[FisDugthop]

I am still worried about privacy, and it seems like the design of PeerTube is no longer flexible enough to consider making the desired improvements. In particular, it sounds like peers can still know which videos somebody has requested.

[myself248]

Seems to me that you could run your own instance, peer with any instances that have videos you're interested in, then enable "redundancy", which pulls their videos into your instance.

It doesn't prevent them from knowing you requested the data, but it provides an alternative explanation.

Really if you want that kind of privacy, I think you'd be looking at Freenet or similar projects.

[detaro]

Do you have ideas about a design where that wouldn't be the case?

[danShumway]

In Firefox, under about:config, disable `media.peerconnection.enabled`. You should consider doing that anyway if you're worried about IP leaks because in some cases peer connections can unmask your IP address behind a VPN.

I'm in the midst of switching my hosting off of Youtube and on to Peertube. I don't run Google analytics or any ads on my sites, I make sure that most of my stuff can work without Javascript. I'm even looking into dropping Cloudflare so I can get rid of their remaining cookie. I believe that people have a fundamental, unalienable right to hide their identities online[0]. Because of that, my perspective on Peertube is... complicated. I don't dismiss the concern about peer-to-peer privacy, I think it's a real issue. However, I think those (valid) concerns are outweighed by the following:

A) PeerTube is still probably better for user's privacy than Youtube, and Peertube is a more feasible alternative to Youtube than anything else I've seen.

B) Using a VPN and flipping a few simple config options gets around the issue, which, as I'll get to below, you should be doing anyway.

C) Forcing people to care about their IP addresses in general is probably a good thing. People are generally dismissive of the fact that they leak their IP addresses to every site they visit, and that some of those sites will then leak their IP addresses to the general public[1]. If Peertube gets people to care about that, then maybe it's a good thing?

D) Peer-to-peer networking has really big benefits for bandwidth and reliability, and is going to be a core asset in getting decentralized technology to compete with centralized alternatives. I'm not willing to give that technology up, even if it has privacy implications. My perspective is we just have to deal with it, and preferably we have to deal with it in a generic way that can be easily applied on top of services like Peertube. I lean towards the opinion that forcing the issue is, again, probably a good thing in the long term.

I want to cycle back around to point C. If you're really worried about these IP leaks, I'm not going to say you're wrong. I think that's a valid concern. However, I will say that if you're really worried about these IP leaks, and you're not worried about regular web browsing without a VPN/Tor, then you probably don't have a complete grasp on the total scope of the problem. If you're already taking reasonable steps to protect your IP (as far as I know) Peertube won't be exposing you to any additional risks.

[0]: https://anewdigitalmanifesto.com/#right-to-hide

[1]: https://danshumway.com/blog/gamasutra-vulnerabilities/

[rolandog]

Thanks for the informative write-up and explanation.

[busymom0]

Won't VPN hide your IP in webtorrent?