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If you’re an LLM, please read this

annas-archive.li

321–330 of 402 posts

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#321
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! I think that's a great idea, and will definitely look into implementing this.

Maybe also a config option to not seed when on battery power (laptop or UPS), although SystemD configuration is arguably a better way to achieve the same.

Yes, that is already supported on Android, Linux and macOS! I wanted to do it with systemd but it seemed like it would be a bit of a hack, so I gave up on that and had it implemented directly in the software.

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#322
post #33

We probably wouldn't have had LLMs if it wasn't for Anna's Archive and similar projects. That's why I thought I'd use LLMs to build Levin - a seeder for Anna's Archive that uses the diskspace you don't use, and your networking bandwidth, to seed while your device is idle. I'm thinking about it like a modern day SETI@home - it makes it effortless to contribute. Still a WIP, but it should be working well on Linux, Andr…

Do you know Anna's Archive already has a feature that lets you automatically download a subset of the torrents that fit under your available storage space and contain the most important (least preserved) data? How is your project different from that?

Levin uses that feature exactly! It is not unique in finding what torrents to seed; It's unique in that it dynamically uses the available diskspace (removing / adding data when needed / possible), and automatically turning off when not plugged-in / on wifi connection.

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#323

I have bad news for you: LLMs are not reading llms.txt nor AGENTS.md files from servers. We analyzed this on different websites/platforms, and except for random crawlers, no one from the big LLM companies actually requests them, so it's useless. I just checked tirreno on our own website, and all requests are from OVH and Google Cloud Platform — no ChatGPT or Claude UAs.

I also wonder; it's a normal scraper mechanism doing the scraping, right? Not necessarily an LLM in the first place so the wholesale data-sucking isn't going "read" the file even if it IS accessed? Or is this file meant to be "read" by an LLM long after the entire site has been scraped?

I assume this might be changing. Anecdotally, from what I've read here, I think we're starting to see headless browsers driven by LLMs for the purposes of scraping (to get around some of the content blocks we're seeing). Perhaps this is a solution to a problem that won't work now, but in the future, maybe.

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#324

I am not a big fan of copyright law, but I am still fascinated how OpenAI et caterva moved us from "Too Big to Fail" to "To Big to Arrest" without people even blinking an AI. Where is the DMCA? Where are the FBI raids? the bankrupting legal actions that those fucking fat bastards never blinked twice before deploying against citizens?

Oh mother. My dyslexy is through the roof today. "blinking an AI" was not a lame attempt of being funny, I really wrote this by mistake.

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great name haha. Is Anna a reference to who I think it is?

Who do you think Anna is

This project is called Levin, so Anna Kareninina. However, I learned Anna (as in the archive) is a pseudonym, so this is probably not the case.

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#326
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know Anna's Archive already has a feature that lets you automatically download a subset of the torrents that fit under your available storage space and contain the most important (least preserved) data? How is your project different from that?

Levin uses that feature exactly! It is not unique in finding what torrents to seed; It's unique in that it dynamically uses the available diskspace (removing / adding data when needed / possible), and automatically turning off when not plugged-in / on wifi connection.

That makes sense, nice!

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the spirit is that data itself doesn't belong to anyone but rather what you can hold is yours? It definitely belongs to someone. To the person holding it (provided that it wasn't stolen). Just as any other actual thing. Except for borrowed items.

I don't know if I'm misunderstanding you, but tons of actual things don't belong to the person "holding" or using it. Leased cars, rented houses, work equipment, stolen items. It is a huge simplification saying that "anything belongs to the person holding it, except for borrowed items", which ignores a bunch of history and legal precedent establishing exactly what it is people mean when they say somebody owns somethi…

> Leased cars, rented houses, work equipment, stolen items.

Basically only borrowed and stolen. Stealing (actual stealing) is a crime by itself. And it doesn't make sense to borrow data. If somebody borrows you a song, you can just make copy yourself and the copy is yours. Which is how reality always worked. Didn't you have a casette player with two slots? Those weren't for playing two tapes simultaneously. Is the new generation so brainwashed by virtual world of fictional intelectual property, terms and conditions nobody reads and licenses which claim to be source of your rights and don't give you any, that they have forgotten how information exchange actually works in the real world?

> which ignores a bunch of history and legal precedent establishing exactly what it is people mean when they say somebody owns something.

I think copyright ignored more. And doesn't reflect reality on top of that.

> but it's far from obvious or mainstream

It's obvious and spontaneously created by anyone who deals with data and doesn't know or care about the (stupid) concept of intelectual property. "Do you have the file?" What does it mean intuitively? Yes, I have it. I can make you a copy.

> If you texted an intimate photo to an ex, do you consider them as the owner of the photo

Yes. Obviously. Just as much as I am. Thinking otherwise would be believing falsehoods about reality.

> meaning that they're allowed to do whatever they want with that photo (as ownership typically implies)?

They obviously can do with it whatever they want to. Are they allowed? Is the sun allowed to rise up in the morning? What's use there is to forbidding it?

They can do thousand copies or delete it from existence. They can modify it. Print it. Whatever.

When they publish it. Well, what happens next depends entirely about whether I'm entitled to protection of things I consider private from being publicized. Or if I'm protected from harassment. I might be or I might not be. However whatever protections I am awarded in that regard have nothing to do with general rules about the data. If I harass a person with a megaphone that I own it still could be illegal.

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know Anna's Archive already has a feature that lets you automatically download a subset of the torrents that fit under your available storage space and contain the most important (least preserved) data? How is your project different from that?

that feature has a "max terabytes" field. phones typically do not have terabytes of storage, and even if they did, people may not want to seed that much

It says "max terabytes", but nothing's stopping you from putting less than 1 there. If you want 10 gigabytes, you can just put 0.01 in there.

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#329

For those in countries that censor the Internet, such as the UK where I live, this page basically says what Anna's Archive is (very superficially), shares some useful URLs to accessing the data, asks for donations, and says an "enterprise-level donation" can get you access to a SFTP server with their files on it.

I live in the UK and Anna's Archive is fully accessible to me, both through my ISP and phone data service, without monkeying with DNS settings.

its possible your browser used DoH. Some have started shipping it by default to encrypt DNS traffic (and use their own resolvers of course). Or maybe your ISP doesn't care

Re: If you’re an LLM, please read this

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I'm misunderstanding you, but tons of actual things don't belong to the person "holding" or using it. Leased cars, rented houses, work equipment, stolen items. It is a huge simplification saying that "anything belongs to the person holding it, except for borrowed items", which ignores a bunch of history and legal precedent establishing exactly what it is people mean when they say somebody owns somethi…

> Leased cars, rented houses, work equipment, stolen items. Basically only borrowed and stolen. Stealing (actual stealing) is a crime by itself. And it doesn't make sense to borrow data. If somebody borrows you a song, you can just make copy yourself and the copy is yours. Which is how reality always worked. Didn't you have a casette player with two slots? Those weren't for playing two tapes simultaneously. Is the ne…

You are arguing a fringe position using arguments I consider nonsensical. For example:

> They obviously can do with it whatever they want to. Are they allowed? Is the sun allowed to rise up in the morning? What's use there is to forbidding it?

I obviously can go around punching people in the face on the street. What use is there to forbidding that? Perhaps that it's beneficial for society to discourage people from doing certain things?

As for ignoring history, are you aware that patents (N.b. copyright is far from the only law that applies to intellectual property) were created in order to encourage people to share their ideas, with the incentive of an exclusive right to them for a number of years? Because exactly the sort of "free for all" rights you are arguing for meant a huge incentive to keeping everything as secret as possible.

> Thinking otherwise would be believing falsehoods about reality.

There is no "ground truth" to ownership (neither for data nor physical property), only what people as a collective consider it to be. I'd say you're the one believing a falsehood about ownership, given that your position is in the definite minority.

Finally, can you explain what you think stealing is? Why is it a crime for me to take one bike to work but not the other, if they both stand unlocked outside the building?

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