by joel » Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:56 am
neither newsgroups or private torrents are completely safe either.
as dunc pointed out a company can easily pay the same subscription fee that you do, which for them would be a drop in the bucket anyways and get the exact same information a public torrent site would provide.
newsgroups are a bit trickier as only the server has your ip address/info, but there is still a trail that eventually leads to you.
but these tracking companies can figure out the ip addresses for the newsgroup servers, and ask ISPs for the accounts that connect to those newsgroup ip addresses and what files were requested...
it's sort of like contraception, the only completely sure why is to abstain.