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Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

annas-archive.org

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Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#101

Post by spaceport »

camtarn wrote: post #53
dulpo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Seems to be only certain jurisdictions. I can access it no problem from the UK Vodafone network.

I'm unable to resolve the domain on EE UK - looks like it's DNS blocked. By comparison, on my work network (TalkTalk) I can resolve the domain but I get a connection reset from the site. I think this might be the first time I've hit a DNS block. It feels rather eerie seeing people talking about a site that, from my point of view, doesn't even exist...

It starts with one

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#102

Post by southernplaces7 »

cakealert wrote: post #88

Can Anna's Archive claim to be a non-profit when it's effectively an illegal enterprise with unknown controllers? They are even offering decent bounties: https://software.annas-archive.li/AnnaArchivist/annas-archiv... Whoever is running it must be doing really well for themselves laundering all that crypto. Also interestingly they don't offer a tor onion service, while the admin is most certainly technically competen…

illegal doesn't at all have to mean immoral or particularly wrong either. Laws are complex constructions, often created for decidedly hypocritical reasons of benefitting some at the expense of others.

Thus, Who gives a shit if they're taking money from those who voluntarily subscribe. They still offer an absolutely incredible free service to who knows how many people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford so much access to so much free information.

Given the behavior of the pro-copyright business interests and legal bodies of the world, and the outright hypocrisy of openly creating one set of rules on content piracy for certain corporations while applying another, harsher rule system for those who aren't so nicely connected, smug moralizing about something like Annas Archive has little grounding.

And aside from picking random crap out of your ass for smearing arbitrarily, what shred of evidence do you have of anyone there laundering crypto, and how?

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#103

Post by teraflop »

cakealert wrote: post #99
teraflop wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment seems like a non sequitur to me. Whether something is a "non-profit" has nothing to do with whether it receives or spends money. (See, e.g. the American Red Cross's ~$4B/yr budget.) It's about what it does with the money it has. Obviously, since Anna's Archive is breaking the law, it can't conform itself to the normal legal/regulatory system that governs non-profit organizations. It can certainly still c…

The connotation of a non-profit is that it's being audited. It would be extremely silly to suggest otherwise.

It may have that connotation to you, but in general (at least in the US) non-profit organizations are not required to have independent audits. Typically, that requirement only happens if they receive a certain amount of government funding. An organization may choose to undergo audits in order to make people feel better about donating to it.

I really, really don't think that anybody is being fooled or misled into thinking that Anna's Archive is a "legitimate" audited organization when they describe themselves as a non-profit.

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#104

Post by PaulRobinson »

camtarn wrote: post #53
dulpo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Seems to be only certain jurisdictions. I can access it no problem from the UK Vodafone network.

I'm unable to resolve the domain on EE UK - looks like it's DNS blocked. By comparison, on my work network (TalkTalk) I can resolve the domain but I get a connection reset from the site. I think this might be the first time I've hit a DNS block. It feels rather eerie seeing people talking about a site that, from my point of view, doesn't even exist...

There's an inconsistent censoring of numerous websites across the UK. In short, the biggest ISPs (a list which changes over time), will block various sites (TPB, libgen, AA, and others), based on court orders taken out at different timesIn general, it's a good idea to use Private Relay if you're using Apple devices and have access to it, no matter what network you're on, and if you're doing anything you don't want your ISP to traffic capture you should be using VPNs and/or Tor.

There are a lot of legitimate reasons to want to use scraping sites that UK copyright law is not nuanced enough to protect, and so blanket bans just end up emerging at the demands of copyright owners (which more often than not, means Disney or Springer).

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#105

Post by cakealert »

SimianSci wrote: post #100
cakealert wrote: post #88

Can Anna's Archive claim to be a non-profit when it's effectively an illegal enterprise with unknown controllers? They are even offering decent bounties: https://software.annas-archive.li/AnnaArchivist/annas-archiv... Whoever is running it must be doing really well for themselves laundering all that crypto. Also interestingly they don't offer a tor onion service, while the admin is most certainly technically competen…

Given the amount of hosting and storage needed to sustain this project. Nobody is getting rich off of donations. Not to mention the lifestyle tradeoffs that innevitably come with international fugitive status do not lend themselves to a very comfortable life. The usage of crypto is entirely one of necessity, as controling information and knowledge is something powerful people have clear stakes in. Many countries weil…

> Not to mention the lifestyle tradeoffs that innevitably come with international fugitive status do not lend themselves to a very comfortable life.

Anonymous international fugitive?

> Nobody is getting rich off of donations.

How can anyone aside from the beneficiary know that?

The extent to which the controller can get rich off this enterprise depends entirely on the unknown quantity of donated funds (and deals with AI companies) and his skill at laundering crypto (which darknet marketplace controllers doing far more illegal stuff can do).

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#106

Post by clickety_clack »

lode wrote: post #9
dulpo wrote: post #6

This is surprising. I thought last I heard they'd arrested the guy who was suspected of running the site, about a year or so ago. Guess I'm misremembering. Also I'm surprised Cloudflare hasn't shut them down like they do for other dodgy sites.

When accessing from Belgium the link is blocked by Cloudflare: Error HTTP 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons In response to a legal order, Cloudflare has taken steps to limit access to this website through Cloudflare's pass-through security and CDN services within Belgium

Man, I thought cloudflare stood in front of individual sites. When did they start becoming a filter on an individual’s web connections?

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#108

Post by addaon »

cakealert wrote: post #99
teraflop wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment seems like a non sequitur to me. Whether something is a "non-profit" has nothing to do with whether it receives or spends money. (See, e.g. the American Red Cross's ~$4B/yr budget.) It's about what it does with the money it has. Obviously, since Anna's Archive is breaking the law, it can't conform itself to the normal legal/regulatory system that governs non-profit organizations. It can certainly still c…

The connotation of a non-profit is that it's being audited. It would be extremely silly to suggest otherwise.

> The connotation of a non-profit is that it's being audited.

This is very geography-specific. In the US, 501(c)(3)s (what most people think of when they say "non-profit" where I am) have no general requirement for audits. There's also plenty of non-profit-by-some-definition organizations that never file a Form 1023, giving up some benefits of the 501(c)(3) regulations but in exchange being even less regulated.

Re: Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team

#110

Post by neilv »

SimianSci wrote: post #65
oguz-ismail wrote: post #49

> We recommend not using them I've been using WeLib since April and had a good experience so far

If efforts like this are to be sustainable in any lasting way, participants need to be cooperative, not parasitic. I agree with the Anna's Archive team, it serves noone to have one of these players in the space hoarding their own collections and not sharing them to other archiving projects, it make the collection extremely vulnerable and at risk of becoming lost knowledge as time goes on.

> If efforts like this are to be sustainable in any lasting way, participants need to be cooperative, not parasitic. I agree with the Anna's Archive team,

That's an odd combination.

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