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Comment by corobo | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately everyone (including GDPR laws) is scared of p2p

Care to elaborate? I find this rather a sweeping statement and quite inconsistent with the level of activity and progress being made in the p2p sphere.

Fair comment. Unfortunately (for me!) I'm going to have to look like a bit of a wally. I can't elaborate on it and my stance has changed in the time since I posted (while looking up my former 'facts').

1) Based on the GDPR comment. If you're really careful with how you do things the IP address could be argued to not be personal information (never let a user associate IP with any other PI - e.g. if a user can ban another from their channel something, don't let them see the underlying IP ban in place. Not sure how IPs are handled across ActivityPub).

2) People scared of p2p.. I'm still on the fence a little. For instance the opt out issue at Peertube[1] displays a snippet of p2p-fear however it should be noted that a feature to opt out of the p2p part is implemented in Peertube specifically now so may just be a non-issue. p2p fear needs to be determined with a simple "do users use this opt-out" before I can sway one way or the other

[1]: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/685

Thanks for calling it out, I might not have found out that what I knew was outdated otherwise :)

> If you're really careful with how you do things the IP address could be argued to not be personal information

Current guidance (from the legal profession, not the HN peanut gallery) is that IPs are standalone personal data.

You got a source on that if you're going to be referring to the rest of us as a peanut gallery?

Everything I know and have found says IPs are classed as personal data only if combined with other data. I've yet to find anything that supports your claim, which is why I changed my mind on this.

> You got a source on that if you're going to be referring to the rest of us as a peanut gallery?

Nothing that isn't privileged information, unfortunately.

> Everything I know and have found says IPs are classed as personal data only if combined with other data. I've yet to find anything that supports your claim, which is why I changed my mind on this.

Recital 30 (https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-30/) says "in particular" when combined with other information, but the addition of that phrase indicates this is not the only case. The accuracy of your statement depends on how you interpret that recital. Based on this case (https://www.alstonprivacy.com/ecj-declares-ip-addresses-pers...) I suspect the broader interpretation is the one that would win over regulators.

Additionally, the information about that case states there is clear agreement that static IPs are personal data, which alone contradicts your belief.

In which jurisdiction? i.e. That's a hell of a generalisation.

p2p is widely useful technology, but in the minds of regular people, it's primarily associated with movie and videogame piracy. I don't know how common this is world-wide, but at least in my country it's widely known among people who use computers that downloading or streaming a copyright-protected video from a random site is legally in the clean, but p2p may land you in jail or have you paying fines - because it's unlawful distribution, not consumption, of copyrighted material that's punished.

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