Post history: This was originally posted to the qBitTorrent thread but because some of the configuration options might apply to other clients, I decided to give this a separate thread.
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Background / use case
Lawsuits associated with sharing are still very much a thing, even though I thought the MPAA fight back in the day was dead and gone. This is made worse by the fact that what is and isn't specifically legal to share isn't always clear.
For example, I couldn't say which of Microsoft Windows ISOs are now free to share and which are not, even though almost no guides inside or outside microsoft.com talk about distributing physical media. Also, the LegalTorrents site shut down, so a clear separation between what's out of copyright is now harder to find. Archive.org does an amazing job but isn't super easy to search/navigate.
In any case, I put together a few notes to help avoid a lot of noise from your service provider or potential legal action ...
Configuring qBitTorrent
(Of course you'll need to download qBitTorrent for all this.)
Most critically is getting a VPN client and setting it up to work ONLY inside of a VPN:
(In case image above dies, this shows Tools - Options - Advanced - set priority LOW, set network interface to VPN service, set optional IP addresses to bind to as IPv4)
I also modified a few settings here, including setting to IPv4, the suggestion is that sometimes IPv6 can leak data. I'm not sure if that's necessary.
I also shut off DHT, PeX, and Local Peer Discovery. Some research suggested these can leak data, especially if you're using a router provided by your ISP. I definitely recommend the anonymous mode and require encryption, even if neither are 100% secure/anonymous.
I've also seen guides suggesting you set the port to something random under the Connection menu, but I'm not sure on that one. I also turned down the total connections to make my involvement on BitTorrent networks less conspicuous.
One of my primary sources: https://cybersynchs.com/qbittorrent-vpn/
More from EFF.org: https://www.eff.org/wp/how-not-get-sued-file-sharing ... this article is clear that the best route is to turn off filesharing entirely, but I wasn't clear on how that worked for qBitTorrent apart from a small file ratio
Feedback welcome and appreciated.
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EDIT: There is an available blocklist functionality inside the program to avoid problematic connections, but I don't have a recommendation on which one to use. A few that have come up in digging: https://www.iblocklist.com/ and https://www.emule-security.org/
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