I apologize in advance because I’m sure these probably feel like some stupid and duplicate questions. However, my attempts to find answers to these online have been met with answers that are sparse, oftentimes old (8+ years), and conflicting. I am looking into getting a seedbox. I decided to go with Whatbox because they seem to consistently have the best reputation. But I have some questions regarding the safety of doing this.

  • Whatbox (and a few other seedbox companies) offer seedboxes in the US. How can they do that without being immediately shut down? Do they have some kind of restrictions that could cause problems with using a US-hosted seedbox? I’ve read that there is much faster torrent connection with EU-hosted boxes, but is that worth the tradeoff for direct download speeds? (According to Whatbox’s network test, I’d be at 20 MB/s for USA and 10 MB/s for Netherlands.)

  • How safe is paying via your real payment details? Pretty much every seedbox seems to take crypto, which sounds a lot safer but tacks on processing fees and inconvenience. (Also I am morally opposed to crypto so I would prefer not to use it.) This is the question that really seemed to have conflicting answers when I looked.

  • How safe is connecting via your real IP, or should you still connect to the seedbox via VPN? I know that you won’t get dinged by your ISP, I mean in case of something like the host being taken down and their records being looked through.

  • Brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    9·
    10 months ago

    May also want to try !seedboxes@lemmy.dbzer0.com and !seedboxes@reseed.it

    Whatbox (and a few other seedbox companies) offer seedboxes in the US. How can they do that without being immediately shut down? Do they have some kind of restrictions that could cause problems with using a US-hosted seedbox?

    AFAIK they do honor DMCA removal requests so if you happen to load a public torrent there & receive a notice Whatbox staff will ask you to delete that data. You could contact their support on that if you’re not sure on their procedure.

    How safe is paying via your real payment details?

    I’ve only used crypto for those things. But presumably if you find a pre-paid credit card they accept you could buy it with cash & then pay the seedbox provider with that.

    How safe is connecting via your real IP

    The seedbox service itself is essentially a VPN so you either trust it, or you don’t. You could just as well ask how safe is it to connect to your VPN, or if you need to use another VPN to connect to your VPN :P

    One thing to keep in mind is that seedbox services probably do log more data than the typical no-log VPN.

  • QualifiedKitten@kbin.social
    7·
    10 months ago

    I’m definitely not an expert, but I’ve been using Whatbox for many years without any issues. I’m based in the US and have it set up to autocharge the same card that I use for everything else. I do not use a VPN or anything else to access Whatbox.

    I have received plenty of DMCA notices from Whatbox over the years, and they just require you to delete the offending content within 24 hours or your account will be locked until you do.

    In fact, I vaguely recall them increasing my storage allowance a few years ago without raising my rate, so that was pretty cool.

    • Tadpole7085@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      2·
      10 months ago

      Cool to hear! Do you actually need to delete the content in order to comply, or simply stop seeding?

      • QualifiedKitten@kbin.social
        1·
        10 months ago

        I’ve never actually tested that out. If it’s content I want long term, I simply download it to my local storage before deleting from Whatbox.

        What I’ve found works best for me when using public trackers for new content is to set up a max seeding ratio and whatever relevant *arrs. Doing it that way means that I’ve usually been able to download the content and stop seeding before the swarm is discovered/monitored by those sending the notices.

  • Tadpole7085@lemm.eeOPEnglish
    5·
    10 months ago

    Update: Decided to not bother with the extra caution, just use my real IP and payment details.

  • Monomate@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    I used a seedbox some time ago to download a specific big torrent (at the time). I payed using Paypal, as I don’t consider seedboxes a low-hanging-fruit for rightsholders to persecute at the moment.

    There’s too much redundant data on these services, so if they takedown one user’s data, there’s still lots of the same torrented data on other user’s. I don’t think rightsholders are willing to play wack-a-mole for such infractions.

    They’d rather invest their resources on more centralized file sharing, such as big public torrent sites and cyberlockers.

    • Tadpole7085@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      3·
      10 months ago

      They’d rather invest their resources on more centralized file sharing

      Does a popular seedbox host not count as centralized enough?

  • generalEdo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    21·
    10 months ago

    I unfortunately, do not have an answer for you but curious what issues you have with crypto. I am an old fart who does not sail the seas as much as I used to and do not do any sort of crypto or even considered it.