Peer-To-Peer Systems Can Create Privacy Risks
from the thanks-for-the-obvious dept
Congress is apparently holding hearings on the dangers of file sharing networks, and they're getting an earful of useless information. A researcher told them (absolutely correctly) that people using file sharing software often accidentally expose private information by sharing their documents folder or even their whole harddrive so that others can access it. This is true - but when presented this way, there's little reason to doubt that Congress will blame the entire concept of file sharing - and not the fact that these examples are cases where the file sharing software has been poorly implemented. Just because people can accidentally create privacy risks, doesn't mean the whole concept is bad.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
