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When opening the javascript codepen demo linked in the article, the video plays immediately, but I noticed HTTP GET requests to https://webtorrent.io/torrents/Sintel/Sintel.mp4

Is this normal ? I know nothing about WebTorrent, but isn't the file supposed to be streamed from pairs, and not requested from a central server in an HTTP request ?

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One of the Webseeds[1] specified in the Sintel torrent is that URL. That HTTP address basically acts as another peer in the swarm.

1. https://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0019.html

And leaks your IP address and makes it possible to pirate content for simply visiting a website. You could target someone with all kinds of illegal stuff.

It's already possible for a website to get your browser to download illegal content simply by visiting the page, and expose your IP in the process to whoever they want. You don't even need to use JavaScript to do the downloading (just a image or video tag, for example), and the uploading can be done with xmlhttprequest/fetch.

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