2 <h1 i18n
class=
"about-peertube-title">
6 <img class=
"mascot" width=
"121px" height=
"147px" src=
"/client/assets/images/mascot/default.png" alt=
"mascot"/>
8 <div class=
"description">
10 PeerTube is a self hosted federated (ActivityPub) video streaming platform using P2P directly in the web browser.
14 It is a free and open-source software, under the
<a href=
"https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/LICENSE">AGPLv3
19 For more information, please visit
<a target=
"_blank" rel=
"noopener noreferrer" href=
"https://joinpeertube.org">joinpeertube.org
</a>.
23 <div class=
"documentation">
26 <div class=
"card-body">
27 <h5 class=
"card-title">
28 <a i18n
target=
"_blank" rel=
"noopener noreferrer" href=
"https://docs.joinpeertube.org/#/use-setup-account">Use PeerTube
32 <div i18n
class=
"card-text">
33 Discover how to setup your account, what is a channel, how to create a playlist and more!
39 <div class=
"card-body">
40 <h5 class=
"card-title">
41 <a i18n
target=
"_blank" rel=
"noopener noreferrer" href=
"https://docs.joinpeertube.org/#/use-third-party-application">PeerTube
45 <div i18n
class=
"card-text">
46 Discover unofficial Android applications or browser addons!
52 <div class=
"card-body">
53 <h5 class=
"card-title">
54 <a i18n
target=
"_blank" rel=
"noopener noreferrer" href=
"https://docs.joinpeertube.org/#/contribute-getting-started">Contribute on
58 <div i18n
class=
"card-text">
59 Want to help to improve PeerTube? You can translate the web interface, give your feedback or directly contribute to the code!
65 <div class=
"privacy-contributors">
66 <my-about-peertube-contributors></my-about-peertube-contributors>
68 <div class=
"p2p-privacy">
69 <h3 i18n
class=
"section-title">P2P & Privacy
</h3>
72 PeerTube uses the BitTorrent protocol to share bandwidth between users by default to help lower the load on the server,
73 but ultimately leaves you the choice to switch back to regular streaming exclusively from the server of the video. What
74 follows applies only if you want to keep using the P2P mode of PeerTube.
78 The main threat to your privacy induced by BitTorrent lies in your IP address being stored in the instance's BitTorrent
79 tracker as long as you download or watch the video.
82 <h6 i18n
class=
"p2p-privacy-title">What are the consequences?
</h6>
85 In theory, someone with enough technical skills could create a script that tracks which IP is downloading which video.
86 In practice, this is much more difficult because:
91 An HTTP request has to be sent on each tracker for each video to spy.
92 If we want to spy all PeerTube's videos, we have to send as many requests as there are videos (so potentially a lot)
96 For each request sent, the tracker returns random peers at a limited number.
97 For instance, if there are
1000 peers in the swarm and the tracker sends only
20 peers for each request, there must be at least
50
98 requests sent to know every peers in the swarm
102 Those requests have to be sent regularly to know who starts/stops watching a video. It is easy to detect that kind of behaviour
106 If an IP address is stored in the tracker, it doesn't mean that the person behind the IP (if this person exists) has watched the
111 The IP address is a vague information: usually, it regularly changes and can represent many persons or entities
115 Web peers are not publicly accessible: because we use WebRTC inside the web browser (
<a href=
"https://webtorrent.io/">with the
116 WebTorrent library
</a>), the protocol is different from classic BitTorrent.
117 When you are in a web browser, you send a signal containing your IP address to the tracker that will randomly choose other peers
118 to forward the information to.
119 See
<a href=
"https://github.com/yciabaud/webtorrent/blob/beps/bep_webrtc.rst">this document
</a> for more information
124 The worst-case scenario of an average person spying on their friends is quite unlikely.
125 There are much more effective ways to get that kind of information.
128 <h6 i18n
class=
"p2p-privacy-title">How does PeerTube compare with YouTube?
</h6>
131 The threats to privacy with YouTube are different from PeerTube's.
132 In YouTube's case, the platform gathers a huge amount of your personal information (not only your IP) to analyze them and track you.
133 Moreover, YouTube is owned by Google/Alphabet, a company that tracks you across many websites (via AdSense or Google Analytics).
136 <h6 i18n
class=
"p2p-privacy-title">What can I do to limit the exposure of my IP address?
</h6>
139 Your IP address is public so every time you consult a website, there is a number of actors (in addition to the final website) seeing
140 your IP in their connection logs: ISP/routers/trackers/CDN and more.
141 PeerTube is transparent about it: we warn you that if you want to keep your IP private, you must use a VPN or Tor Browser.
142 Thinking that removing P2P from PeerTube will give you back anonymity doesn't make sense.
145 <h6 i18n
class=
"p2p-privacy-title">What will be done to mitigate this problem?
</h6>
148 PeerTube wants to deliver the best countermeasures possible, to give you more choice
149 and render attacks less likely. Here is what we put in place so far:
153 <li i18n
>We set a limit to the number of peers sent by the tracker
</li>
154 <li i18n
>We set a limit on the request frequency received by the tracker
</li>
155 <li i18n
>Allow instance admins to disable P2P from the administration interface
</li>
156 <li i18n
>Automatic video redundancy from some instances: one doesn't know if the IP downloaded the video on purpose or if it a server
</li>
160 Ultimately, remember you can always disable P2P by toggling it in the video player, or just by disabling
161 WebRTC in your browser.