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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’

#251

Post by Grustaf »

srean wrote: post #218

There are some comments here that note that sci-hub or Aaron's action on JSTOR data is/was illegal. Just leaving this thought out here -- if laws are considered unjust, it is ok, even noble, to break them. That is how one got rid of apartheid, how colonies became independent and LGBT marriages came to be legally recognized. If not for lawbreakers we would still be living in a world that approves of Turing's treatment…

That’s possibly true. It doesn’t follow that all illegal activity is just though.

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

#252

Post by dpritchett »

Zak wrote: post #245
ehsankia wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be unfair as Aaron isn't there to give his side of the story, but the way I understand is that the YC put these 1+2 people (who were all talented) together to help build reddit, but Huffman and Ohanian were far more interested in building reddit as it was originally their project and they had been working on it for 6 months, and it seems like Aaron wasn't as interested in it. So yes, while Graham did forcing…

Early versions of reddit's wiki were more or less reskinned infogami. As to the co-founder question, Aaron was definitely a co-founder of the merged reddit/infogami company, but he didn't contribute much after that, leading to his departure. I think that, rather than any controversy over his arrest is why Steve and Alexis didn't really consider him a co-founder.

Here’s Swartz detailing how Reddit was rewritten in his own Python framework a scant six months after launch: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rewritingreddit

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

#253

Post by buffrr »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #240

This article (really it's more of a press release from the interested parties) seems to confuse the role of DNS from the role of certificate authority, making it hard for me to understand what they're talking about. These days sometimes the same entities provide both SSL certificates and DNS, but they are different services. > Handshake is “is effectively a decentralized domain name server,” Roquerre said. Instead of…

I think what they meant is that with decentralized DNS, it is possible to replace certificate authorities by using DNSSEC + DANE RFC6698[0], but I agree the way it's mentioned is confusing.

[0] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6698

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

#254

Post by clairity »

jawzz wrote: post #232
clairity wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not even non-payment. poor people are disproportionately affected by non-payment cancellations. might be ok if it were means-tested, like only allowing non-payment shut-offs if the customer is above the mean income (even for small businesses).

“Poor people are disproportionately affected by not having enough money to purchase things”

that’s a reductio ad absurdum via tautology, but the effects are wide-ranging and can include freezing/overheating to death (for instance) from not having adequate heating/cooling. that’s inhumane and abhorrent, especially in the richest nations of the world.

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

#255

Post by nickodell »

troquerre wrote: post #248

CEO of Namebase here. We posted the original tweet announcing the news[1]. If any of y'all have questions about how sci-hub.hns works or how Handshake works in general I'll be online today to chat! [1] https://twitter.com/NamebaseHQ/status/1348707701744922625?s=...

How does your service differ from NameCoin?

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

#256

Post by dempseye »

input_sh wrote: post #169
walrus01 wrote: post #21

People have been trying to make alternative DNS name systems and alternative root nameservers a thing for 20+ years now. Has never caught on. On the other hand I 100% endorse sci-hub having a presence as a tor service.

IMO not enough "useful" content is not reachable via "normal" DNS for anyone to care about the alternative DNS systems. Sure, sites like TPB and Sci-Hub need to switch to a different domain from time to time bringing some annoyance to their users, but that's about it. Only if all domain registrars at once started actively removing "shady" domains would an alternative DNS ever come to spotlight.

Not much useful content needs it. The intersection of "universally criminal, such that it requires a censorship-resistant DNS alternative" and "valuable enough that normal people want to see it" is very very small.

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

#257

Post by cratermoon »

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…

Ooof. blockchain

https://xkcd.com/2267/

https://xkcd.com/2030/

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

#258

Post by troquerre »

walrus01 wrote: post #21

People have been trying to make alternative DNS name systems and alternative root nameservers a thing for 20+ years now. Has never caught on. On the other hand I 100% endorse sci-hub having a presence as a tor service.

Handshake has a number of mechanics built into it that I think give it a stronger chance of succeeding than previous attempts. It's similar to how there were numerous failed digital currency attempts before Bitcoin figured out all the mechanics necessary for success. Some of these mechanics are:

- There is no centralized party that owns Handshake. This allows for any party to step in and contribute to the protocol. We've already seen this play out in building Namebase (I'm the CEO) as numerous unrelated parties have come together to further Handshake adoption

- It's not just about opening up the TLD namespace. Handshake's main technical goal is to improve the security and censorship-resistance of DNS by shifting the root of trust from CAs to a distributed ledger. My article on the technical improvements Handshake can provide was previously discussed on HN [1]

- TLDs aren't sold for a set price. There's a vickrey auction which awards the TLD to the highest bidder. This creates a better distribution of names than selling at a set price or to the first buyer

- The Handshake coin (HNS) provides an incentive for miners to provide security to the network and for holders to support ongoing adoption of the protocol, similar to how Bitcoin holders have put in massive efforts to evangelize it (I recognize that on HN people may find the Bitcoin evangelists annoying but I believe Bitcoin wouldn't be where it is today without them)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20995969

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

#260

Post by adolph »

gowld wrote: post #168
llcoolv wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they should not have given him such a job title then.

Suppose you get together with someone to found a company as cofounders, but then your cofounder nearly immediately leaves the company to pursue other projects. Why is it wrong to annul the designation? Swartz contributed technology (web.py) that Reddit used briefly, and deserves as much credit as other technology contributors of the same scale.

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

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

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