A friend recently showed me this site. It’s called Vertor.com and anyone paranoid about downloading torrents because of being tracked by the RIAA, the MPAA or their ISPs should use it. You input the torrent you are thinking about downloading, and it will tell you if it’s been tagged by anyone.

I didn’t think they actually did this, but HBO and Comcast teamed up to hit me with a strongly worded letter about the dangers of downloading “Flight of the Conchords” from Bittorrent. They had put a tracker on the file, and the 1000 or so of us that downloaded it all got the same letter. Granted nothing came of it at the time, but it sure freaked the hell out of me for a couple of days. And if I’d been using Vertor, this could have all been avoided.

A word of warning however, if you’re downloading torrents in your school’s dorm, this probably won’t help as your school’s moderators with pick up that you’re using a P2P service and shut you down, and possibly turn over your information to authorities. Yes, I also have experience with this as well, so take my word for it. No P2P in the dorms, it’s not worth settling a lawsuit for $5,000.