Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#191

Post by acomar » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:43 AM UTC

revscat wrote: post #86

enriquto wrote: post #31

This is extremely infuriating. Alexandra Elbakyan has done a huge positive contribution to human civilization, even knowing that it was putting herself at personal risk. She's just 32 years old. How can we help her? Does she need money, public support, vpns in every country? Whatever she needs, mankind is indebted to her and we should help if we can. Anybody who has ever supported their research using Sci-Hub (or Lib…

It is important up understand that the laws are such that “justice” is equated with “maximizing capital”, as cynical as it is to say, and as such any financial support given to those who fight such a system will inevitably prove to be gestures without much effect. She may attempt to better humanity, but the neoliberal capitalism that permeates all governments, west to east, will stand against her for the primary reas…

it's one industry while others stand to reduce costs if she succeeds. the relatively warm welcome she receives here should indicate how willing other bourgeois segments are to support her platform. free access to information is not by itself anticapitalist, though it sure does make it easier. but recuperation is ever a threat (free software vs open source for a topical example).

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#192

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:44 AM UTC

voldacar wrote: post #158

miguelmurca wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article! > The latest lawsuit, filed in India by three academic publishers, including Elsevier, asks the High Court of Delhi to block access to Sci-Hub throughout the country. While the case is pending, the court has instructed Sci-Hub to stop uploading papers to its database. The order is not unusual; what’s surprising is that Elbakyan has complied. She has a history of ignoring legal rulings, and the India…

Yeah I get that but the what is the upside to winning exactly? You continue doing exactly what you did? It just seems completely irrational

The upside of winning is that you'll never be banned in India, which is the same thing as saying you'll never be banned.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#193

Post by serf » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

mrleinad wrote: post #188

nicolas_t wrote: post #13

> The website is blocked in a dozen countries, including Austria, Britain, and France. I'm deeply ashamed that my country would block sci-hub given that the current system is preventing scientific development.

Libgen seems to be blocked in at least some parts of the US as well. I tried to access it while reading this thread, and couldn't. Then I remembered I had activated my VPN and I was tunnelling through the US.

> Libgen seems to be blocked in at least some parts of the US as well.

maybe an ISP or VPN service thing?

I had no problem in so-cal. I tried tunnels in NorCal/Oregon/Washington, no problems there either.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#194

Post by kspacewalk2 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

Sr_developer wrote: post #172

enriquto wrote: post #31

This is extremely infuriating. Alexandra Elbakyan has done a huge positive contribution to human civilization, even knowing that it was putting herself at personal risk. She's just 32 years old. How can we help her? Does she need money, public support, vpns in every country? Whatever she needs, mankind is indebted to her and we should help if we can. Anybody who has ever supported their research using Sci-Hub (or Lib…

These are my predictions: 1. She will be destroyed, one way or the other. Since she is eastern European the possibilities are vastless: Russian asset/ Spy/ Dangerous Hacker/ Covert Operation/ Putin enabler, etc, etc 2. Expect hundreds of "insightful" comments on here how she was actually wrong because X, Y, Z, the same points produced by mainstream media and the establishment politicians. 3. She will be shunned, forg…

It's well known that she's illiberal, in favour of a "strong state" like those of Russia and her native Kazakhstan, and probably had the usual views you expect from such people on matters like electing one's leaders in free elections, LGBT rights, Stalin, etc. If I were trying to discredit her, I'd dig in that direction.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#195

Post by malwarebytess » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

esrh wrote: post #100

Something I've always wondered is why Alexandra put her name and identity out there. Would it not have been easier to remain anonymous?

Because Alexandra created sci-hub to open access to science. It was a political act. She was not ashamed, she wanted people to pay attention. Perhaps she was naive in thinking that removing barriers to science and knowledge would trump middle-men's greed and profit.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#196

Post by aabaker99 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #174

aabaker99 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some journals rules prohibit submitting to arxiv. Researchers still want to submit their research to these journals because they are prestigious. One of the main goals of researchers is prestige (for their work to be widely read, for getting grants, for attracting grad students and post doc laborers, etc.).

Are there any efforts to work against journals doing that?

TFA links to http://thecostofknowledge.com/

which is an attempt to organize researchers to boycott Elsevier due to its practices. Elsevier is one of the journal publishers that has (or had) issues with preprints like arvix. I do think efforts like this are gaining traction, such as the agreement between the UC system and Elsevier mentioned at https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/california-universit...

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#197

Post by ValentineC » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:52 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #3

Submitted URL was https://archive.ph/huNwk . It's ok to post workaround links in the thread, but please don't make them the top level submission. We want the original source for that.

Can we please change the headline back to the article's?

I had no idea who Alexandra Elbakyan was before this, and mostly clicked through out of curiosity. I would have followed this more if I knew it was about Sci-Hub from the start.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#198

Post by selimthegrim » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:53 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #55

tbabej wrote: post #28

I really wonder how this is going to play out. For those who don't follow the current situation with Sci-Hub, Alexandra (the creator and likely the sole operator) of Sci-Hub shut down the part of the website ("the magical proxy") that is responsible for fetching the papers that were not previously retrieved. This was done to comply with the request of the Indian court, as described in the article. As a result, any pa…

Don't have much hope for the legal system on the subcontinent. Indian, Pakistani, Deshi courts are all legendary slow. It's nearly impossible to win against concerted, deliberate extension, and delay tactic against somebody who has more money to write legal letters than you. Unlike the GB legal system, from which they branched out, they never got the reformation wave circa 1960-1970 when UK was trying to root out the…

I would be surprised if Kohat wasn’t under FCR when that began

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#199

Post by jazzyjackson » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

shagie wrote: post #168

breck wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you really think drug cartels need the IPTO? The legal ones do, absolutely. > Or that the opioid crisis couldn't possibly have happened if the opioids had been generics? "get an audience for our patent infringement suits so that we are feared as a tiger with claws, teeth and balls, and build some excitement with prescribers that OxyContin Tablets is the way to go." Richard Sackler in a 1996 email. I do not see O…

> On patents and copyrights. If we were to declare tomorrow that search engines did not have to respect copyright law, we would see far better search engines than Google in a year or less. If copyright was abolished, the GPL and all open source would lose all its teeth. The photographs that I took and have up on the web (all rights reserved) could be printed and sold without me seeing a dime. The people who write boo…

As much as I disagree with the notion of intellectual property, I think arguing about the meaning of the phrase "securing for limited times" is the strongest ticket we have, thanks for the tip.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#200

Post by wydfre » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

All Elsevier has done is slow accelerationsism - proving that there are those among us who would rather slow down time to reach a predetermined goal, instead of letting a social network interact with itself and knowledge at such a fast rate it cannot be predicted. There are those who wish for accelerationism at any cost, cosmists who believe in a future at any cost, and terrans, who want only a future that only their secret committee has agreed upon.