I was a leecher

When you're torrentlng, a leecher is someone who's received more data than he's uploaded. It's sort of a reputation of not "carrying your weight".


Well, you could probably get a much better explanation from Wikipedia, but torrenting is when you exchange files with other people through a peer-to-peer network. So you're using torrenting software to directly exchange files with other people, without going through a central data server or web site.
The advantage of torrenting is that the site offering the file doesn't have to use bandwidth to download the file to huge numbers of people. Instead, the people exchanging the files are using their own bandwidth.
Torrenting has a negative stigma, because it's often used for exchanging illegal files, but it can be used for legal transfers. I've only used it for downloading legal Linux distributions. (so far, haha).

I never messed with torrents when I was on Windows. But when I switched to Linux and started downloading all of these multi-gigabyte Linux distros, I decided to give torrenting a try. Linux makes it easy, because a Linux distro usually comes with torrenting software, and you can install other torrent programs from the Linux repositories.

Pen testing would be cool, but I don't do it. (I'd only consider doing it on my own systems.) You can get into deep trouble if you don't get permission to pen test other systems.
I just want an operating system that gives me control and doesn't spy on me and track me. :-)
I confess I was a leecher for a short time. I finally got my torrent seeding ratio above 1, and now it's even hit 2! Woo hoo!