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ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

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Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#371

Post by hacknewslogin »

areoform wrote: post #220
pilimi_anna wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit! Did not see this coming, but glad we saved this collection just in time. (I'm Anna, the one who made the backup). We are working on hosting this collection, as well as saving other large collections. Please consider supporting us, donation details at http://pilimi.org (we'll set up a patreon-like system soon)

Thank you so much for your efforts! I have steadily become convinced that we should make a multi-billion year backup of all of humanity's knowledge. All of it. Something that, - is resilient (can survive a nuclear explosion) - requires no power - doesn't require software to read/reboot from - (theoretically) lasts for at least 1 billion years Copying from the Long Now Foundation's projects, I think we can achieve the…

Instead of metal plates with a clear coat, maybe laser etching diamonds? a 5cm square of diamond can store 25 exabytes of data. They will weight less then metal as well. https://newatlas.com/electronics/2-inch-diamond-wafers-quant...

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#372

Post by [deleted] »

somenameforme wrote: post #285
GolDDranks wrote: post #262

What surprised me was that there is something called "United States Postal Inspection Service" that has some police-like law enforcement powers. Every so often you TIL something about the US.

You should see a recent job listing for the IRS (Internal Revenue Service - tax department): https://www.newsweek.com/irs-deletes-requirement-that-new-ag... You need to be in good physical shape, willing to work a minimum of 50 hours a week including irregular hours, be on call 24/7, and of course also not only carry a firearm but be willing to use deadly force. I'm sure they were flooded with applicants.

[deleted]

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#373

Post by acomjean »

idontwantthis wrote: post #7

Purchased ebooks are like ebooks except you can only read them in Adobe's shitty app, you can't share them with your kids, and you are guaranteed to lose access to them in 10 years or tomorrow. I want to purchase ebooks, but I want to own what I purchase!

I like my ebooks drm free too.

Oreilly books had drm free copies you could buy. Some good deals (buy 2 get 2 free) They moved to a drm based subscription model, but because the books I bought were drm free I still can access them!

Manning still does this. (Thoug they embed your email address in the pages of the pdfs you download. I’m ok with that). They market drm free as a feature, and I look there first when looking for tech books.

“What is Manning's DRM policy? What security restrictions are enabled on the PDF eBooks? Can I print, copy and paste, etc?

Manning eBooks are DRM-free. We do personalize each eBook with a license stamp in the footer of the PDF. There are no print or copy & paste restrictions on the PDF eBooks. You can also download your eBook as many times as you want, and put it on as many devices as you wish.”

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#374

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

runjake wrote: post #169

z-lib.org is responsible for me buying more books in the past couple years than I’ve ever bought. It essentially acted like an in-person bookstore for me that allowed me to browse a book to determine whether it was worth buying. Before z-lib, I generally tended toward avoiding wasting money. I guess I’m back to that again. (I like paper copies of tech books and Kindle copies of novels so I can sync reading and highli…

Me, too. Although in my case, my consumption of legitimate books usually goes up because I'd get so irritated by the typos in the Z-lib copy that, if the book was interesting, I'd eventually go buy it from a legitimate source just so I could have a properly formatted copy.

It's weird how many I've grabbed look like they were native EPUBs at first glance, but the repeated typos that no human would make betrays that they were sourced from OCRs.

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#375

Post by krisoft »

pmontra wrote: post #295
areoform wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much for your efforts! I have steadily become convinced that we should make a multi-billion year backup of all of humanity's knowledge. All of it. Something that, - is resilient (can survive a nuclear explosion) - requires no power - doesn't require software to read/reboot from - (theoretically) lasts for at least 1 billion years Copying from the Long Now Foundation's projects, I think we can achieve the…

> 6.7 million plates will probably weigh a lot. So off-world copies might need to use an alternative encoding scheme. For the Moon and Mars, carve them into stone there. You'll have to defend against meteor strikes so they'll be carved and stored deep underground. No idea about seismic activity on those bodies. For outer space, maybe it's pointless because finding, boarding, unloading an interstellar probe and sendin…

> they'll be carved and stored deep underground.

But of course you need some marker then on the ground so people know where to look for it later if they want to read the data. Maybe some artwork? A giant monolith perhaps?

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#376

Post by areoform »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #278
areoform wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much for your efforts! I have steadily become convinced that we should make a multi-billion year backup of all of humanity's knowledge. All of it. Something that, - is resilient (can survive a nuclear explosion) - requires no power - doesn't require software to read/reboot from - (theoretically) lasts for at least 1 billion years Copying from the Long Now Foundation's projects, I think we can achieve the…

6.5 million plates at $500 each is 3 billion, not 35 million. Just don't make them look gold (even if they're not solid gold), or they'll get looted and melted. Though it would be fun if a murderous warlord ended up with a gotten crown made of the Wikipedia article for toilet paper orientation. [1] [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation

Oops! I did a rough calc in my head but forgot to add in the two zeros. But it's still fairly "cheap." 0.14 Ubers (14%), or 0.002 Pentagon Monetary Black Holes (0.2% of the F-35 program)

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#377

Post by areoform »

OOPMan wrote: post #361
areoform wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much for your efforts! I have steadily become convinced that we should make a multi-billion year backup of all of humanity's knowledge. All of it. Something that, - is resilient (can survive a nuclear explosion) - requires no power - doesn't require software to read/reboot from - (theoretically) lasts for at least 1 billion years Copying from the Long Now Foundation's projects, I think we can achieve the…

A multi-billion year backup is probably pointless. The earth will be uninhabitable in that time frame due to changes in the atmosphere and beyond that the sun itself will complete it's lifecycle. I know there's a big fad to "just believe" in a SF future that spans space and time but physical realities in this area are pretty rough. I think the best thing people could do is realise that, eventually, everything ends an…

Our survival is not the point. It is an act of hope and the manifestation of our goodwill to the rest of the universe. There is nothing more valuable that we can offer to the Universe than our culture, history, knowledge, and the Earth's biological data.

Imagine if you were an alien species who somehow comes across this capsule hundreds of millions or billions of years from now. It's proof of sentient life elsewhere! But then you date the U-238 and realize that they're probably all dead...

But, they've left all of their civilization, culture, heritage, and knowledge behind. And you get to experience that, even recreate a tiny simulacrum of their world. And it gives you something, it's a tangible form of communication and cooperation across aeons.

-

In the short term, the backup is probably useful to have. Imagine if a collection is lost to fire or some other catastrophe, and one of the closer ones could be used to bring it back. Case in point, the fire at Notre-Dame. In 2015, Dr. Andrew Tallon, an art historian, painstakingly scanned all of Notre Dame, https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/04/16/we-have-b...

I think it's important to be honest. Would you have flagged his work as pointless in 2015? After all, the Cathedral has stood for centuries, been photographed so many times, what's the point of a 3D scan?

After 2019's fire, those scans became important (unsure to what degree) to the restoration effort. At some level, by capturing and preserving history, Andrew Tallon helped save history. And now it becomes a part of the story.

That's the goal. To engage in an act of optimism for the betterment of us and all of humanity.

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#378

Post by chaxor »

primax wrote: post #271
mvkg wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mirror Z-Library but don't support TLS on any of your sites. This seems like an odd choice. What is your threat model?

Probably 'I want to archive books'. Not 'I want end to end privacy for anyone clicking on my plain text site with a few torrent links.

TLS doesn't matter / isn't needed here right? The IP address is still in the header from what I understand. So the only thing https can hide is the content, such as a credit card or password that you enter into the site. The fact that it's a plaintext website that doesn't change means that the exact same information is encoded in simply giving the IP address as there is in knowing that someone looked around the site - because there's nothing else to do? I would like to learn more about how I am wrong, if I am wrong.

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#379

Post by pelasaco »

pilimi_anna wrote: post #103
sixtyfourbits wrote: post #48

Fortunately someone had the foresight to make a backup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32972923 Z-library were in it for commercial gain (you could access a certain number of books but to get more you had to pay for a subscription). They started out as a fork of library genesis, whose mission has always been strictly non-commercial and about providing free access to everyone without limits. Hopefully this will…

Holy shit! Did not see this coming, but glad we saved this collection just in time. (I'm Anna, the one who made the backup). We are working on hosting this collection, as well as saving other large collections. Please consider supporting us, donation details at http://pilimi.org (we'll set up a patreon-like system soon)

thank you for your work!

> Z-library were in it for commercial gain (you could access a certain number of books but to get more you had to pay for a subscription). They started out as a fork of library genesis, whose mission has always been strictly non-commercial and about providing free access to everyone without limits.

What is the difference between what "z-library" was doing, which was "you download a lot for free, but if you need more, just pay us, because no internet bandwith is for free" from donations? I always understood the subscription at z-library as support, not different than patreon...

Re: ZLibrary domains have been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service

#380

Post by jrm4 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #209
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do we need "publishers" in today's market?is not like you have to have 4 intermediaries to sell on amazon or even digital copies? i'd be more forthcoming to pay $10 for a book that i know 50-70-90% proceeds go to the author than 2-4-5% which the rest take up? publishers, printers, yada yada must've been important to sell books 50 years ago but are they really necessary today?

> why do we need "publishers" in today's market? Distributing and marketing a book still takes expertise.

Does it? I genuinely doubt this; and if it does -- is this current system by which it happens worth keeping (i.e. is not merely legacy gatekeeping by incumbents?)
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