Using an old laptop for piracy
Hello people I recently acquired an old(er) laptop through my workplace. I was initially planning on running a Pi-hole on it but after installing it I noticed that my router is causing issues with the Pi-hole so I gave up on that idea.
Now if I were to decide on dedicating it for piracy, would I be able to do anything that isn't viable on a general use PC that would make it less likely for these piracy activities to have legal and/or financial ramifications on me? Or would it be no different than using the PC I use for my everyday stuff?
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Dedicating a separate machine to piracy is a good idea.
For one, it can be always on and get you much better seed ratios.
It is also much more malware secure. As long as you back up any content on it regularly you can open everything you download on that pc first to see if it's legit. If it ends up infecting it badly you can just wipe the OS and start over without worrying about losing your main pc.
Also, legally, it is much easier to set up a VPN for the entire PC that ensures your ISP can't see your "gray" traffic, without impacting your normal computer experience (vpn's have bad latency) or having any accidental leaks (turn off vpn to play a game, forget torrent client open, bam you have 5 new DMCA cease and desist letters in your mailbox). It's just generally safer to compartmentalize.
I was wondering about something similar, like setting up a VM for it. Doesn't really fulfill the "always on" thingy, but regarding malware etc. this should be safe, no?
Yeah. As long as you don't make any alterations to the VM like sharing drives for example. If you had enough storage you could also make snapshots on occasion so you have a back up in the event of malware but you wouldn't likely get malware unless you are opening the files on that VM
Yes, a VM is good for sandboxing too. It's still not perfectly safe as an airgapped separate machine, things can leak out of memory/network adapters, and depending on the specs of your main PC it could lead to some performance issues. But it's a literally free first step and a great improvement.