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Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

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Re: Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

#91

Post by nathias »

wolco5 wrote: post #57
obblekk wrote: post #38

I’m supportive of free distribution of scientific knowledge, BUT HN has a significant bias against believing in the power of legal systems. No matter how good the technology, it can eventually be censored if the law is strong enough. In the past, it was hard to separate “useful” internet activity from “illegitimate” because things were changing quickly. Today, a government might say its simply illegal to use end to e…

Encription was banned in the US but it didn't work out so well. Parler build itself on Amazon which was the big mistake the next company won't follow. It's a wakeup call to anyone using the cloud that one day it might decide you are not welcome.

Yea except its the same with servers, and if you host your own ISPs... we really need the cloud in space or somewhere else outside of the influence of countries.

Re: Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

#93

Post by harperlee »

wolco5 wrote: post #57
obblekk wrote: post #38

I’m supportive of free distribution of scientific knowledge, BUT HN has a significant bias against believing in the power of legal systems. No matter how good the technology, it can eventually be censored if the law is strong enough. In the past, it was hard to separate “useful” internet activity from “illegitimate” because things were changing quickly. Today, a government might say its simply illegal to use end to e…

Encription was banned in the US but it didn't work out so well. Parler build itself on Amazon which was the big mistake the next company won't follow. It's a wakeup call to anyone using the cloud that one day it might decide you are not welcome.

> Parler build itself on Amazon which was the big mistake the next company won't follow.

There are servers you can host yourself, and there are networks (payments and communication) from which you can’t be independent, in practice.

Re: Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

#94

Post by tweetle_beetle »

wolco5 wrote: post #57
obblekk wrote: post #38

I’m supportive of free distribution of scientific knowledge, BUT HN has a significant bias against believing in the power of legal systems. No matter how good the technology, it can eventually be censored if the law is strong enough. In the past, it was hard to separate “useful” internet activity from “illegitimate” because things were changing quickly. Today, a government might say its simply illegal to use end to e…

Encription was banned in the US but it didn't work out so well. Parler build itself on Amazon which was the big mistake the next company won't follow. It's a wakeup call to anyone using the cloud that one day it might decide you are not welcome.

The risks of using cloud servers are now well documented, but, out of curiosity, do they extend to colocated servers? Do data centres turn a blind eye to their colocation customers?

Re: Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

#95

Post by programmarchy »

nradov wrote: post #69
wolco5 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encription was banned in the US but it didn't work out so well. Parler build itself on Amazon which was the big mistake the next company won't follow. It's a wakeup call to anyone using the cloud that one day it might decide you are not welcome.

Encryption was never banned in the US. There have been restrictions on export of encryption technology.

DeCSS, which was an algorithm that could decrypt DVD content, might be more apropros. Sites were being sued for hosting the DeCSS source code, and there was resistance to that like printing the code on t-shirts.

Re: Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

#96

Post by yters »

Not sure about sci hub, but these open archive like arxiv and bioarxiv are still biased. I know one world renown scientist who cannot submit his article to bioarxiv even though Nature has no problem with his paper (but won't publish it either). The paper points out a certain bacteria did not in fact evolve the ability to consume the synthetic compound nylon, since the relevant genetic material existed before nylon had been invented, which can be easily demonstrated with a BLAST search.

Re: Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

#97

Post by goodluckchuck »

alienlid wrote: post #17
llcoolv wrote: post #6

It is worth noting that this is exactly what Aaron Swartz was bullied to his tragic death 8 years and a day ago. May he rest in peace. And kudos to Alexandra. P.S. Corrected the date, seems like I still live in 2020. Thank you, lazyant.

Tweet thread on his death that was illuminating for me https://mobile.twitter.com/hides_minimally/status/1348704670...

It's ironic that the author is using the tragic and abusive results of authoritarianism as a means of advocating FOR the very authoritarianism that Aaron Schwartz opposed.

Re: Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

#98

Post by brazzy »

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #94
wolco5 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encription was banned in the US but it didn't work out so well. Parler build itself on Amazon which was the big mistake the next company won't follow. It's a wakeup call to anyone using the cloud that one day it might decide you are not welcome.

The risks of using cloud servers are now well documented, but, out of curiosity, do they extend to colocated servers? Do data centres turn a blind eye to their colocation customers?

Most don't.

Those that do command a premium ("Bulletproof hosting") ...and are sometimes shut down themselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyberBunker

Re: Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

#99

Post by thesuitonym »

emacdona wrote: post #22
oefrha wrote: post #5

> “The DNS is like a phonebook for the internet. The addresses in the phonebook are the server IP addresses. DNS was created to give IP addresses human-readable names so with our platform, you’re finding the IP address through Handshake, not through a certificate authority ,” Namebase CEO Tieshun Roquerre told CoinDesk. (Emphasis mine.) Did this Namebase CEO just state on record that he doesn’t know how DNS works?

Followed by this: 'Handshake is “is effectively a decentralized domain name server,” Roquerre said.' -- thus implying that DNS is NOT decentralized? The article is pretty bad. For his sake, I hope they are taking his quotes out of context. Because I had a quick look at https://www.namebase.io/ -- and it does look interesting. It appears that they have decentralized the REGISTRY by putting it on the "Handshake" blockc…

This got me, too.

>a privacy-focused, cloud-based domain name service resolver which converts IP addresses into domain names.

Except for being privacy focused, this literally describes every domain name service in the Internet.

Re: Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’

#100

Post by dwiel »

emacdona wrote: post #22
oefrha wrote: post #5

> “The DNS is like a phonebook for the internet. The addresses in the phonebook are the server IP addresses. DNS was created to give IP addresses human-readable names so with our platform, you’re finding the IP address through Handshake, not through a certificate authority ,” Namebase CEO Tieshun Roquerre told CoinDesk. (Emphasis mine.) Did this Namebase CEO just state on record that he doesn’t know how DNS works?

Followed by this: 'Handshake is “is effectively a decentralized domain name server,” Roquerre said.' -- thus implying that DNS is NOT decentralized? The article is pretty bad. For his sake, I hope they are taking his quotes out of context. Because I had a quick look at https://www.namebase.io/ -- and it does look interesting. It appears that they have decentralized the REGISTRY by putting it on the "Handshake" blockc…

This is a case where I find Vitalik's distinction between different kinds of decentralization useful. [1] Roquerre is talking about political or logical decentralization whereas you are talking about architectural decentralization.

[1] https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentrali...

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