this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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That's true for a lot of services. Your IP address doesn't really matter much. P2P is way better for performance.
What are people going to do with your IP? The worst they can do is do a Geo lookup. However it doesn't matter.
I could scan your network for vulnerabilities.
I could anyway but knowing a target used a service like peertube increases the odds of unpatched hardware or self hosted services in my experience.
If you’re using an older router you probably have a problem due to unpatched vulnerabilities.
If you self host you might have a problem, as many package maintainers and developers lag a bit behind security patches.
A good VPN provider will also block unusual ports.
You are welcome to scan my public IP. There are bots scanning it every few seconds. If there was a vulnerability it would be exploited in the matter of a few minutes.
Also, you have no way of knowing who is behind a website. That's why web browsers have strong security mechanisms. It is by necessity.
VPNs do very little. However, VPN companies want to keep up the fear mongering to make money.
Around 10 minutes for an unpatched XP box with no firewall.
Much longer for obscure vulnerabilities in routers or more difficult to exploit vulns in hosted software.
It is also possible for vulnerabilities in peertube itself to exist, which will be an issue regardless of VPN use.
VPN's have zero impact on that
That depends on whether they are port blocking as I said.
Why wouldn't you port block on your Firewall? For that matter, why do you have any ports exposed to begin with.
Like I said, people doing self hosting, they often open up ports for those services and management ports.
Some routers have backdoors built in, such as the Fortinet NGFW backdoor, that can also be exploited.
I work in this industry and believe me the risk is real, no vpns aren’t a silver bullet, but there are a few good providers out there that can help mitigate some risks of using P2P for more than piracy.