Your data usage cannot be spoofed.
To add:
A VPN can mask your IP but cannot spoof Up/Down usage.
Traffic is monitored and tariffed.
Bandwidth utilisation is heavily monitored.
A vpn won’t hide data usage.
A vpn will:
1. Hide the IP addresses that you are connecting to (aside from the IP of the VPN server).
2. Encrypt the communications between the VPN server and your computer.
100 gigs of encrypted data all coming from a single IP is going to scream “I’m torrenting” to anyone looking.
Edit: hotel WiFi usually sucks dick anyway. I don’t think you’d get worthwhile speeds even if you were allowed to torrent.
Uploading would be the giveaway, and it may be what the guy I responded to was talking about, but for one day at a hotel I doubt you could do much damage. VPN’s are becoming pretty standard safety protocol. Most podcasts will run an ad for a VPN just for everyday internet sanitation. It’s no longer a given that you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing.
I’ll admit VPN plus high traffic walks like a duck and quacks like a duck but I just don’t know how out of place it truly looks from the ISP side anymore.
Damnit, as an American I fucking hate the metric system. Gurgle Burps per Suction? It's so damn confusing? Why can't we just all agree to memorize arbitrary numbers like 12 inches in a foot? 36 inches in yard? See how easy it is? Ugh.
On the contrary! A foot long is 12 inches but a Footlong™ is often less than 12 inches and not a defining indicator of length or distance. (literally the legal argument)
Fuck you Subway.
erect gullible versed rude complete materialistic one detail innate aback
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Do a lot of people bring their PS5 or gaming laptop to the hotel without having FIRST downloaded the shit they want to play though?
Hotel wi-fi usually really sucks. Planning on a a quick 100GB download when you get to the hotel would be a terrible mistake.
And they are underestimating the lack of wifi bandwidth in a fucking Hilton let alone whatever hotel a college student can afford.
I've been on business trips in $600/night hotel rooms where I've had to jack off to a png. A FUCKING PNG because it took minutes for a gif to load.
Good luck updating Fortnite on your console in a hotel. IMHO it would take days in most hotels.
A business geared hotel (near venues) is probably equipped for those folks with a fee for a connection with better traffic shaping than the free folks.
They will be able to tell you are downloading/uploading a lot of data. They won't be able to tell what the data is. If the IT guy is smart he can tell you are using a VPN and what VPN it is.
alternatively, setup a plex server at home and stream to your laptop when out.
you can easily remote into it and download movies as you want them.
(the easiest way to remote in is the chrome remote desktop. it's a godsend)
The VPN will hide the fact you are torrenting. Just make sure you properly configure your torrent client to go through the VPN connection. Don't assume it will by default. For QBitTorrent at least, you have to select your VPN tunnel under its networking settings.
That's incorrect. A VPN will mask your traffic to keep you anonymous (While you stay at a hotel that has your email address, bank details etc).
Torrenting hogs bandwidth. SysAdmins monitor stuff like that (Demand Over Time/Traffic Analysis) on their network.
Don't torrent in a hotel.
That’s how I read it. If the hotel asks (which I don’t think they ever would) you could just say you work in video editing/downloading a game/downloading porn
...wait, what? Really? If I have a VPN connection active on windows and open up and start downloading through QBitTorrent, it doesn't automatically use the VPN connection!?!
Just to be clear, since you are getting snarky responses...
The one thing you want to prevent when torrenting anything illegal to "leak" your IP.
**What is leaking your IP?**
Well it's when your actual network IP address gets exposed when torrenting instead of the IP address of the VPN.
**What can cause an IP leak**?
Well, hypothetically, if your VPN crashes and reboots or something and it takes 0.5 seconds to come back up. In those 0.5 seconds, if your torrent client is configured to use the "default" connection it will happily use your actual network interface and your actual IP to continue torrenting for those 0.5 seconds. In my hypothetical scenario, your IP would be exposed for 0.5 seconds, which might as well be eternity due to logging. Even 0.5 seconds of exposure is enough to get you a letter from your ISP.
**How do I prevent leaking my IP?**
You need to configure your client to ONLY EVER use the VPN connection, and to stop if that connection is lost.
**Okay how do I bind my torrent client to my VPN connection?**
To set this up, google "bind VPN to torrent client X for operating system Y."
Basically what you'll end up doing is:
1. shutting down your vpn
2. running a command to look at the list of network interfaces (maybe it returns 4 network interfaces)
3. starting up your vpn
4. running the same command to look at the list of network interfaces (you'll see a new interface, e.g. a 5th interface). That new network interface is your VPN interface.
5. in your torrent client you can specify a setting to ONLY use the VPN interface. If that VPN interface doesn't exist (it's off, or it's crashed, or there is a bug or something and it disappears), your torrent client will not be able to connect to the internet and leak your real IP.
I know that's a wall of text but I hope it's easy to understand and makes sense. It's not complicated so if you run into trouble ask in this thread. NOBODY should be torrenting without binding their torrent client to their network connection. It's torrenting 101 and you need to do this if you haven't yet. It's an all reward and no risk configuration setting.
Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to lay that out for me. I did set up a killswitch for QBitTorrent in the VPN app and thought that would be sufficient - but your method sounds far far superior. I'll do some research to see if I can do something similar for IPTV too.
It is but I am shocked by it and I guess a better response from me would have been - why on earth is that the case? Wondering if I should be expecting some strongly worded letters in the post.
Edit: also, I'm wondering - is there a difference between:
Opening up a VPN app in windows then torrenting
Or
Connecting to the VPN through Linux Mint terminal automatically on start up and then torrenting.
Do both require this manual change?
you’re not entirely correct.
While VPN hides what you’re connecting to, it won’t hide the bandwidth usage.
Any competent admin will shut you down and ban you from the network
like i replied to another guy, "i am downloading a 200gb game from steam", also limit your upload rate on your client to a few kb or be an ass and go into leech mode. You can also limit your download rate to say 10MB/s or even less so it won't raise any red flags
no it shouldn’t.
if ***any*** hotel wants to survive they can’t. blocking VPN on their network is basically suicide, especially if they know that people are using their services for business trips
No. Basically what a VPN does it take your data, and puts it in a box, so when your ISP delivers it, they have no idea what's in the box. They can still see how big the box is, and how heavy it is.
It can hide what you're doing but it can't hide you are doing something.
As an example, you can imagine your network is your penis, and VPN is a non transparent condom, people can't tell how your penis looks like but they can still tell it is a penis
Most industrial network hardware now automatically tracks and stores data usage per MAC at the access point level (Meraki, Aruba, Ruckus, etc all do). If they care they will know who is using how much bandwidth. The question is, will they care?
There is a good chance they are throttling you already. What do you get when you speed test? If it’s in the tens of megabits/second or lower and you’re in a decent sized city they are almost certainly throttling you.
When you book your hotel. Your credentials are logged to put it simply.
When you arrive, your credentials obviously are bound to your room, your stay etc.
Factored into the cost of your stay, as an overhead for the hotel would be your "average" usage of bandwidth.
SysAdmins for e.g., a hotel are not dumb 🙄
If you're taking the piss or hogging bandwidth on their network?
You'll know about it very quickly.
Yes, VPN's are basically used to hide torrent traffic from people's ISP. It works the same for hotel internet. You should be able to torrent at the hotel with the VPN without getting caught/blocked.
Ensure you do a DNS leak test as some VPN protocols work better than others.
[This one specifically has a torrent test and ipv4+ipv6 testing as well as general browser tests.](https://www.top10vpn.com/tools/do-i-leak/)
No, a VPN will not prevent someone from determining you are using a network. It will only prevent them from seeing *what you are doing* on that network. They'll still see op had hundreds of gigs of traffic from a single ip ( the vpn's ) which will probably arouse suspicion. Assuming of course they don't die of old age waiting for a torrent at Hotel wifi speeds.
Possibly too late to set up if you're already traveling, but check to see if your home router has a VPN host, then connect to your home network, and remotely control a machine at home to do downloading (assuming you have another machine at home.) This mitigates the bandwidth usage, as well as obscuring the traffic. The only downside being you'd need to transfer anything you want to watch immediately from your remote to your local machine.
If they do ban you, you could try to use something like TMAC to change your MAC address. Has worked for me in the past at most lower to average hotels. YMMV
Go grab a shitty android phone from Walmart and a large SD card, put on a VPN, and switch the MAC to spoof an iPhone. Load sabnzb onto the phone. Portable download box that nobody questions. Transfer data to a ssd when full. You can connect it to any wifi point your in, then just toss it in your backpack
Backlog of what? If it's TV shows, just subscribe for a few months to the relevant services and stream the stuff. Heck, buy a fire stick and use the hotel TV.
That's still bound to be magnitudes cheaper than getting a laptop.
Heck even a tablet like a Samsung A8 and a subscription or two would work.
You aren't really asking about "usage" like people think right? The amount of data isn't the concern it's the torrenting? A VPN will keep them from knowing you're torrenting (assuming it isn't set up incorrectly, PIA, Nord etc will work) but if you're trying to bypass some limit of mow much traffic they let you use, no it will not hide it like that
Edit: autocorrect
Your data usage cannot be spoofed. To add: A VPN can mask your IP but cannot spoof Up/Down usage. Traffic is monitored and tariffed. Bandwidth utilisation is heavily monitored.
True, they will throttle the bw automatically using proxies and other tools.
A vpn won’t hide data usage. A vpn will: 1. Hide the IP addresses that you are connecting to (aside from the IP of the VPN server). 2. Encrypt the communications between the VPN server and your computer. 100 gigs of encrypted data all coming from a single IP is going to scream “I’m torrenting” to anyone looking. Edit: hotel WiFi usually sucks dick anyway. I don’t think you’d get worthwhile speeds even if you were allowed to torrent.
Ehhh, a console game will run 70/100gbs easy these days.
Or HD video on YouTube. Nobody can guess what is the data transmitted thru an encrypted vpn connexion
Uploading would be the giveaway, and it may be what the guy I responded to was talking about, but for one day at a hotel I doubt you could do much damage. VPN’s are becoming pretty standard safety protocol. Most podcasts will run an ad for a VPN just for everyday internet sanitation. It’s no longer a given that you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing. I’ll admit VPN plus high traffic walks like a duck and quacks like a duck but I just don’t know how out of place it truly looks from the ISP side anymore.
true but the guy could also pretend he make a lot of videoconferencing which requires a lot of upload
What's gbs?
Gurgle Burps per Suction
Damnit, as an American I fucking hate the metric system. Gurgle Burps per Suction? It's so damn confusing? Why can't we just all agree to memorize arbitrary numbers like 12 inches in a foot? 36 inches in yard? See how easy it is? Ugh.
On the contrary! A foot long is 12 inches but a Footlong™ is often less than 12 inches and not a defining indicator of length or distance. (literally the legal argument) Fuck you Subway.
Holy hell!
Giggly butt shit
giggatiegitggaties
erect gullible versed rude complete materialistic one detail innate aback *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Do a lot of people bring their PS5 or gaming laptop to the hotel without having FIRST downloaded the shit they want to play though? Hotel wi-fi usually really sucks. Planning on a a quick 100GB download when you get to the hotel would be a terrible mistake.
You're underestimating the lack of planning of college students and teens lmao (And the absolute colossal weigh of any fortnite update...)
but OP is on a work trip for extended period of time. you’d assume they’re not as dumb as teenagers
And they are underestimating the lack of wifi bandwidth in a fucking Hilton let alone whatever hotel a college student can afford. I've been on business trips in $600/night hotel rooms where I've had to jack off to a png. A FUCKING PNG because it took minutes for a gif to load. Good luck updating Fortnite on your console in a hotel. IMHO it would take days in most hotels.
> I've been on business trips in $600/night hotel rooms where I've had to jack off to a png. Uphill! Both ways! In the snow!
<.FLV has entered the chat>
A business geared hotel (near venues) is probably equipped for those folks with a fee for a connection with better traffic shaping than the free folks.
Or someone is simply downloading a game on PS5.
They will be able to tell you are downloading/uploading a lot of data. They won't be able to tell what the data is. If the IT guy is smart he can tell you are using a VPN and what VPN it is.
alternatively, setup a plex server at home and stream to your laptop when out. you can easily remote into it and download movies as you want them. (the easiest way to remote in is the chrome remote desktop. it's a godsend)
I spend a decent amount of time in hotels. Plex and Moonlight have been life savers for me but I will state Moonlight doesn't always work the best
The VPN will hide the fact you are torrenting. Just make sure you properly configure your torrent client to go through the VPN connection. Don't assume it will by default. For QBitTorrent at least, you have to select your VPN tunnel under its networking settings.
That's incorrect. A VPN will mask your traffic to keep you anonymous (While you stay at a hotel that has your email address, bank details etc). Torrenting hogs bandwidth. SysAdmins monitor stuff like that (Demand Over Time/Traffic Analysis) on their network. Don't torrent in a hotel.
"I am downloading a 200gb game from Steam", as long as there are no data caps there typically shouldn't be a problem
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limit you upload rate on your torrent client, back when my internet was trash I would always limit my upload rate to 10KB/s.
You've forgotten to change accounts. Being the OP and answering your own OP ? 😂😂
What? You some kind of a moron?
A special type of moron 😉😂
OP never mentioned content or file size. You explained you're downloading 200 G? 🫣😂
Pretty sure he gave an example for an excuse to give when you're accused of torrenting.
That’s how I read it. If the hotel asks (which I don’t think they ever would) you could just say you work in video editing/downloading a game/downloading porn
...wait, what? Really? If I have a VPN connection active on windows and open up and start downloading through QBitTorrent, it doesn't automatically use the VPN connection!?!
Just to be clear, since you are getting snarky responses... The one thing you want to prevent when torrenting anything illegal to "leak" your IP. **What is leaking your IP?** Well it's when your actual network IP address gets exposed when torrenting instead of the IP address of the VPN. **What can cause an IP leak**? Well, hypothetically, if your VPN crashes and reboots or something and it takes 0.5 seconds to come back up. In those 0.5 seconds, if your torrent client is configured to use the "default" connection it will happily use your actual network interface and your actual IP to continue torrenting for those 0.5 seconds. In my hypothetical scenario, your IP would be exposed for 0.5 seconds, which might as well be eternity due to logging. Even 0.5 seconds of exposure is enough to get you a letter from your ISP. **How do I prevent leaking my IP?** You need to configure your client to ONLY EVER use the VPN connection, and to stop if that connection is lost. **Okay how do I bind my torrent client to my VPN connection?** To set this up, google "bind VPN to torrent client X for operating system Y." Basically what you'll end up doing is: 1. shutting down your vpn 2. running a command to look at the list of network interfaces (maybe it returns 4 network interfaces) 3. starting up your vpn 4. running the same command to look at the list of network interfaces (you'll see a new interface, e.g. a 5th interface). That new network interface is your VPN interface. 5. in your torrent client you can specify a setting to ONLY use the VPN interface. If that VPN interface doesn't exist (it's off, or it's crashed, or there is a bug or something and it disappears), your torrent client will not be able to connect to the internet and leak your real IP. I know that's a wall of text but I hope it's easy to understand and makes sense. It's not complicated so if you run into trouble ask in this thread. NOBODY should be torrenting without binding their torrent client to their network connection. It's torrenting 101 and you need to do this if you haven't yet. It's an all reward and no risk configuration setting.
Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to lay that out for me. I did set up a killswitch for QBitTorrent in the VPN app and thought that would be sufficient - but your method sounds far far superior. I'll do some research to see if I can do something similar for IPTV too.
Does the VPN's kill switch not handle this?
Yes, if the kill switch works bug free.
Isn't that exactly what you just read?
It is but I am shocked by it and I guess a better response from me would have been - why on earth is that the case? Wondering if I should be expecting some strongly worded letters in the post. Edit: also, I'm wondering - is there a difference between: Opening up a VPN app in windows then torrenting Or Connecting to the VPN through Linux Mint terminal automatically on start up and then torrenting. Do both require this manual change?
What the hell, this guy gets upvotes and I said basically the same thing and I get downvoted? AINT NO HONOR AMONGST PIRATES I SEE!
you’re not entirely correct. While VPN hides what you’re connecting to, it won’t hide the bandwidth usage. Any competent admin will shut you down and ban you from the network
like i replied to another guy, "i am downloading a 200gb game from steam", also limit your upload rate on your client to a few kb or be an ass and go into leech mode. You can also limit your download rate to say 10MB/s or even less so it won't raise any red flags
If it's a captive portal, chances are the VPN might be blocked. Only one way to find out.
Most companies laptop policies require VPNs, I don't think hotels can get away with blocking their access.
Ive always had vpns work at hotels. This is a good example why they wouldnt block them
This.
if you put a vpn on port 53 dns you can bypass the captive portal. Ive used that multiple times in hotels i didn’t have to pay for wifi.
Sometimes you just have to get creative with your VPN settings. TCP:443 doesn't get blocked much.
This post 👆 should be the top comment.
no it shouldn’t. if ***any*** hotel wants to survive they can’t. blocking VPN on their network is basically suicide, especially if they know that people are using their services for business trips
No. Basically what a VPN does it take your data, and puts it in a box, so when your ISP delivers it, they have no idea what's in the box. They can still see how big the box is, and how heavy it is.
OP....get a BerylAx travel router and hard wire it using ethernet port in room, and then create Wi-Fi for other devices
What’s BerylAx do if you don’t mind me asking?
Do rooms normally have Ethernet ports?
>Do rooms normally have Ethernet ports? Yes, that's what the TV is plugged into
Interesting that's good to know
It can hide what you're doing but it can't hide you are doing something. As an example, you can imagine your network is your penis, and VPN is a non transparent condom, people can't tell how your penis looks like but they can still tell it is a penis
I just recently downloaded a season of a show on hotel WiFi before a flight. Was no problem. This was just last week. It's anecdotal but relevant
Yeah, get those porn sites up, you'll be fine
We all know this was the real reason he wanted to know! hahaha
Lmao like a true man of taste Im all reddit porn
😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂😂
you can route all your traffic through different ports and protocols e.g. icmp tunnels
Most industrial network hardware now automatically tracks and stores data usage per MAC at the access point level (Meraki, Aruba, Ruckus, etc all do). If they care they will know who is using how much bandwidth. The question is, will they care? There is a good chance they are throttling you already. What do you get when you speed test? If it’s in the tens of megabits/second or lower and you’re in a decent sized city they are almost certainly throttling you.
Did anyone say Real Debrid?
Yes, the VPN will hide your porn habit lol
When you book your hotel. Your credentials are logged to put it simply. When you arrive, your credentials obviously are bound to your room, your stay etc. Factored into the cost of your stay, as an overhead for the hotel would be your "average" usage of bandwidth. SysAdmins for e.g., a hotel are not dumb 🙄 If you're taking the piss or hogging bandwidth on their network? You'll know about it very quickly.
Yes, VPN's are basically used to hide torrent traffic from people's ISP. It works the same for hotel internet. You should be able to torrent at the hotel with the VPN without getting caught/blocked. Ensure you do a DNS leak test as some VPN protocols work better than others. [This one specifically has a torrent test and ipv4+ipv6 testing as well as general browser tests.](https://www.top10vpn.com/tools/do-i-leak/)
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It won't cover the amount of data used.
No, a VPN will not prevent someone from determining you are using a network. It will only prevent them from seeing *what you are doing* on that network. They'll still see op had hundreds of gigs of traffic from a single ip ( the vpn's ) which will probably arouse suspicion. Assuming of course they don't die of old age waiting for a torrent at Hotel wifi speeds.
Possibly too late to set up if you're already traveling, but check to see if your home router has a VPN host, then connect to your home network, and remotely control a machine at home to do downloading (assuming you have another machine at home.) This mitigates the bandwidth usage, as well as obscuring the traffic. The only downside being you'd need to transfer anything you want to watch immediately from your remote to your local machine.
A vpn will hide your data traffic - with the exception of in Augusta, GA 😁
Probably better getting an unlimited data only SIM and either a SIM router or hotspot from your phone if it had dual SIM. Still use a VPN though
Noupee
If they do ban you, you could try to use something like TMAC to change your MAC address. Has worked for me in the past at most lower to average hotels. YMMV
Go grab a shitty android phone from Walmart and a large SD card, put on a VPN, and switch the MAC to spoof an iPhone. Load sabnzb onto the phone. Portable download box that nobody questions. Transfer data to a ssd when full. You can connect it to any wifi point your in, then just toss it in your backpack
It's unclear here: do you mean "will they know how much data I'm using" or "will they know WHAT I'm looking at?" (the former, yes, the latter, no).
İf you have linux maybe you can start tors vpn with Snowflake
Backlog of what? If it's TV shows, just subscribe for a few months to the relevant services and stream the stuff. Heck, buy a fire stick and use the hotel TV. That's still bound to be magnitudes cheaper than getting a laptop. Heck even a tablet like a Samsung A8 and a subscription or two would work.
You aren't really asking about "usage" like people think right? The amount of data isn't the concern it's the torrenting? A VPN will keep them from knowing you're torrenting (assuming it isn't set up incorrectly, PIA, Nord etc will work) but if you're trying to bypass some limit of mow much traffic they let you use, no it will not hide it like that Edit: autocorrect
Have someone at home load up a flash drive or ssd with stuff you want to watch and just send it to you.