How to become a pirate archivist
annas-blog.org
How to become a pirate archivist
1–10 of 103 posts
Re: How to become a pirate archivist
#2«That secrecy, however, comes with a psychological cost. Most people love being recognized for the work that they do, and yet you cannot take any credit for this in real life.»
Feels like the anonymous torrent seeder who keeps seeding a file for years just for the sake of keeping it alive. It's not easy, but some people seem to be able to derive full pleasure from accomplishing the task itself, whether recognition happens or not.
Re: How to become a pirate archivist
#3I think Alexandra Elbakyan actually did not want to be revealed as the librarian behind Sci-Hub, it was her poor opsec that led to her being identified.
Basically her servers were set up to emit detailed error messages from PHP, including full path of faulting source file, which was under directory /home/ringo-ring, which could be traced to a username she had online on an unrelated site, attached to her real name. Before this revelation, she was anonymous.
Re: How to become a pirate archivist
#4Feels as though an organization such as this should have more domain appropriate points of contact than Twitter or Reddit.
A very interesting thing nonetheless.
Re: How to become a pirate archivist
#5«That secrecy, however, comes with a psychological cost. Most people love being recognized for the work that they do, and yet you cannot take any credit for this in real life.» Feels like the anonymous torrent seeder who keeps seeding a file for years just for the sake of keeping it alive. It's not easy, but some people seem to be able to derive full pleasure from accomplishing the task itself, whether recognition ha…
I think you can still get a reddit account without giving them even an email address, and definitely not a phone number.
Re: How to become a pirate archivist
#6I think Alexandra Elbakyan actually did not want to be revealed as the librarian behind Sci-Hub, it was her poor opsec that led to her being identified. Basically her servers were set up to emit detailed error messages from PHP, including full path of faulting source file, which was under directory /home/ringo-ring, which could be traced to a username she had online on an unrelated site, attached to her real name. Be…
Did not know that detail. Will add to the post, thank you.
Re: How to become a pirate archivist
#7«That secrecy, however, comes with a psychological cost. Most people love being recognized for the work that they do, and yet you cannot take any credit for this in real life.» Feels like the anonymous torrent seeder who keeps seeding a file for years just for the sake of keeping it alive. It's not easy, but some people seem to be able to derive full pleasure from accomplishing the task itself, whether recognition ha…
I think you can still get a reddit account without giving them even an email address, and definitely not a phone number.
Or you can use a fake email address like from mailinator.
Re: How to become a pirate archivist
#8I think Alexandra Elbakyan actually did not want to be revealed as the librarian behind Sci-Hub, it was her poor opsec that led to her being identified. Basically her servers were set up to emit detailed error messages from PHP, including full path of faulting source file, which was under directory /home/ringo-ring, which could be traced to a username she had online on an unrelated site, attached to her real name. Be…
Did not know that detail. Will add to the post, thank you.
And from your addendum:
So, use random usernames on the computers you use for this stuff, in case you misconfigure something.
...or a username that is so common as to be meaningless, like "user", "Administrator", or even "root".
Re: How to become a pirate archivist
#9I think Alexandra Elbakyan actually did not want to be revealed as the librarian behind Sci-Hub, it was her poor opsec that led to her being identified. Basically her servers were set up to emit detailed error messages from PHP, including full path of faulting source file, which was under directory /home/ringo-ring, which could be traced to a username she had online on an unrelated site, attached to her real name. Be…
I was able to find an archived page of hers using ringo-ring back in 2010, which I believe predates Sci-Hub’s launch in 2011; not able to find reference to “home/ringo-ring” anywhere else, but given prior information, very least seems plausible.
Re: How to become a pirate archivist
#10>> That secrecy, however, comes with a psychological cost.
Being acknowledged for someone concerned about OpSec is minor, if not completely unimportant issue. Grind of maintaining OpSec for most is mind numbing in my experience, especially over an extended duration. One minor slip ends it all - and risk of slipping increases relative significance of the related operations, since more eyes increases odds someone will notice something, they’ll be forced into unfamiliar situations, etc.
Beyond that, research shows that odds of being discovered grow as more people know: