Leave It Alone, Congress

Congress is concerned that peer-to-peer networks may make users susceptible to identity theft. Apparently, some users share their sensitive information with others and then get upset when their identities are stolen. That’s Darwin at his finest, in my opinion.

Why does Congress have to fix things that aren’t broken? Users have to explicitly choose to publish files to the network, be it the web or a peer-to-peer network. What the peer-to-peer program shares by default is irrelevant; the burden is on the user to understand what they’re doing. Your computer and your internet connection give you the tools to send anything and everything to everyone else. If you don’t want to share everything, then don’t. Educate yourself. If you’re going to play the game, you have to know the rules. I have no sympathy for those whose files were used against them. I always check what files are being shared and so should everyone else.

I should also note that the article incorrectly characterizes all peer-to-peer protocols as having this “problem.” Some peer-to-peer networks exist only to share specific files, like BitTorrent. No one accidentally seeds their bank statement with BitTorrent.