Anyone who’s downloaded files from the internet has probably asked themselves: “Does my internet provider know which files I am downloading?”.
The question becomes even more serious when it comes to downloading torrents. After all—if you download something illegally, and you may end up getting sued or imprisoned.
But before you decide against downloading torrents for the rest of your life, you need to understand what they are. More importantly, you need to know whether your ISP is snooping on you.
Let’s see what torrenting actually is and whether your ISP knows exactly what you are downloading.
What Is Torrenting, and Why Is It Controversial?
Torrenting, in simple terms, is an alternative way to connect to a network and download files. Conventionally, we download files from a centralized server. For instance, when you download an app from Google Play Store or the Apple Appstore, you are downloading data from a single source.
Torrenting doesn’t rely on centralized servers. When a user wants to download a torrent file, they connect to a “swarm” of users that are uploading/downloading the file through the BitTorrent network. Everybody participating in the swarm is called a peer.
When you connect to a swarm through a BitTorrent client, you simultaneously download multiple torrent pieces from other peers. When all the pieces are downloaded, BitTorrent clients assemble them into one single file.
Although many organizations use torrenting to lessen the load on servers, the general public relates torrents with piracy. Sadly, many do use torrents to download pirated content which makes the protocol quite controversial.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to end this controversy since piracy due to torrenting is really hard to get rid of. Due to the nature of torrents, copyright holders find it difficult to take down pirated content. So, rather than taking legal action against every offender on the internet, companies target a few individuals to set an example.
Furthermore, the only way copyright holders can go after users who are pirating content is with the help of internet service providers (ISPs). This has made people question whether their ISPs can actually see the files they are downloading.
Does Your ISP Know When You Are Torrenting?
While they might not know the files you’re torrenting, your ISP can usually tell when you’re participating in this activity. To understand how, we must first see how IP addresses work.
What Is an IP Address?
As the name implies, an IP address is an address that is given to an everyday device that connects to the internet. IP addresses work similarly to real-world addresses.
Just like you need to have an address to get mail delivered to your house, you also need to have an IP address to have data sent to your device from a network. In other words, just like real-world addresses, if someone knows your IP address, they’ll know your location.
ISPs assign IP addresses to devices that want to connect to the internet. So, they know which IP address belongs to which device and the associated location information.
When Can Your ISP Find Out If You’re Torrenting?
When you download a torrent, you connect to a torrent tracker server which is responsible for connecting peers to each other, so they can share files. Once you connect to the tracker server, your IP address is visible to all peers that are participating in the protocol.
Put simply, if someone were to monitor a particular torrent file intending to find out about the users who were downloading that file, they’d just have to start downloading that file themselves. This way, they’d have access to the IP address of all the people torrenting the file.
While your ISP can sometimes tell if you’re torrenting, the provider won’t automatically know. Your ISP will only know that you are torrenting when someone who has monitored your IP address engaged in torrenting and proceeds to tip the ISP off.
That said, ISPs can usually guess when you are torrenting by analyzing the amount of bandwidth you are consuming. Normal day-to-day usage doesn’t consume a lot of bandwidth.
Because torrenting includes downloading and—if you allow it—simultaneously uploading large amounts of data, your ISP can monitor this unusual spike in bandwidth consumption. From this, the ISP can deduce that you might be torrenting.
In some cases, an ISP can also throttle the internet if it finds out that you are torrenting.
What Happens If Your ISP Suspects That You’re Torrenting?
Technically, your ISP doesn’t know what files you are downloading. The ISP only knows that you’ve connected to a website. ISPs also have no incentive to keep an eye on your torrenting activities.
On the other hand, copyright holders do have an incentive—and that is to keep the pirating of their products to a minimum. Catching people who are pirating is difficult; to do so, they download a torrent which lets them see the IP addresses of all the peers downloading the torrent.
So, copyright holders note those IP addresses. From the IP addresses, they deduce which ISP has assigned that address and contact it to inform about the pirating situation.
Finally, the ISP sends a warning letter to the suspected user to stop the practice. The consequences can include things like internet throttling or connection termination.
In many countries, piracy is a serious crime that is punishable with hefty fines. In some cases, you can also receive a prison sentence. If the user doesn’t stop pirating even after receiving a warning from their ISP, they can face a lawsuit.
Your ISP Probably Won’t Stop You From Torrenting If You Stay Away From Pirated Material
A common misconception among many people is that all torrents are illegal. However, this is not the case. Your ISP has no reason to stop you from torrenting if you steer clear of pirated material.
On the internet, you’ll find several websites that catalog and keep track of legal torrents. You can legally download or stream several forms of entertainment, including movies and games.
