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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’

#281

Post by emacdona »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #159
emacdona wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

DNS is not decentralized in the sense that matters for censorship, which is the most important sense in this discussion. I don't know anyone who believes DNS is suitably decentralized to resist censorship.

Okay, but how does Handshake solve that problem? It seems like the answer is "everyone buys their own TLD", right?

That works great until the only names that are left are all too long to remember.

And if you buy space from someone else's TLD, well... you've just given someone the power to censor you.

Or am I missing something here?

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

#282

Post by Hizonner »

It'd be funny if hns.to got taken down for providing a path to Sci-Hub.

At the root, the problem is trying to use the highly centralized legacy DNS system for purposes contrary to the wishes of those who control that system. To be "uncensorable", you need to change clients to use something other than DNS to resolve names.

Anyway, the property you usually want to abandon for global names is "human-meaningful". Just use key hashes as names. "Human-meaningful" strings should be reserved for local nicknames, for the simple reason that the same string will often have different meanings to different humans, for reasons predating your system and entirely outside of its control. You have no way to guarantee that what you list as "Sci-Hub" is actually what the user thinks she's looking for as "Sci-Hub", and you have even less certainty of that for any less famous name.

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

#283

Post by walrus01 »

troquerre wrote: post #280
walrus01 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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 for real money, USD or EUR or such? where does this money go? or do you have to first mine some cryptocoin, or buy it with real money, and it then goes to the entity 'namebase'? scroll down here to the 'how it works':…

Great question. All Handshake names are registered with HNS through the auction process. Say you bid 1000 HNS on a name and I bid 900 HNS. You'd win that name and pay 900 HNS (the second highest bid price. Importantly, that fee doesn't go to Namebase or any other entity — the coins are burned on-chain so they go to no one.

uhhh, so I'm looking on the website right now, and it wants a scan of my passport or photo ID for the privilege of buying a virtual cryptocoin, that can be used for purchasing domain names almost nobody can currently resolve, which vanishes into thin air after the purchase? am I getting that right?

"Purchasing HNS with USD is currently limited to those with a US passport or ID."

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

#284

Post by dragonwriter »

baggy_trough wrote: post #212
the_af wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this [1] is the xkcd strip we're talking about, and don't see how Randall Munroe isn't advocating for free speech, nor how it is a left vs right issue. He's simply saying "free speech means the government cannot arrest you for what you say", nothing more, nothing less. He furthermore argues that the right to free speech doesn't mean everyone else can't criticize you, have your shows/books/whatever canceled, shout…

You are confusing the 1st Amendment with 'free speech'. Free speech is a value that is broadly applicable to society, far larger in scope than prohibition from the government.

> Free speech is a value that is broadly applicable to society, far larger in scope than prohibition from the government

The idea of free speech is the ideas should succed or fail based on their ability to convince private actors tomhold and relay them.

Compelling actors to relay speech they disapprove of, unless those actors are the State or agents thereof, generally violates that principal.

Free speech is not an entitlement to third-party magnification of your speech, it is indeed the opposite: the idea that such magnification must be earned by convincing the party whose magnification is sought.

“People who disagree with me aren't relaying my speech or speech I like” isn't a violation of free speech.

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

#285

Post by troquerre »

sbierwagen wrote: post #272
troquerre wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. W…

>There is no centralized party that owns Handshake. Historically, blockchains haven't been terribly firm on the "irreversibility" point. Ethereum reversed the DAO transactions. The BTC rollbacks in 2010 and 2013. Etc etc. In practice, whoever owns the client update server and whoever has 51% of the hashing power can make arbitrary changes to the chain. For most cryptocurrencies, a meeting of these stakeholders could…

You're right that Handshake can suffer from a 51% attack like other proof-of-work chains. Importantly, the security of DNS records on Handshake is strong even with the possibility of a 51% attack.

51% attacks on blockchains used as a store of value are bad because an attacker can spend their coins (ie BTC) on an exchange, withdraw their profits, then perform a 51% attack on the previous block to take back their spent coins.

On Handshake, that same attack exists for HNS, but DNS updates on chain take 36 blocks (about 6 hours worth of transactions) to propagate, which is significantly more expensive and unlikely than pulling off a normal 51% attack on a single block (it gets exponentially more unlikely). Furthermore this wouldn't even be an attack per se. An attacker may be able to undo a DNS update, but they wouldn't be able to falsify DNS records because only the owner of the name who controls the private key would be able to submit valid UPDATE transactioins.

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

#286

Post by Hizonner »

troquerre wrote: post #278
nickodell wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does your service differ from NameCoin?

Handshake has taken a lot of lessons from previous attempts at alternative blockchain DNS roots like NameCoin. Here are some ways its different: - Handshake names are not *.bit domains like NameCoin they're actually top-level domains. This is because Handshake's purpose is not to decentralize domain names per se but too decentralize the root zone and create a more secure root of trust than Certificate Authorities [1]…

They're not top-level domains until most people's clients resolve them as such. They're off to the side in a niche name space that most people don't know about, and to which you have provided a brittle gateway that doesn't even present them as top-level.

... and they have a million other little niche name spaces to compete with to reach the point of serving as "top-level domains". I can create my own alternate name space, too, and nobody will care about mine, either.

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

#287

Post by troquerre »

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?

Namebase CEO here. The article misquoted me (and some of the data I shared) in a number of places. See this tweet where the writer incorrectly stated that Namebase created Handshake when we only build on top of it (similar to how Coinbase builds on Bitcoin) https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1348801310498443264?s=20.

I'm happy to talk through how Handshake works if you have any questions about it. I also wrote an article on how Handshake can improve the root of trust for DNS which was previously discussed on HN [1]

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

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

#288

Post by the_af »

jquery wrote: post #217
the_af wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this [1] is the xkcd strip we're talking about, and don't see how Randall Munroe isn't advocating for free speech, nor how it is a left vs right issue. He's simply saying "free speech means the government cannot arrest you for what you say", nothing more, nothing less. He furthermore argues that the right to free speech doesn't mean everyone else can't criticize you, have your shows/books/whatever canceled, shout…

I’m sure the CCP finds the alt text pretty thought provoking, too.

I'm sorry, but "guilt by association" is not a compelling argument. If the CCP agrees with something, this alone doesn't make the something they agree with automatically bad. Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum

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

#289

Post by vmception »

aplummer wrote: post #215
vmception wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US prisons are so full because people do the time.

They’re full because of the prison industrial complex.

and because people didnt commit suicide when the district attorneys and federal agencies came after them, which is my point
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