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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’

#351

Post by tptacek »

rasengan wrote: post #314
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appears to be just another commercialisation of domain names, trying to create another "Gold Rush" for the most sought after "vanity" names. Winner-take-all. A few profit at the expense of the many. It perpetuates that problem of ICANN DNS becoming a "business" instead of solving it. (ICANN DNS domain names were originally free.) The potential for censorship is only one problem of ICANN DNS. Also, this project i…

> This appears to be just another commercialisation of domain names, trying to create another "Gold Rush" for the most sought after names. Winner-take-all. A few profit at the expense of the many. This is a major problem that the project has made a sincere attempt to address. Through scarcity certain sybil protections are afforded, which has been inherently architected into the consensus protocol [1]. Additionally, a…

I feel obliged to point out again that this project appears to be a cryptocurrency scheme in which the owners are, in essence, selling the DNS naming hierarchy, which is genius since they do not in fact own it. Also, once again, I'd like to put out an appeal for anyone who wants to go in with me on a venture to do the same thing with ARP.

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

#352

Post by fernly »

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=...

What does this message mean (from both a Chromium-based browser and Firefox):

Σ（ﾟдﾟlll）Something went wrong.

sci-hub/ could not be resolved by HNS.to. Please try another Handshake resolver..

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

#353

Post by dadrian »

tptacek wrote: post #351
rasengan wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This appears to be just another commercialisation of domain names, trying to create another "Gold Rush" for the most sought after names. Winner-take-all. A few profit at the expense of the many. This is a major problem that the project has made a sincere attempt to address. Through scarcity certain sybil protections are afforded, which has been inherently architected into the consensus protocol [1]. Additionally, a…

I feel obliged to point out again that this project appears to be a cryptocurrency scheme in which the owners are, in essence, selling the DNS naming hierarchy, which is genius since they do not in fact own it. Also, once again, I'd like to put out an appeal for anyone who wants to go in with me on a venture to do the same thing with ARP.

For $1000, I’ll let you ARP the EE prefix on my network

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

#354

Post by im3w1l »

miki123211 wrote: post #349
troquerre wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're top-level domains on an alternative root but that doesn't make them not top-level domains.

What happens if your definition of a top-level domain disagrees with ICAN's? I mean, what happens if you sell .xyzzy to Bob, and then ICAN, without caring about your project, sells .xyzzy to Alice? How should the conflict be resolved?

What I see happening as a complete outsider is that "the community" (eg browsers, libraries) puts them under a tld against their wishes, to resolve this exact issue.

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

#355

Post by dempseye »

twobitshifter wrote: post #313
dempseye wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about individuals living under a dictatorship or within a regime that censors political speech? I could see there being billions of people in the world that would benefit from an internet that resists censorship.

Whether they would benefit from it is a different question to whether they want it and are bothered jumping through the hoops necessary to use it.

I have been in a few places with governments that qualify as "regimes." I have used the internet in some places that have a reputation for internet censorship.

What I have observed is that most of those billions of people you say would benefit from a censorship-resistant internet have little desire to say anything worth censoring. Free speech is a particularly American preoccupation, and this value is not universally shared. The overwhelming majority of people living under such "regimes" are not engaged in active resistance to them. They just want to get on with their lives, make money, go out with their friends, etc.

And they don't speak English anyway so it's irrelevant to them if some American websites are blocked. Those are not the websites they want to look at. The people who do want to look at them use VPNs, which are tolerated as a loophole because total blocking with no possibility of circumvention is too much trouble and would have negative economic consequences.

And if they ever do want to say something that would attract the ire of the censors, what would be the point of saying it to a tiny audience locked behind a wall of obscure tech? They say it on systems that have mass adoption in those countries, and they accept the consequences, which are usually small, because by the time they put it on their social media accounts thousands of others are saying the same thing, and there is strength in numbers.

Sure, some people do want this tech and use the current iterations of it. Most don't. It simply does not solve a problem they feel they have.

In any case, the conversation was about censorship of the DNS system. Most censorship via DNS that I have experienced was either enacted by private companies who decided they didn't like being the registrar for sites they objected to on the basis of values, not legality, or it was enacted by Western states at the behest of private companies who wanted to defend their intellectual property.

And censorship is not all that useful. It happens a bit, but why bother when amplification of the desired message is much more effective and generates better press by definition?

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

#356

Post by eternalban »

jessaustin wrote: post #319
xnyan wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is not "pedantic" It's quite pedantic. I'm the same way, here's an interpersonal relationship tip I've had to learn: If someone calls you an asshole, you can't say "No, I've thought about it and you're wrong, you don't really think I'm an asshole." Well, you can say that, but it just makes you come off as even more of an asshole.

That escalated quickly.

It's comedy gold. Rather innocently I stepped through a worm hole and now find myself on the set of "Idiocracy - part d'oh!"

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

#357

Post by tasuki »

Hizonner wrote: post #270
nickodell wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does your service differ from NameCoin?

It's more profiteering-oriented.

I beg to differ. The original Handshake developers collected 10.2MM USD from sponsors and distributed it among free software and open source projects [0]. Actual USD were given out, not just magical internet money, eg FSF received 1 million [1].

[0]: https://handshake.org/grant-sponsors/

[1]: https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1...

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

#358

Post by rasengan »

tptacek wrote: post #351
rasengan wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This appears to be just another commercialisation of domain names, trying to create another "Gold Rush" for the most sought after names. Winner-take-all. A few profit at the expense of the many. This is a major problem that the project has made a sincere attempt to address. Through scarcity certain sybil protections are afforded, which has been inherently architected into the consensus protocol [1]. Additionally, a…

I feel obliged to point out again that this project appears to be a cryptocurrency scheme in which the owners are, in essence, selling the DNS naming hierarchy, which is genius since they do not in fact own it. Also, once again, I'd like to put out an appeal for anyone who wants to go in with me on a venture to do the same thing with ARP.

With all due respect, this comment reflects a poor understanding of decentralized projects and, particularly, public blockchains.

> the owners are ... selling the DNS naming hierarchy

The blockchain is providing names in a global namespace owned by the commons.

I cannot understand why you have been harassing and stalking this project with troll-like behavior and rude, snarky comments. Let's try to be constructive and provide value to society and the future. The next generation reads these threads, and they look up to you. There's no reason for you to change that. And with that respect, not to sound all Uncle Ben on you, does come responsibility.

Either way, love you tptacek and appreciate your contributions to HN. I can honestly say myself, that I've learned a lot by simply being audience to your conversation.

Cheers.

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

#359

Post by forgotmypw17 »

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…

>It seems like tor .onion address would be an actually mature solution to this problem

Already available:

https://scihub22266oqcxt.onion

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

#360

Post by tptacek »

rasengan wrote: post #358
tptacek wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel obliged to point out again that this project appears to be a cryptocurrency scheme in which the owners are, in essence, selling the DNS naming hierarchy, which is genius since they do not in fact own it. Also, once again, I'd like to put out an appeal for anyone who wants to go in with me on a venture to do the same thing with ARP.

With all due respect, this comment reflects a poor understanding of decentralized projects and, particularly, public blockchains. > the owners are ... selling the DNS naming hierarchy The blockchain is providing names in a global namespace owned by the commons. I cannot understand why you have been harassing and stalking this project with troll-like behavior and rude, snarky comments. Let's try to be constructive and…

I can sort of understand the idea of people starting a new parallel naming system as a piece of Internet infrastructure, sort of the same way DNS happened.

Where you lose me, like, all the way across the horizon is where the people who start that infrastructure do it with a traded coin that they've premined, allocated huge chunks of to themselves, and then "airdropped" to a set of developers they collected in 2018.

Why would anybody sign up for this? I genuinely have a hard time understanding why anybody would take this seriously. It's a plan to replace the DNS roots with... some company? That just decided they should be the ones to own it?

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