sure if that applies to my situation.

I already tested with torrent IP checkers and the binding seems to have worked. What else (if anything) should I be doing?

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[–] Willem@kutsuya.dev 22 points 5 hours ago (5 children)

the issue is that things like the DHT and PeX can leak your own home ip address, and local peer discovery can leak the torrents you're seeding to local network devices.

Mullvad is very privacy oriented, hence it giving this advice.

[–] mystify@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 hours ago (4 children)

things like the DHT and PeX can leak your own home ip address

It also seems like many torrents don't work without it so I'm not sure what to do. Not accusing you of lying but do you have a source that elaborates on when and how they leak your true IP?

Is there any way to mitigate it besides disabling them and joining a private tracker? This torrenting thing looks more complicated than I hoped haha.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

Your client says "hey connect to me at x.x.x.x!".

[–] mystify@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

And it'll give my true IP rather than my VPNs IP even if it is binded in the client? If this is the case, why does there seem to be disagreement on whether this is a risk and there's no mention of it in the actively maintained guide I initially followed?

Again, not accusing anyone of lying, I'm just trying to untangle this. I can try disabling DHT and PeX but I'm worried I won't be able to torrent anything.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 1 points 36 minutes ago

The BT client will advertise the IP(s) of whatever network interface(s) you allow it to use.

[–] bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net 1 points 2 hours ago

You will be unable to download most things without DHT these days. If you use transmission, you can explicitly bind it to the local IP within your VPN, so it literally cannot leak info onto another network.