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Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

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Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#161

Post by devishard »

oneloop wrote: post #120
chejazi wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the primary reason is accessibility. Onion addresses are not easily memorized. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle I believe this inconvenience is minor, however.

Incidentally, is there any fundamental reason why onion addresses are always so cryptic?

The answers are correct, but a less cryptographically-related answer:

When you go to a website on the regular internet, the name you type into your URL bar doesn't contain any location information. Instead, you go to a Dynamic Name Server (DNS) server (often run by your ISP) and and get the IP address, which tells your browser where to go.

With Tor, the hashes you see are analogous to the IP in regular internet: they tell your browser where to go. But there's no DNS for Tor, so you can't hide address behind a name.

Incidentally, this story is about SciHub being blocked at the DNS level, meaning that the domain https://sci-hub.io/ was removed from the DNS servers. But it's still available at the IP level at https://31.184.194.81/

This story demonstrates the need for DNS to be decentralized. ICANN has far too much control and is now using it for censorship that holds back the progress of all of humanity.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#162

Post by raphman »

gipsies wrote: post #22
raphman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What value does the publisher's work add to the work the author generated? - organizing peer review - spell-checking and fixing layout problems - making sure that the paper stays available for a long time - handling complaints and retracting fraudulent papers - providing a single point of contact for people who would like to reuse published material (e.g., using illustrations in a textbook). Sure, many publishers d…

- At least in computer science, it's generally professors who organise the peer review (the Program Commitee) - I've heard from several collegues that the editor introduced spelling mistakes. Sure, overall they might get some errors out, but a spellcheck is not needed. - Well yes. But there is no need for that to be expensive. - Do we need them for this? If there really is fraud, previous cases show it's their univer…

I agree with your general perspective. (I have publicly vowed to never act as a reviewer for Elsevier, for example.)

However, ignoring the traditional role of publishers does not help our case. Regarding your individual points:

- Peer review for CS conferences is usually organized by volunteers, yes. However, this is not true for other, journal-focused disciplines, where there are paid assistants

- One might argue that spelling/layout checks are not really necessary. I personally appreciate them. In any case, these _are_ services that publishers usually offer.

- I was not trying to argue that the typical publisher does a good or cheap job. What I wanted to say is that publishers can and do add value.

- Universities usually try to handle scientific fraud discretely (for PR, HR, and legal reasons). They are usually not interested in disseminating bad news widely.

- Sure, if we could retroactively bring all previously published works into the public domain, things would be much easier. However, in the copyright system we live in right now, publishers provide a useful service by taking care of author's rights and facilitating reuse.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#163

Post by chris_wot »

chris_wot wrote: post #158
DarkLinkXXXX wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible in principle. Just use public-key cryptography (perhaps the SSL cert of the website), grep and ed. You could have it update once a day from the sites listed, or perhaps create some type of dht backend. P.S. This dht-based P2P dns project might interest you. https://github.com/mwarning/KadNode

What about distributing it? Is there a way of decentralizing that? I notice there is Tahoe lafs... https://www.tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs

And of course, ipfs. Still trying to get my head around how it actually works!

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#164

Post by rzzzt »

curiousgal wrote: post #157
chadzawistowski wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hashes are easy to run forwards and hard to run backwards.

Crypto noob here. Why is that? are the hashes generated from an input randomly?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function

TLDR: they are designed to behave that way. Their alternative name is "one-way hash function".

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#165

Post by dougmccune »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #160
dougmccune wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no official position. It's a messy issue, with what I'm sure are lots of conflicting opinions among various people at Sage. I don't see perfectly eye to eye on this with other board members (one of whom is my father) or upper management. That's not a bad thing. The issue of paywalls and piracy is a really complicated thing, even though most HN commenters would make it seem like a black and white good vs bad i…

> In STM you can make the legit argument that all published research should be open access and the cost of that should come out of the same funding that funded the research. There is no cost of publishing your/my papers as open access. Just follow these easy steps: 1. Write paper, send to journal 2. Do the peer review hokey pokey until paper is accepted 3. Upload preprint version to preprint server (arXiv etc.), with…

That hokey pokey you refer to does cost money. So yes, you can use a system that has costs associated with it, then attempt to ensure those costs can't be recouped. But if that's successful the system will collapse. I assume you'd think that would be good in this case. But I find it funny reasoning to say you should opt-in to publisher-facilitated peer review while trying to tear it down. Wouldn't avoiding publishers altogether be the more ideologically consistent method?

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#166

Post by refurb »

xyience wrote: post #107
refurb wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trivial Obviously that's your opinion, but since when does the effort it takes to create something matter about the price? It's pretty trivial to move product from a factory to a retail store, yet people have no problem paying for that. And again, if it's trivial, then there is nothing stopping anyone from starting their own journal. But amazingly, nobody has done that. What's the saying about "find out why the fence…

The effort to create something has always factored into the price. It's not the only factor, but it's there. Additionally, I take the main point of the response of "trivial" (in the case of typesetting it's often just providing a bundle of extra tex files to recompile your paper with) as less a remark on the price, and more a remark on the work . The question you answered was what work the publishers are doing, with…

The effort to create something has always factored into the price.

Absolutely not and there are plenty of examples. If I buy land and find oil underneath, it's zero effort for me to rake in the dollars. If I come up with a super complex device that takes me 1 year to build, the price is zero if no one wants it.

Price is driven by supply and demand.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#167

Post by chrismonsanto »

fudged71 wrote: post #140
chrismonsanto wrote: post #123

> Meanwhile, academic pirates continue to flood to Sci-Hub, domain seizure or not. I realize readers of torrentfreak.com have a different relationship with the word "pirate" but-- This is not piracy. You are entitled to read work from Sci-Hub, as your taxes funded the researchers who created the work. We academics want you to read our work, we do not benefit in any way from publisher paywalls. We continue to publish…

Is this argument valid internationally? My canadian taxes didn't pay for american research, should I still be able to access those papers?

Researchers regularly make use of work from other countries, the scientific community is international. Even if one could make an argument for not allowing Canadians to access US research without payment, it doesn't follow that Elsevier and friends are the ones who should be paid.

Research done by government employees is legally required to be public domain. I see no reason we shouldn't extend that to researchers who take government funding.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#168

Post by falcolas »

curiousgal wrote: post #157
chadzawistowski wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hashes are easy to run forwards and hard to run backwards.

Crypto noob here. Why is that? are the hashes generated from an input randomly?

A hash verifies an input, but you can not reproduce the input from a hash.

A simplified version: X % 2 = H

If I give you the formula, and a H of 1, can you, with certainty, tell me that my input was 1029? Cryptographic hashes have a similar property, just with a very large collision space - for Tor only 1 in 36^16 inputs will produce a given hash; yet you still can't guarantee that an input that produces that hash is the original input (and just guessing the possible inputs will take you a very long time).

The downside of our hash above is that it gives you a pretty good clue of what the original input was: if you get an H of 1029 from the forumla X % 10000000 = H, you'll have a pretty good idea of what the X was. Cryptographic hashes do not share this weakness - they will stretch the input, and ensure that there are no clues left as to what the original input was.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#169

Post by dougmccune »

chias wrote: post #76
dougmccune wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious who you think would give you flak. Publishers? Your department faculty? The librarian at your university? Your peers? (reason I'm interested: I'm on the board of Sage and have a board meeting tomorrow where I hope we'll be discussing sci-hub)

I'm mostly concerned about what my department would do under pressure from publishers and/or the government. Being part of a state university, publicly endorsing illegal actions is unwise on my part. Especially if they undermine the establishment that the school serves.

Thanks for the insight. I'm curious to follow it through and try to understand what you think practical repercussions would be. So say you have your CV up online with sci-hub links, and a publisher does somehow complain to the university. Wouldn't the worst that happens be you change it and say sorry? Or do you think there would be more serious consequences? Is being seen as "pro piracy" a black mark that would stay with you somehow?
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