Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not. Well it started out that way, but libgen is 7TB, zlibrary added another 16TB to that, which was not shared in the way libgen is.
The core of Libgen is indeed 33TB. No idea where you get your 7TB from. The content difference between it and zlibrary is marginal from what I understand.
Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
31–40 of 75 posts
Re: Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn’t happen because most people can’t or won’t participate in government. This is because many government meetings are held during the day, during working hours, usually in places far from the individuals affected. The people who do show up are independently wealthy, retirees, and people being paid to represent an organization. Representitive government doesn’t, and cannot represent the people.
The founding vision of the US was one where the further away government was from the people, the less impact it would have on their lives. The Federal government was to have an extremely limited role in society, largely tasked with things such as international relations. Your day to day would primarily be affect by your state, and ideally on downward with a further delegation of responsibilities getting closer and cl…
It's almost as if the framers of the Constitution knew what they were doing when they created a decentralized federalized system and we've screwed it up pretty badly by centralizing power in the Federal Government.
Re: Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
#33I've personally used sites like this as a sort of protest to what universities and authors did to the textbook market. You used to be able to buy used physical textbooks for classes at reasonable prices. They took advantage of the shift to digital by forcing arbitrary changes in edition numbers, solely to sell more books, or by requiring obscure, low-volume books, often written by the professor leading the class. Wit…
How about boycotting colleges that are more focused on stealing your money than educating you?
Re: Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
#34I've personally used sites like this as a sort of protest to what universities and authors did to the textbook market. You used to be able to buy used physical textbooks for classes at reasonable prices. They took advantage of the shift to digital by forcing arbitrary changes in edition numbers, solely to sell more books, or by requiring obscure, low-volume books, often written by the professor leading the class. Wit…
One professor would hand out detailed sheets covering the differences between editions for anyone who had older ones, allowing a large range to be used.
Several of my professors did the same. Some went as far as saying the particular text book was not necessary, suggesting we can choose our own or recommending another. The important thing was the content of the course, with the source only being relevant for things like accuracy (which was rarely an issue for my field of study, at least for introductory texts which is what publishers tend to game).
Just after I finished my studies things started becoming more difficult though, when additional instructional materials (graded tutorials, quizzes, and such) started going online.
Re: Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
#35So since this was done at the DNS level, not the hosting level, does this mean if you're running a pi-hole or AdGuardHome you can add some extra redirects for zlib to its actual IPs? I guess you could also just hardcode these in your computer's host file but then you have to do it for every device on your LAN. Assuming their IPs change somewhat frequently, is there any way to do this in an auto-updating way?
Even more interestingly, could somebody set up a "pirate DNS" for public use that would still resolve these (and other domains seized for similar reasons) while deferring to a "regular" DNS for everything else?
This is common https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns-servers-2626062
But obviously any one that gets known for publicly providing banned domains would also get banned.
So you need to maintain your own address tables, and get updates through private communications.
Re: Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
#36So since this was done at the DNS level, not the hosting level, does this mean if you're running a pi-hole or AdGuardHome you can add some extra redirects for zlib to its actual IPs? I guess you could also just hardcode these in your computer's host file but then you have to do it for every device on your LAN. Assuming their IPs change somewhat frequently, is there any way to do this in an auto-updating way?
Even more interestingly, could somebody set up a "pirate DNS" for public use that would still resolve these (and other domains seized for similar reasons) while deferring to a "regular" DNS for everything else?
OpenNIC is an alternative DNS root server that already has a .pirate domain.
Re: Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
#37I've personally used sites like this as a sort of protest to what universities and authors did to the textbook market. You used to be able to buy used physical textbooks for classes at reasonable prices. They took advantage of the shift to digital by forcing arbitrary changes in edition numbers, solely to sell more books, or by requiring obscure, low-volume books, often written by the professor leading the class. Wit…
How about boycotting colleges that are more focused on stealing your money than educating you?
Voting with your wallet loses to the tragedy of the commons.
Re: Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn’t happen because most people can’t or won’t participate in government. This is because many government meetings are held during the day, during working hours, usually in places far from the individuals affected. The people who do show up are independently wealthy, retirees, and people being paid to represent an organization. Representitive government doesn’t, and cannot represent the people.
The founding vision of the US was one where the further away government was from the people, the less impact it would have on their lives. The Federal government was to have an extremely limited role in society, largely tasked with things such as international relations. Your day to day would primarily be affect by your state, and ideally on downward with a further delegation of responsibilities getting closer and cl…
If given a choice, I think I would opt for the "decentralization with a mishmash of the averages of society" over a dystopia. The "centralization with selflessness, benevolence, and competence" path toward utopia seems like wishful thinking to me. You can never legislate morality, and without a non-secular religion as a guide, a default moral people is not a reasonable expectation.
Re: Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
#39I hate to say this, but the DNS system is the problem here. What are the alternatives?
Re: Z-Library Aftermath Reveals the Feds Seized Dozens of Domain Names
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn’t happen because most people can’t or won’t participate in government. This is because many government meetings are held during the day, during working hours, usually in places far from the individuals affected. The people who do show up are independently wealthy, retirees, and people being paid to represent an organization. Representitive government doesn’t, and cannot represent the people.
The founding vision of the US was one where the further away government was from the people, the less impact it would have on their lives. The Federal government was to have an extremely limited role in society, largely tasked with things such as international relations. Your day to day would primarily be affect by your state, and ideally on downward with a further delegation of responsibilities getting closer and cl…
The founders were also deathly afraid of a standing army. This is why a defense authorization bill is passed every two years. People might debate how much money should be put toward defense spending, but few people would argue that we should dissolve the military and call up citizens only when conflict happens.
They also explicitly dismissed the idea of one person, one vote.
And this all ignores the fact that there wasn't a singular, cohesive founding vision. Alexander Hamilton, for example, argued for a strong federal government.
With all that said, we shouldn't be hamstrung by what a deeply flawed group of people decided in the late 1700s.