
New Sci-Hub domain - matthberg
https://sci-hub.ac/
======
nikcub
Just a heads-up that the self-installed plugin uses an extension update_url
that points to an http endpoint and the extension is unsigned (hence developer
mode) - so it would be easy to hijack the update process

You're probably better off installing the alternative in the Chrome web store
(search sci-hub)[0]

[0] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sci-hub-
links/olcg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sci-hub-
links/olcgjijbclchlliaffaghajlbfppkbkl)

~~~
sapsan
Personally I find this [0] extension useful when it comes to using SciHub.

And yes, it seems old domains are still working.

[0]:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scihubs/jamkadfgfk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scihubs/jamkadfgfkpjejooinmoelcdmjacjlkc)

------
bennofs
Does anyone know what's up with that chrome plugin for searching? Feels weird
to me that it would require a plugin.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I was like “wow, how'd they get on that TLD reserved for academia?”, but then
I realised that .ac is most likely a country code, unlike .ac.uk which is GB's
.edu

~~~
Dosenpfand
Yes it's Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha top level domain.
Interesting fact: If it's a two-letter top-level domain it belongs to a
country. Generic top-level domains have 3 or more characters.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I'm aware! It's why JavaScript will never have a .js top-level domain.

~~~
majewsky
Challenge: Establish a recognized country with a name chosen such that it gets
assigned the .js TLD.

------
shp0ngle
Why new domain? Sci-hub.cc (the domain currently advertised on sci hub
Twitter) seems to be still working.

But yeah back up domains are useful, I guess.

~~~
matthberg
I found this domain a week ago or so when the sci-hub.cc url redirected to
moscow.sci-hub.ac (which had a 403 error, yet prompted checking the root url).
Glad to see the .cc domain is working again, though.

------
hackuser
This domain has been known for awhile and has been mentioned many times on HN:

[https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=%22sci-
hub.ac%22%20site%3Ayco...](https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=%22sci-
hub.ac%22%20site%3Aycombinator.com)

BTW, how does one distinguish a 'real' sci-hub domain from a spoof?

~~~
majewsky
The .ac one has Elbakayan in the whois entry. The .cc one does not, though, so
it's merely a sufficient condition, not a necessary one.

------
animex
So are these guys the Pirate Bay of research papers so they keep having to
fight DCMA/Domain seizures?

~~~
quakeguy
No, no research should ever be hidden from public, as opposed to artistic
works published on TPB or elsewhere. All academic knowledge and research has
to be free, in this open and connected world even more so. We all profit from
it, and not just some shady biz like Elsevier or Springer. The thoughts are
free, u know?

~~~
majewsky
One can also argue similarly for works of art. I for one would not expect our
cultural and artistic landscape to be any poorer if there were no copyright.
It would certainly look different (there would probably be less big-budget
movies, for example, but probably more remix art on the other hand).

------
bshimmin
I love the joyously mixed metaphors of the imagery - pencils and walls and
keys and a raven!

~~~
hackuser
It's also interesting to consider that the meaning of imagery can be very
dependent on culture, and also the very diverse nature of Sci-hub's users.

Choosing imagery for an audience like that could be a challenge.

------
dredmorbius
What the academic publishing world calls "theft", the rest of us call
"research". Why Sci-Hub is so popular.

Because it works. It delivers information and knowledge to those who need it.

Because information and knowledge are public goods. As CUNY/GC says, an
"increasingly unpopular idea",1,2 but an absolutely correct one.

Because it democratises information.

Because much the world cannot afford to pay US/EU/JP/AU prices for content.
Including many of those in the US/EU/JP/AU. And most certainly virtually all
outside. Billions and billions of people.

Because the research is (often) publicly funded, conducted in public
institutions, and meant for the public.

Because information and markets simply don't work. Deadweight losses from
restricted access and perverse incentives for publication both taint the
system.

Because much the content, EVERYTHING published before 1962, would have been
public domain under the copyright law in force at the time, and much up
through 1976 and the retrospective extensions of copyright it, and multiple
subsequent copyright acts, have created.

Because 30% profit margins are excessive by any measure. Greed, in this case,
is not good.

Because the interfaces to existing systems, a patchwork fragment of poorly
administered, poorly designed, limited-access, and all partial systems are
frankly far more tedious to navigate than Sci-Hub: Submit DOI or URL, get
paper.

Because unaffiliated independent research is a thing.

Because the old regime is absolutely unsustainable. It will die. It is dying
as we write this.

Because the roles of financing research and publication need not parallel the
activity of accessing content. Ronald Coase's "Theory of the Firm" (1937, ), a
paper which should be public domain today under the law in which it was
created and published, and should have been by 1991 at the latest, but isn't,
tells us why: transactions themselves have costs.

Because journals no longer serve a primary role as publishers of academic
material, but as gatekeepers over academic professional advancement. This
perpetrates multiple pathologies: papers don't advance knowledge, academics
are blackmailed into the system, and access to knowledge is curtailed

Because what the academic publishing industry calls "theft" the world calls
"research".

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_the_academic_publishing_industry_calls_theft/)

I use Sci-Hub extensively, it's one of a few of my go-to sources for
information, which I'm using in large amounts (1000s of articles and books)
for an area of large and broad scope.

Others includie BookZZ / Book4You and LibGen, both also democratising
information in opposition to the copyright cartel.

The Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, Hathi Trust, and a number of largely
special-purpose archives also serve my needs, but the simple truth is that a
large and comprehensive archive is itself useful on account of reducing search
and access frictions. As the US Library of Congress discovered when it became
the largest book collection in the United States in the early 20th century,
and hence a magnet for scholars. It might not have _everything_ , but odds
were good that it had _any particular thing_. Shoe-leather costs being
somewhat higher for trekking between Cambridge, MA and DC in those days than
navigating through websites is today.

What's truly pathetic is that oftentimes its the _indices themselves_ which
aren't online. I've been stymied repeatedly in trying to access old
periodicals because there are no generally available indexes that don't
require academic affiliation or on-site access.

The frustration de jour is in trying to find access to several works published
between 1920 and the 2nd century AD, all out of copyright, but for which there
appear to be no digital copies available.

Programmers are familiar with various charts of timings that they should be
familar with. My own lookup time has just bumped from 2 minutes to 2-4 weeks,
and that clock starting when I reach the ILL desk.

And since the question "but how will you pay for it" inevitably arises:
Universal Content Syndication.

Treat information as the public good it is.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modest_proposal_universal_online_media_payment/)

~~~
xaa
At least for publicly funded research, there is no need for anyone to pay.
Normally, the theory of copyright is that a creative person has to put food on
the table, so they need to be paid. I acknowledge this is a tough problem in
the case of actual full-time authors and musicians. But researchers are
ALREADY paid by grants, certainly not (lol) by sales of their manuscripts.
Want to know why academic publishing has high margins? Because they get their
product for free, including even editing and reviewing services.

However, academics do sometimes sell books. It is actually much closer to
theft to download an academic book than an article because the money does go
to the author.

~~~
dredmorbius
Journal editorial processes still require some financing, tthough arguably not
what's been enjoyed of late.

The arguments for deadweight loss and equal access apply particularly to
books.

------
lordnacho
Is there any connection between this and libgen? That also has a bunch of
papers.

~~~
wolfgke
I don't know about details, but if you enter a book URL (e.g. at Springer
Link) into Sci-Hub, it sometimes also brings you to the corresponding page at
LibGen. So I would assume that there is at least some collaboration between
these two sites.

~~~
ycmbntrthrwaway
If it is on libgen, it is not downloaded, but you are given a libgen link.

Libgen also redirects you to sci-hub.bz if you search scientific article it
doesn't have.

They collaborate, but different people are behind these projects.

------
smaili
Slightly off topic but when did they move off ".com" and why? Or were they
always on ".ac"?

~~~
saycheese
Anyone know how to confirm a given domain is controlled by Sci-Hub?

~~~
aargh_aargh
Why would it matter? If you're using it, you already don't care where you're
getting the paper from, only that you're getting it.

~~~
Shank
Because how trivial would it be to modify a PDF maliciously and change data,
forge results, etc.?

The same reason why we encrypt traffic using TLS, even if it's "mundane"
traffic like tweets.

~~~
eli
How do you know the authentic sci-hub isn't doing that?

~~~
saycheese
You don't, though if they were, it's very unlikely they would be doing it in
bulk for every file, since someone would notice at some point, either by
inspecting the file or notice that a file when downloaded to a canary system
misbehaves.

Targeted attacks might be possible based on the file contents or using a side-
channel to ID the downloader; meaning only specific targeted users would get
the malicious files.

Either way, being able to hold Sci-Hub accountable as this source would be
important.

------
libeclipse
It's funny that the reason that most scientific journals quote for charging
for papers is because they spend time and effort reviewing the research -- but
we all know how big of a problem unreproducible research is.

~~~
jonathanstrange
Uhm, people like me review the research, i.e., unpaid anonymous peer reviewers
from the academic middle field. Not even the editor in chief is paid for this
very time consuming job, at least not the ones I know who are editors in chief
and area editors for major Springer journals.

Most journals nowadays do not even do basic linguistic editing but instead let
the authors choose highly expensive services for it. They expect you to
deliver a camera-ready copy based on their LaTeX or Word templates and then
send it to final copy editing to India. (Source: My own experience with very
nice and professional Indian copy-editors, and I would like to stress that
there is nothing wrong with sending articles to India for copy-editing, of
course.)

~~~
catdog
> My own experience with very nice and professional Indian copy-editors

So you got lucky, I know of people who had quite the opposite experience with
India.

> and I would like to stress that there is nothing wrong with sending articles
> to India for copy-editing, of course.

Except for justifying ridiculous prices.

------
tmalsburg2
This is not the solution to our problems with scientific publishing. Academics
need to stop complaining about Elsevier et al. and submitting to their
journals at the same time. Institutions need to stop awarding funding and
giving jobs to the people who publish in the most glamorous journals. We all
need to stop obsessing about silly publication metrics.

~~~
untilHellbanned
Agreed. It needs to start with the funding agencies, NIH, Wellcome Trust,
HHMI, etc. Like the Gates Foundation recently did, they need to make it a
requirement that you must publish in immediate open-access journals. I'd
further like to see the journal not getting as onerous copyright claim but
baby steps.

The people with the money need to put their money where the public interest's
mouth is. Certainly not where Elsevier's mouth is.

~~~
leemailll
This won't work. The only way is the hiring committees don't judge the
candidates' work on which journal published. But at as dire as the current job
market nobody will have the time to go through this tedious task.

~~~
untilHellbanned
Nope. The chicken and the egg starts where the money starts. If all the
candidates' papers are in immediate open access journals (like the Gates
Foundation is mandating soon and hopefully NIH will follow), then hiring
committees won't have vanity journals as the signal.

