We all use torrents. There’s nothing new about it. The only difference is how easy or safe it is to download content via torrents in your region. There are countries like the US that have stringent laws to protect digital piracy and that come down really hard on defaulters.
On the other hand, there are countries that have a more liberal attitude towards torrenting. Philippines is a country that lies somewhere in between. But there are some reasons why you need to protect your torrent activity.
Hiding your Torrent Activity in the Philippines
It’s not rocket science to track your torrent usage. The threat is not just from your ISP or the government agencies that do so. Anyone in the torrent pool can see your activity. Whenever you upload or download a torrent from a client like uTorrent or BitTorrent, your IP address is visible to everyone who is in the torrent pool. They can easily see what you are downloading and trace it back to you. Your ISP can obviously see everything that you do on the internet, so they can know what torrent you download.
The reason why it’s important to hide the Torrent activity is that although using torrents isn’t illegal, downloading copyrighted content is. With the new Philippines Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, you can now face up to Php 500,000 in fine and jail time if you are guilty of downloading copyrighted content. That makes it even more important to hide your torrent activity, for a majority of the content we download via torrents is copyrighted and technically illegal to share.
How to Use Torrents Securely in the Philippines?
Torrents can be used legally, but using it to download copyrighted content is quite illegal. Hiding your torrent activity is the best way to go about it. How to go about doing that? By using a VPN.
VPNs connect you to the internet through an encrypted tunnel. They mask your IP address with that of your own server. The IP visible to any website will be that of the VPN server you are connected to. This hides your location and identity, making you anonymous on the internet. Moreover, VPNs make it safe for you to share sensitive information like your personal details over the internet. All the traffic is encrypted so the data you share cannot be easily seen by anyone. There’s also the benefit of accessing geo-restricted content by using a different IP address of your own choice. But all this is not important here. What’s important is it hides your torrent activity.
How VPNs hide torrent activity in Philippines?
Your IP address can be used to identify the system you use and the location you are using it from. This particular information can let your ISP or the government tracking agencies to know if you are using torrents to download copyrighted content in the Philippines. While these bodies can see everything you do on the internet, the other people in the torrent pool can only see what you are downloading via torrent. However, it’s quite common for law enforcement personnel to join these pools and spy on people’s activities.
Since a VPN will hide your IP address, nobody will be able to see what you are downloading via the torrent client. Your true IP address is masked by that of the VPN server you are connected to. This is often in another country altogether (you can choose it to be so), so you can hide your geographic location as well. But the point is; your torrent activity is hidden from everyone, and you can download torrents without worrying about legal repercussions.
Is it Legal to use a VPN in the Philippines?
Using a VPN is illegal in just a handful of countries. Philippines is not one of those countries. So you can use a VPN without any qualms. In fact, the Philippines Bill of Rights guarantees the citizens’ right to privacy of communication. This effectively gives you the legal right to use a VPN to hide all forms of online communication, including your torrent activity. So, it’s not only legal to use a VPN in the Philippines, it’s also legal and your right to use it to hide your torrent activity.
How to Use a VPN in the Philippines?
If the concept of a VPN sounds too technical to you, there’s no need to worry. It’s actually quite simple to use a VPN, and it requires almost no technical knowledge or skill at all. With the rise of popularity of VPNs, most vendors provide dedicated VPN clients for all operating systems. You even have dedicated mobile apps for most of the vendors, meaning you can setup a VPN on your smartphone or tablet in just a few minutes.
All you need to do is:
- Go to the website of the VPN provider like TorGuard but there are other options as well
- Download the VPN client for your OS
- Subscribe to one of their packages
- Install the client
- Open the client and choose a server of your choice before connecting to it and start using the VPN
That’s all that it takes to start using a VPN. But you must take care when you choose a VPN service. Keep in mind a few things when you make that decision.
- Make sure you do some research and confirm that the speed of your connection after connecting to a VPN won’t suffer too much. Since VPNs add another point of contact before you reach your target, the internet speed gets reduced. Then there’s the encryption overhead as well. But the good VPNs make sure that this reduction is minimal.
- Find out if the servers are reliable and the connection is stable with the VPN
- Check out the privacy policy of the VPN to see what information they record and share. VPNs hide your activity from others, but they can see everything. That’s why it is important to choose a VPN that records no activity logs and stores as little personal information as possible.
There are many good VPNs that you can use to hide your torrent activity in the Philippines. Government authorities often shut down torrent sites in a region, so a VPN can help you access them as well. Using a good VPN can help you use torrents securely in the Philippines, and it’s your right to do so.
