Always monitor your torrent IP, especially if using a VPN or Proxy.

A legal torrent file is generated uniquely for you.

Since no one else has your torrent & there are 0 seeders, you won't download anything else.

Your IP address will be shown in your Bittorrent client and on this website:

Need a fast and secure proxy/vpn for less than $5 a month? We recommend these services:

              

How does CheckMyTorrentIP work?

CheckMyTorrentIP is a torrent tracker that lets you download a legal torrent file created uniquely for you. Because no one other than you has this torrent and since there are no seeders, the torrent will not download and never complete and will remain active in your queue as long as you wish. You'll see your torrent IP within your torrent client and you can come back here to see your torrent IP history. I created this site since a friend found it difficult to constantly monitor his setup. The site is free and there are no gimmicks, just pay it forward. Hit me at whatismyip at gmail dot com if you have questions.

But I'm using a VPN or Proxy, isn't my privacy 100% safe guarded?

Maybe, maybe not. This FAQ details many ways your IP address can leak and explain what steps you can take to prevent it. By checking your torrent IP address over a period of time, you can verify if there are any holes in your security practices. If you're not a techie, have a friend help diagnose your connection.

Why can't I just use a web browser or other program to check my IP?

See the next question that gives examples where a web browser fails to help you. Also keep in mind that you can't manually check your IP with a browser 24x7 and your torrent client may be setup to use a different IP address.

How can my IP address be exposed if I'm using a VPN or Proxy?

There are many ways, here are some different scenarios, feel free to send in any others you know about and suggestions.

VPNs - There are many types of VPNs, the two most prevalent types are PPTP and OpenVPN. While each has their advantages and drawbacks, all suffer from the same weakness, at one point or another the connection will drop and this may expose your personal IP address (Note: VPNs enjoy dropping while you're tucked in bed catching up on ZZZzzzs). To completely prevent exposing your IP address you'll need to modify your routes or use a firewall program to do this for you. See below in another question for more details on securing a VPN.

Proxies - Again there are many variations but the most popular by far is a socks proxy. The proxy can be a remote host or exist locally via an ssh tunnel. If your proxy is incorrectly configured or unknowingly unset you may expose your IP address. Also always be sure to disable DHT and UPnP in your client otherwise you will mostly likely leak your IP address even if your proxy is configured correctly. Please see below in another question for more details on securing your proxy and DHT/UPnP.

Firewall - Some users use a software or hardware firewall to route torrent traffic through a secure connection and other traffic (like web) through the local connection. The configuration can be incorrect or become undone.

Relative or Friend - You may have the most secure setup but all it takes is a lovely relative or friend to misunderstand/forget your clear simple instructions and expose your IP address.

Torrent client software bug - There are plenty of torrent clients, and new ones coming out all the time, some are specialized or experimental, others tout better performance. As long as you stick to established mature software, this shouldn't affect you. But for the bold and daring, make sure to always test the proxy/forwarding/hider feature.

Being an exit node on private P2P - There is a new wave of public/private P2P networks (not Tor) that anonymize your traffic in return for you anonymizing other user's traffic. There have been and currently exists bugs that incorrectly route your traffic to the point of making you the exit node of your own traffic!

Unknowingly using employer's VPN - Some computers have multiple VPN configurations installed and you could inadvertently be using the wrong VPN.

Please share your other scenarios at email: mytorrentip at gmail dot com.

By monitoring your torrent IP address, you can definitely improve your setup and curb poor habits.

What do you do with my IP information?

Your IP records are deleted as soon as you select delete from the "Check IP" tab, or if there is no activity after 30 days. Please don't ask to have your IP data back, I can't get to it.

I am an uploader, may I add this this to my torrent announce?

Yes, you can add http://checkmytorrentip.com/announce.php as one of your announce trackers and your torrent users will see their IP in their client. Note that since no passkey is being used, no logs will be kept. If you do use a passkey, once we detect that more than 50 IPs are using a passkey, all logs will be deleted so that wide spread tracking is not possible. I would rather you don't include a passkey as this uses more server resources.

How do I find my passkey?

Normally you don't need to know your passkey as it'll automatically be found for you each time you visit this site (it's saved in your browser cookies). If you've deleted your cookies, you can find the 32 character passkey in your torrent client's properties. Usually it'll be under a setting similar to below. Right click to copy & paste rather than typing it out

Where do I find my IP within my torrent application?

Usually it'll be under a tracker property called "Status". Some clients constantly show the Status (utorrent), others show a popup (Vuze / Azureus), and others don't show it at all (Bitcomet). To be tested: Transmission, Xunlei (Thunder). The message will start with "Warning", but ignore the warning, it's just a note.

How can I secure my VPN?

There are 4 good ways.

1. Use VPN Netmon to close your app when your connection drops.

2. You can use a firewall. See tutorial using Comodo http://tinyurl.com/624ot2

3. Try a well configured OpenVPN client over PPTP. There are 2 reasons for this. Some OpenVPN configs won't drop your routes while reconnecting where as PPTP always drops your routes while reconnecting. This is an extra layer but I have seen OpenVPN eventually give up/crash and then you're still exposed. Next, DNS request go through your main connection and not PPTP.

4. Use the route command. Here's a tutorial I wrote for XP / VISTA / Windows 7:
A computer uses a "routing table" to decide where to send it's data packets. In XP/Vista, you can see your routing table by using the following command inside the cmd shell: netstat -R You'll see many lines but scan through them and the only one that is of interest is the 0.0.0.0 line (ignore other lines like net masking) and it looks like this: Active Routes: Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.8 20 What 0.0.0.0 sort of means is "any IP address". And Gateway is where to send the data. Interface is your IP address. So anytime you have data to send to any IP address, it'll be sent to the 192.168.0.1 (your router) IP address which then funnels to your local ISP. When you log onto VPN, you end up with a new second 0.0.0.0 line: Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.8 20 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 91.122.72.211 91.122.72.23 10 So your computer has two routes it can pick from. Now this is where the Metric number comes in. Metric means cost. Because the metric is lower on the second route (10<20), it "costs" less, and so your computer always sends data via the VPN route, and your data is secure :) Now the problem is that when your VPN line drops, your original routes still exist so you'll continue to seed/leech under your local IP address. So the solution is AFTER you've logged onto VPN (not before otherwise you won't have any routes to log onto the VPN), delete your original route with this command: route delete 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 Now your routing table will look like this: Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 91.122.72.211 91.122.72.23 10 And if your VPN line drops, you lose that route, so there are no more 0.0.0.0 routes and your external connection will be immediately cut off. If you want to access the internet you'll need to add the original route back with this command: route add 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 IF 8 The "IF 8" mean "interface 8". The number 8 may be different on your computer, look at the output of netstat -r to get the correct number of your interface. A couple more points. You may need to set a static local IP address if you have flaky wireless. Otherwise if you briefly lose your wireless connection (and therefore local IP address) while on VPN and your VPN doesn't drop, when your PC reconnects back to your wireless, your original route will automatically be added, and so even though you deleted it, it'll pop back up. So in the Control Panel under networking, turn off DHCP and assign the 192.168.0.8 address manually. That way that route will never be added back unless you add it yourself. After you manually add your routes back, it make take some time before DNS works again. I've never figured out why the delay, so sometimes it's faster to reboot your computer after you lose the connection (this is why VMWARE is so much easier). Tip 1: Create .bat files with the route add/del commands in it, that way you can just click a short cut. Tip 2: Also create a shortcut to cmd with this Target: %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe /k "netstat -R" . That way you never have to go to Start->Run->cmd->netstat -R each time you want to check your routes. Tip 3: Use a virtual machine (like vmware) to connect to a VPN, that way your normal day to day traffic won't be affected.

How can I secure my proxy?

There are various types of proxies and the discussion here is limited to the socks proxy. Follow these 3 steps:
1. Never ever leave DHT and UPnP/NAT-PMP turned on unless you know what you are doing. DHT in some clients like uTorrent bypasses your proxy settings and will advertise your local IP address. Clients based on libtorrent from Rasterbar such as Deluge are safe since they will proxy your DHT. UPnP/NAT-PMP will open the ports on your router/firewall automatically and allow peers to connect to you directly. It is suggested to disable UPnP/NAT-PMP in your torrent client and also on your router. Note that CheckMyTorrentIP will not be able to detect if you have DHT turned on as DHT doesn't require a tracker, that is its purpose in life.



2. Use a proxy that handles both tracker and peer communication. Some proxies offer a "basic" service that only proxifies tracker communication. Don't subscribe to this as the peers will contact your personal IP address.

3. Ensure that you've enabled and configured your proxy in your bitorrent client as per the instructions provided by your provider, and that it hasn't been unset by another user or reinstallation/updates.

How secure is my passkey?

It's so secure that it is the method employed be all private trackers. There are 16^32 combinations, in decimal that is the same number as IPv6 addresses (see above). That is more than all the atoms on the surface of one hundred earths.

Credits

I leveraged several tools and tutorials to create this site and I'd like to give them credit:
Torrent libraries
Geolocation
Tabs
Shield & background
Button
Tables
Badge