Security Issues
We start with security issues, because a clear grasp of them and how a particular peer technology is secured is a prerequisite to analyzing legal ramifications.
Peer technologies must be considered “security porous” in the sense that they inherently provide great individual freedom for the user and are designed to easily establish direct connections between peers. In short, p2p clients have a (nasty for controlled IT policy) tendency to blithely ignore or actively circumvent traditional security measures such as corporate firewalls or filters. Information can thus cross otherwise established boundaries “without permission, assistance, or knowledge of any central authority or support groups”, as one corporate vendor puts it.
Get Peer to Peer: Collaboration and Sharing over the Internet now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
