People using BitTorrent, the popular file-sharing service, are likely being monitored, according to a study from Birmingham University in the U.K. on Tuesday.
The study says those illegally sharing a popular movie, music, or game will likely be tagged by one of many monitoring companies.
Copyright holders, the study says, can monitor through two distinct methods, which are indirect and direct monitoring. Direct monitoring involves actually connecting with users to assess how involved they are in file sharing. In indirect monitoring clues of a users’ file sharing activity are evaluated without directly connecting.
BitTorrent is used by millions of people across the world to share large files, namely games, movies, and music, but also is used to deliver legitimate content such as the latest distribution of the latest Linux operating system. But generally speaking, the service is used to share illegal content, the university study notes.
Enforcement agencies use a “precise set of techniques” to monitor people, but these have never been publicly disclosed, the study said.
Scientists involved in the study pretended to be a normal BitTorrent user and logged all connections that were made to the account over a three-year period.
“You don’t have to be a mass downloader. Someone who downloads a single movie will be logged as well,” researcher Tom Chothia told the BBC.
“If the content was in the top 100 it was monitored within hours,” he added. “Someone will notice and it will be recorded.”
