strange torrent related concern PLZ help!

[RogueFOXHOUND 0]

hi. i am very concerned about a torrent i downloaded. i don't do it too often but i do sometimes. this time there was only a video file in the rar. i played it and a cop was speaking in a foreign language with subtitles saying i was being traced. there was people in the background with the cop in the front speaking but the background people looked like a video on replay. i need to know if this is a hoax or if i should be worried. please, if anyone can help me i would appreciate it.

 

edit:what i'm asking is if this is a hoax, because i set up airvpn correctly thru a port, ect. i read you are supposed to be untraceable. so is this possible? is airvpn untraceable? if it IS then i'll know that it's a hoax. if anyone can explain even a little bit about this to a non-techie it would bring me some peace.

[Dewey Banks 2]

Short answer:  it's bullshit.  Don't worry.

That kind of thing can be disconcerting, I know but the odds are overwhelming that you are dealing with some sort of ransomware or "threatware".  Don't do it ( you should delete that file if you havn't already ) but if you were to watch the entire video, I'll bet it ends with some variant of "to avoid charges just provide some critical personal data or send money, etc,. etc." Or maybe the entity holding the copyright put out a fake torrent to frighten people.

 

In any event, we use VPN services so that we don't have to worry about these things. 

 

I think you're good. Cops don't operate that way.

 

If they havn't thrown flashbangs through the window, broken down your front door, stepped on the cat, and shot you in the gut yet - then they probably won't

 

BTW:  all the above provided you weren't downloading some kind of hideously sick and twisted illegal porn.  I know nothing about that world.

[RogueFOXHOUND 0]

dewey, thanks for the reply. it may have been ransomware like you said but i'm not sure. it didn't ask for money it just said it came from a government pc, and they were tracing me. there was a email address after the statement, but i was scared and deleted it as well as the p2p client before checking out the url it mentioned. i even called my isp to see if i had been subpoened but nothing has been posted a rep told me. but this only happened this morning so it might have taken a full day. tomorrow is make or break i guess. i'll likely know then. to you or anyone else i have to warn; torrents are not worth it.

[LZ1 672]

Hello!

 

If it was ransomware, access to your files would've been prohibited by the software, whereby you'd then be told to pay an amount of money to unlock things again. In other words, holding you for ransom. But by the sound of it, that's not what happened. Instead, you got a file which was something else than you expected, which in itself is a worry. I'd be reinstalling the system if I were you, given we don't know what manner of malware may have come along with that file.

 

Calling your ISP is a strange move in my view. If you set up the VPN correctly and then also test that things work - such as by downloading the test torrent from ipleak.net, then that's the basics covered at least. But a VPN doesn't protect you from actual malware and thus you still need to be careful about what you're downloading, from where and what software you're using to do so. If your system is compromised, it won't matter what VPN you're using. But cases like yours, are also one of the reasons many people use virtual machines to download things or use dedicated machines for it.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

hi. i am very concerned about a torrent i downloaded. i don't do it too often but i do sometimes. this time there was only a video file in the rar. i played it and a cop was speaking in a foreign language with subtitles saying i was being traced. there was people in the background with the cop in the front speaking but the background people looked like a video on replay. i need to know if this is a hoax or if i should be worried. please, if anyone can help me i would appreciate it.

 

edit:what i'm asking is if this is a hoax, because i set up airvpn correctly thru a port, ect. i read you are supposed to be untraceable. so is this possible? is airvpn untraceable? if it IS then i'll know that it's a hoax. if anyone can explain even a little bit about this to a non-techie it would bring me some peace.

 

Untraceable?.. IT is no black magic where you swing your mouse, hammer the keyboard, speak a few "incantations" and whatever you do on your computer will be "hidden"... everything is traceable here. It only matters how hard it is, who you are and where you're at, from a network's point of view.

 

You might have looked for a movie but you really downloaded a fake one. Look at the file size, 700 MiB (Xvid) for 1.5 hours of a movie were normal for low-quality public index sites in the past. Anything below is just an insult to your eyes.. or a prank, like this one.

[Brainbleach 5]

Please please tell me when you called your isp, you left out the part where you downloaded an illegal torrent and got a fake government video instead right???? You almost got yourself in trouble with that one lol.....

[flat4 79]

might be worth setting up a sandbox (in case of malware) and watching this glorious video.

[DonaldDrumpf 3]

It was just a fake video. Happens all the time. Usually, they're just a bunch of static. At least you got a somewhat entertaining one. They're nothing to worry about. I certainly wouldn't be reinstalling my system over it. There are entire companies who specialize in putting out such crap on behalf of copyright owners in order to shake people up and undermine the torrent scene. I'd be willing to be that that movie title you downloaded was fairly current, maybe a newly released, title. You'll never see that sort of crap disguised as a documentary or a "turkey" that bombed at the box office. Looks like the copyright owners got what they paid for this time.    The cop's foreign language should have been a tipoff.  No American law enforcement agency would do something like that. Sounds like a tactic used by some tinhorn country that may well have the right to track and arrest a downloader (Singapore? Phillipines?).

 

BTW, unless you were on some kiddie porn site, American copyright laws don't work that way.  The first time you get caught, the ISP sends you a letter.  NOBODY, cops or otherwise, has the right to "track you down" on a first offense, let alone issue a subpoena. They MUST first notify your ISP, who sends you a letter threatening to send you another letter if you do it again.  If they catch you more than a couple times, they'll throttle your connection. If you continue, they can cut off  your service, but it's not like they're going to sue you or have you arrested right off the bat.  The cases you've heard about were engineered to strike fear into the hearts of torrent users by making a huge case out of people who are shown to have downloaded, or especially uploaded, dozens or hundreds of movies that someone actually cares about anymore. Kinda' like the IRS operates. Psychological warfare.

[Guest]

I would love to see the video lol

 

Jokes aside, the most important thing is to properly configure your VPN and download non-fake torrents.

 

I recommend rarbg.