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Sci-Hub: Removing barriers in the way of science

sci-hub.io

131–140 of 225 posts

Re: Sci-Hub: Removing barriers in the way of science

#131
post #73

I am happy she is doing this. The price that paywalls are charging for accessing research papers is unacceptable: the money does not flow back to the researchers, nor to the institutions. Most of the paywalled research has been sponsored by taxpayer money and hence should be publicly accessible or at a very low "maintenance fee".

I work at a small academic database as a developer. We charge a pittance compared to what a lot of the larger players in this market do. And I'm conflicted.

We are a registered non profit, and are actively losing money. Developer costs, of which there are only two. Building costs--I also shovel snow!, marketing costs, hosting costs, and much more. We have the workload where we would benefit from a staff 3 times the size. Currently we are at 12. Years ago we had a fully functional publishing operation too.

But here is the thing. These open access places often are pay to publish. This is built into many grants today. Publishing costs. But not so much in the field I'm in. The social sciences. So sure, the result of that work should be open access. I just cannot help thinking this takes away from what you could be paying one more lab or research assistant.

a lot of these pay walled sites are struggling to survive as library budgets dwindle. Maybe there isn't much room left for the little players. Many are bought up or have folded over the last 20 years.

Re: Sci-Hub: Removing barriers in the way of science

#133
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. We should also start owning the term and framing the debate around it. Cast it in positive anti-establishment terms. Like pirate radio, Robin Hood, V4vendetta. Lone, beleaguered hero(s) fighting for the peoples against tyrannical and oppressive regimes.

What might help is if someone started a file sharing site and named it after a place where pirates hung out and incorporated a pirate ship and the word "pirate" into their logo. Then maybe if it became popular these so-called "pirates" could cast off the shame of being tarnished by an image they clearly don't embrace at all.

[deleted]

Re: Sci-Hub: Removing barriers in the way of science

#135
post #21

Good for them. For the last article that I published, the publisher "value added" consisted of highlighting all the all-caps names in my document and asking me to define them as acronyms. Literally the only thing they did, and it wasn't even right.

Oh, I get so much more out of the publishers: 1.) Long waits during which I worry that I'm going to be scooped. 2.) Lots of typos because Elsevier outsources printing to people who don't speak proper English. 3.) PDFs that do not render correctly in some PDF viewers.

Re: Sci-Hub: Removing barriers in the way of science

#136
post #79

I didn't know that you could raid ships using a website(!). In all seriousness, the act of "sharing the collective knowledge of mankind publicly" isn't morally equivalent to attacking ships and killing people. We should stop using terms that are clearly propaganda created by the film and music industry to try to muddy the waters.

The word pirate has a new and different meaning in the 21st century, I think it's too late to try to fight that. And the title presumably helps with conveying what the website is about, compare it with my submission where I used the original title (and which got one upvote in total): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11093454

Re: Sci-Hub: Removing barriers in the way of science

#137
post #13

Umm, "pirate website" that uses a secure.sci-hub.io, but not actually a secure connection. Really, Let's Encrypt has made this a no-brainer. Anyone making a site should be expected to be using SSL. Especially those making anything related to anything "pirate" or "secure."

Looking at it another way, a certificate issued by a CA is another thing that can be revoked by the authorities to immediately give browser warnings and cause people to think the site has been "hacked" somehow. Browsers rejecting self-signed certificates also makes that route useless.

Re: Sci-Hub: Removing barriers in the way of science

#138
post #72
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what are people outside of the U.S. supposed to do?

Agreed. I studied in Germany, and none of the academic institutions I know of make papers accessible to alumnis. For students, sure, but for alumnis? Never heard of it.

The local hack: get a lifetime membership at the uni computer club. This gets you a shell account on a computer inside the uni network, and Rob's your uncle. Lifetime cost is about $100 here, and that money goes to a good cause.

Re: Sci-Hub: Removing barriers in the way of science

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does HTTPS help circumvent firewalls? I wasn't aware this was a feature. My understanding is that a firewall blocking file-sharing sites would do so whether the site was HTTP or HTTPS. My point is that by using HTTPS, these sites have demonstrated a higher level of proficiency with security tools than many more popular mainstream sites. I agree the scammy fake download buttons are a problem though, but that's wha…

How does HTTPS help circumvent firewalls? The firewall cannot do deep packet inspection on encrypted connections, since it cannot decrypt the data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_packet_inspection

A firewall cannot see encrypted layer-7 traffic, true, but you can block sites by IP/hostname. HTTPS does not help you circumvent firewalling.
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