
Think Sci-Hub is just downloading PDFs? Think again - fanf2
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/09/18/guest-post-think-sci-hub-is-just-downloading-pdfs-think-again/
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azeirah
Can someone offer some perspective on why opening up all this knowledge to the
web would be an effective attack on western civilization (as is speculated in
the comments of the article)? I'm not concerned about the legality of their
operation, just curious that _if_ , some larger criminal institution is behind
this, why would it be an effective attack on Western civilization to publish
tons of research, journals and articles for free?

My view on it is probably wayy too naive, 'free and open-access is better',
but I see non-academics and enthusiasts all over the web using sci-hub for all
kinds of research.

Who's being hurt here?

~~~
wongarsu
In theory you could operate such a service maliciously. For example you could
withhold all papers advocating some viewpoint. If for example all papers
advocating that sugar is harmless are freely available and all papers
advocating that sugar is harmful can't be accessed, that might shift the
perceived consensus. Or much more advanced and also more insidious: you could
serve modified versions of some papers, either making them less credible or
changing their conclusions completely.

However, there is no indication that sci-hub is doing anything of the sort.
And the more researchers are using sci-hub, the quicker such a thing would
become obvious.

~~~
Freak_NL
It would also be telling if certain types of papers known in the field and
findable with Google Scholar or similar indices were missing from Sci-Hub.

Anyone researching the health effects of sugar would conclude that some
research was being withheld from them, not that research concluding that sugar
is harmful doesn't exist.

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Tepix
There's a paragraph that talks about Sci-Hub doing a dictionary attack against
a university and then downloading 45k PDFs. The same paragraph then talks
about unknown criminals changing data and planting malware. There is no
correlation between these incidents other than that the author puts them in
the same paragraph, implying that they are related.

Same in the next paragraph: The author is implying that Sci-Hub uses
keyloggers, but upon more careful reading there is no relation.

Then a few paragraphs later the author talks about articles being stolen as
well as social security numbers and other personal information. "Sci-hub must
have thousands of these" \- pure speculation. Also no evidence that Sci-Hub
sold them.

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Robin_Message
This is just a hit piece on Sci-Hub.

> bulk theft of intellectual property from academic institutions

Is a most apt description of scientific publishing, but is instead being
applied to Sci-Hub.

It recommends libraries block access to it, on spurious technical grounds, but
never stops to wonder why people would be accessing it even from within
university libraries.

I imagine it might be because sci-hub has a better selection of academic
content. Content that is produced, reviewed, and curated for free by
academics, then appropriated by publishers due to their historical usefulness.
I imagine it also has a nicer interface than most publishers' websites, which
generally do not set a high bar.

What librarians should be doing is lobbying to stop free peer reviewing for
paid journals and then unsubscribing from them as the dry up. Academic
publishing is a racket.

Also, if you were caught, erm, donating content to Sci-Hub, you might lie and
say your password was stolen...

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A2017U1
Can't create an omelette without cracking some eggs. I have little sympathy
for most of the arguments presented here, some are claims of rampant
criminality attributed to individuals without evidence.

Regardless the overall benefit to humanity is undeniable and I doubt history
will look favourably on articles like this.

The big publishing houses can dig in if they want, the writing is on the wall
for their ilk, adapt or go extinct, it's happened in a multitude of other
industries, why couldn't the gatekeepers of worldwide scientific effort see
that coming?

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ivan_ah
This article has zero substance and makes me wonder very hard how it passed
review. Shame on you Andrew Pitts for spreading fear mongering, and double the
shame for doing a poor job at it.

I was wondering who in their right mind would publish this article, and then
looked at the About Us page, and the whole articles makes more sense now, see
[https://www.sspnet.org/about-us/organizational-
members/](https://www.sspnet.org/about-us/organizational-members/)

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tw1010
> "Let me be clear: Sci-Hub is not just stealing PDFs. They’re phishing,
> they’re spamming, they’re hacking, they’re password-cracking, and basically
> doing anything to find personal credentials to get into academic
> institutions."

And goodness for that.

~~~
prepend
It took me too many paragraphs until I realized he wasn’t being snarky and
ironic.

It’s interesting reading these posts where the facts are agreed too and the
value systems produce very different viewpoints.

I read this and thought these were positives. The ability to view library info
and history is likely understood by the consenting posters. I expected some
evidence of misuse rather than the typical “in the hands of a criminal” type
hypotheticals where paper reading history might help some spear phishing
attack.

This reminded me of the 2010 “if you post your vacation pictures to twitter
thieves might more easily rob you.” I mean, that did happen, but it was rare
and posters were aware of that small risk.

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OscarTheGrinch
Universities should more to decrease demand by making all old and publicly
funded articles free.

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auggierose
Even if Sci-hub were murdering a few people a year, the service they provide
would still be worth it.

