
Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name - yunque
https://torrentfreak.com/elsevier-complaint-shuts-down-sci-hub-domain-name-160504/
======
leni536
(Thanks for daveguy:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11593881](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11593881))

[https://31.184.194.81/](https://31.184.194.81/) (sci-hub.io cert)

[https://sci-hub.cc](https://sci-hub.cc) (same ip as above, sci-hub.io cert)

[https://sci-hub.ac](https://sci-hub.ac) (same ip as above, sci-hub.io cert)

[https://sci-hub.bz](https://sci-hub.bz) (uses a separate certificate and ip
address -- 104.28.20.155)

And a tor site: scihub22266oqcxt.onion

~~~
Fuxy
Anybody know a linux script/software that would 'lock' a domain down to am IP
regardless what the registrar does.

Maybe have even a out of band way of updating it without the registrars
involvement.

I guess what I'm looking for would be P2P DNS server although making sure the
data is not fake would be difficult without some kind of signing.

Wonder if it could use the bitcoin ledger as a kind of key server?

Edit: I know /etc/hosts does the job it's just lacking if the server changes
IP

~~~
hartator
echo "google.com 127.0.0.1" >> /etc/hosts

~~~
niels_olson
Yeah, I recommend against this particular example :)

~~~
amelius
Do this on your friends and families computers, and change the world.

------
chias
I feel a little tingle of excitement seeing my own papers on Sci-Hub. I mean I
get that they're trying to index _all_ publications so it's not a "stamp or
approval" or anything... but it does mean that people can actually access the
knowledge I tried to throw into the world, which was kind of the whole point
in doing it.

I'd update my academic website to link my papers to their sci-hub URLs if I
didn't think I'd catch a world of flak for it.

~~~
finfet1
IEEE and IEEE Explore have been actively going after professors and forcing
them to take down links to their own papers. In the past, many professors
hosted pdf's on their websites for their papers -- this has only stopped
because IEEE has been forcing them off. Just wanted to add this for those who
think professors have 'suddenly become stingy' \-- no, they aren't - they were
forced to.

~~~
therobot24
i haven't heard this, this is interesting any links with more info?

~~~
finfet1
Academia is probably keeping quiet since most of EE, CS, CE is heavily
dependent on IEEE publications for reputation and career advancement and
paper-reputation.

~~~
nickpsecurity
There would be complaints somewhere you can link to. I have a collection of
over 15,000 papers. Many I got off of IEEE/ACM. However, many others I got by
typing the name into Google and/or CiteSeerx to find same file. I still can
usually get any file I think of and many are still on academics sites. Those
are high-profile, too.

So, where's your evidence that IEEE can or is forcing PDF's off the net?

------
jfaucett
"As a result of the legal battle the site (sci-hub.io) just lost one of its
latest domain names. However, the site has no intentions of backing down, and
will continue its fight to keep access to scientific knowledge free and open."

Does this not enrage people? Elsevier and closed-access journals like them,
are doing all they can to impede human progress while leaching off of tax-
payer dollars to do so. Something should be done to make what Elsevier and the
like do illegal, are there any groups/political parties/etc going after them?

~~~
wrsh07
This is a case of badly screwed-up incentives. No individual has incentives to
fix the system, so they keep optimizing for how they're actually rewarded
[academics --> tenure / prestige, journals --> make money, govt --> get
lobbied].

~~~
chrismonsanto
You are missing a case for academics. Even after tenure, we have to continue
publishing in these venues or our students wont be able to find work.

------
lake99
On the bright side, this will give some much-needed publicity to Tor Browser.
Sci-hub is still available at
[http://scihub22266oqcxt.onion/](http://scihub22266oqcxt.onion/)

~~~
copperx
Does using Tor puts you on some kind of list? It would be tragic if someone
used Tor to read a scientific article but then got charged with aiding
terrorism or looking for child pornography.

~~~
wolfgke
> Does using Tor puts you on some kind of list? It would be tragic if someone
> used Tor to read a scientific article but then got charged with aiding
> terrorism or looking for child pornography.

If it does, it becomes an ethical maxim to use Tor. If it doesn't, then you
can simply use Tor. So by case analysis you should use Tor.

~~~
lake99
> If it does, it becomes an ethical maxim to use Tor.

This is one of the reasons I use Tor. If there _is_ such a list, I want it to
be full of people doing ordinary stuff. In effect, I want the list to be
useless.

~~~
NoGravitas
Indeed, this is the main reason I'm using Signal (and badgering my friends
into using it). I want to increase the volume of encrypted non-sensitive
stuff, so that the "list" doesn't have predictive value.

~~~
wolfgke
Having metadata (i.e. who communicates with who at which time etc.) still has
lots of value for the three-letter agencies (some even say it's even more
important then the content of the messages itself). As far as I know Signal
does nothing to avoid this kind of metadata (but please correct me if I'm
wrong).

------
thesimon
Why exactly was a New York court able to issue an injunction for a ".io"
domain?

It is a British Territory extension being managed by "Internet Computer Bureau
Ltd" based in the United Kingdom.

------
zo1
Is there a donate location of sorts that we can pay into to support the
efforts that the sci-hub person/team/organization is doing?

This is a another good cause that I would find worthy to donate to.

Edit. Ok, found it:

[http://www.sci-hub.cc/donate](http://www.sci-hub.cc/donate)

Apparently, only bitcoin donations are possible at the moment. BitCoint Wallet
for donations: 1K4t2vSBSS2xFjZ6PofYnbgZewjeqbG1TM

~~~
finnn
I see a different Bitcoin address. I recommend people visit the site and not
use the address random commenters on the internet post. Not saying the parent
comment is up to something, sci-hub may have rotated the address for whatever
reason. The one I see starts with 14ghuGKD

EDIT: Ah, interestingly, the 1K4t2v address appears on the scihub.cc homepage,
but not the donate page that was linked

~~~
Fuxy
Accessing the ip posted in the article it shows the bitcoin address posted by
the OP.

I even switch over to https to make sure the request is not modified.

~~~
finnn
>switching to https

They don't even have a valid certificate for that domain.

BUT interestingly, on a US (DO NYC) server or my house (US/Comcast):

    
    
      $ curl http://sci-hub.cc/donate
      <p>Please donate to Bitcoin: 14ghuGKDAPdEcUQN4zuzGwBUrhQgACwAyA</p>%
    

however, on a French (OVH) server:

    
    
      $ curl http://sci-hub.cc/donate
      <!DOCTYPE html>
      <html>
          <head>
      {cut for brevity, a fair amount of HTML here}
      <p>Please send donations to bitcoin wallet: 1K4t2vSBSS2xFjZ6PofYnbgZewjeqbG1TM</p>
      {more HTML}
    

DNS reports that the domain's IP is 31.184.194.81 from all tested locations. I
get the HTML page with the 1K4t address over tor as well

~~~
iamnothere
Tested from US university IP, I also get the 1K4t wallet address. Maybe a
caching issue with the CDN (assuming they use one)?

~~~
finnn
Which university? I tried from the University of Washington and got the 14gh
address

------
chrismonsanto
> Meanwhile, academic pirates continue to flood to Sci-Hub, domain seizure or
> not.

I realize readers of torrentfreak.com have a different relationship with the
word "pirate" but--

This is not piracy. You are entitled to read work from Sci-Hub, as your taxes
funded the researchers who created the work. We academics _want_ you to read
our work, we do not benefit in any way from publisher paywalls. We continue to
publish in these venues because it is necessary for career advancement
(whether for us, or for our students).

Please continue to "pirate" our work, and please spread the word about this
problem.

~~~
fudged71
Is this argument valid internationally?

My canadian taxes didn't pay for american research, should I still be able to
access those papers?

~~~
chrismonsanto
Researchers regularly make use of work from other countries, the scientific
community is international. Even if one could make an argument for not
allowing Canadians to access US research without payment, it doesn't follow
that Elsevier and friends are the ones who should be paid.

Research done by government employees is legally required to be public domain.
I see no reason we shouldn't extend that to researchers who take government
funding.

------
atemerev
While I support open science and Sci-Hub is great, I also can see publisher's
side.

Imagine the same site with pirated high quality scientific books. (There are
some, but in darker corners of the Internet). Would open access to these books
be advantageous for humanity? Most definitely. Will publishers get mad about
it? Even more definitely. Should publisher's work be free? I think not.

However, you can't get both sides of the coin at once. Either authors are
paying publishers to get their papers peer reviewed and published (they do
now), or publishers may collect payments from readers and libraries. Not both
ways.

~~~
rainforest
> Should publisher's work be free? I think not.

What value does the publisher's work add to the work the author generated?

~~~
raphman_
> What value does the publisher's work add to the work the author generated?

\- organizing peer review \- spell-checking and fixing layout problems \-
making sure that the paper stays available for a long time \- handling
complaints and retracting fraudulent papers \- providing a single point of
contact for people who would like to reuse published material (e.g., using
illustrations in a textbook).

Sure, many publishers don't do a very good job for the money they are taking.
Sure, there might be better approaches for disseminating knowledge than the
current one. However, in the world as it is now, publishers can and do provide
some value.

~~~
gipsies
\- At least in computer science, it's generally professors who organise the
peer review (the Program Commitee)

\- I've heard from several collegues that the editor _introduced_ spelling
mistakes. Sure, overall they might get some errors out, but a spellcheck is
not needed.

\- Well yes. But there is no need for that to be expensive.

\- Do we need them for this? If there really is fraud, previous cases show
it's their university that starts an investigation. I'm not sure if the effect
of retracting a paper is that significant..

\- If all papers were public in the first place, there is no need to contact
someone if it's okay to reuse material.

Anyway publishers might provide some value, but not enough to demand we pay
for every single paper, or pay costly subscriptions. They need to die already
or adept.

~~~
raphman_
I agree with your general perspective. (I have publicly vowed to never act as
a reviewer for Elsevier, for example.)

However, ignoring the traditional role of publishers does not help our case.
Regarding your individual points:

\- Peer review for CS conferences is usually organized by volunteers, yes.
However, this is not true for other, journal-focused disciplines, where there
are paid assistants

\- One might argue that spelling/layout checks are not really necessary. I
personally appreciate them. In any case, these _are_ services that publishers
usually offer.

\- I was not trying to argue that the typical publisher does a good or cheap
job. What I wanted to say is that publishers can and do add value.

\- Universities usually try to handle scientific fraud discretely (for PR, HR,
and legal reasons). They are usually not interested in disseminating bad news
widely.

\- Sure, if we could retroactively bring all previously published works into
the public domain, things would be much easier. However, in the copyright
system we live in right now, publishers provide a useful service by taking
care of author's rights and facilitating reuse.

~~~
avani
\- Journals are also often volunteer based, at least in the sciences.

\- Publishers really don't do much for spelling/layout. They give you a format
to fit in, and then put up an automated system for you to check against.

\- Fraud is handled by the community (See: Retraction Watch) much more
effectively than by journals.

------
cessor
"We wish to set back society, because we want to make more money".

I use Sci-Hub all the time. I can access all papers via my library
subscriptions so I actually DO have paid access to everything, but searching
with and authenticating against my university library's services is slow and
tedious and not feasible if I want to download many papers quickly.

~~~
return0
Plus multiple times sciencedirect was down for me.

------
grownseed
Recently shared this here: [http://www.thebookseller.com/news/elsevier-
defends-its-value...](http://www.thebookseller.com/news/elsevier-defends-its-
value-after-open-access-disputes-328037)
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11614926](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11614926))
which I'm guessing is the precursor to this debacle.

Reading what Elsevier have to say, you'd think they're either completely
delusional (I doubt so), or know full well that they're rapidly becoming
irrelevant/abhorred and are adopting a bully position, all the while
pretending to be innocent and blameless victims of this situation.

Don't count on me to shed a tear when Elsevier go under.

~~~
grownseed
Just saw Elsevier retweeted this:

"Science is better and more accurate when it's inclusive."
([https://twitter.com/ElsevierConnect/status/72821552586887578...](https://twitter.com/ElsevierConnect/status/728215525868875780))

I realize this is about gender, but I can't help but feel a bit of irony in
there...

~~~
nickpsecurity
Great observation. They're calling their own BS indirectly. Whoever is
involved in SciHub with strong presence on social media should immediately
start using that quote to push SciHub. :)

------
nyolfen
.cc still works for those who need it

~~~
mtgx
It could probably use .se as well. TPB's .se domain still seems to be alive
and kicking.

------
chinathrow
I would love to learn more why Elsevier _only_ reports a profit of 37%?

I've read here on HN and elsewhere multiple times, that most of the work done
is outsourced to third party labor, which is done essentially for free:

\- writing papers

\- organising reviews

\- reviewing papers

~~~
teh
I worked as a contractor for MacMillan (they publish nature) and it's hard to
believe how much money they spend for no results. The project I was on had
been running for a year when I joined. I noped out after three months and I
heard it was shut down a few months after I left with nothing to show.

That was 4-6 people full time and my entire floor of 80 people was full of
projects like that - projects you never heard of.

The weird thing is that everyone I worked with directly was very smart, and
went on to do cool stuff.

Summary: If I had to guess the remaining profit is wasted on silly projects
and high manager salaries.

------
wyager
Domain names should not, in principle, be subject to the arbitrary edicts of
governments. I hope that, in the future, we switch to a decentralised and
cryptographically incorruptible system a la Namecoin.

~~~
DarkLinkXXXX
Being free would also be nice. But of course, we also need a way to
disincentive squatting.

------
mnl
Yet again, please don't mention other sites here or in reddit etc. Being in
the spotlight is not good for them. What they are doing is morally fine in my
book, but infringes the law and you are contributing to their demise. Keep it
low profile, the more you blab about them the sooner they are gone. And until
the next platform makes it -if it does, you can't guarantee it will- it is
going to cause a lot of damage to many careers out there, because there are
many people that have no choice but this one. If this is a war, it is a war of
attrition, it can't be won by pointing out the targets.

------
chris_wot
I wonder if there is a way of distributing a signed file that contains the IP
address of sci-hub over a distributed medium?

Someone else would just need to write a small script that copied it into the
system's host file - but make it generic enough that it works for anything.
That would help non-technical users.

This would stop courts from going after centralised name servers.

There really needs to be a way of decentralising name servers.

~~~
DarkLinkXXXX
It's possible in principle. Just use public-key cryptography (perhaps the SSL
cert of the website), grep and ed. You could have it update once a day from
the sites listed, or perhaps create some type of dht backend.

P.S. This dht-based P2P dns project might interest you.
[https://github.com/mwarning/KadNode](https://github.com/mwarning/KadNode)

~~~
chris_wot
What about distributing it? Is there a way of decentralizing that?

I notice there is Tahoe lafs...

[https://www.tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs](https://www.tahoe-
lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs)

~~~
chris_wot
And of course, ipfs. Still trying to get my head around how it actually works!

------
jheriko
As much as I completely support freedom of information there is a problem with
not respecting the law that seems to be growing...

I might disagree with the law. I might break it intentionally, but I do my due
diligence and do it knowingly.

When i get caught I hold up my hands and face the consequences because I
entered into that knowingly. I have actually done this irl. This is why I have
no respect for this, or for Uber, Aaron Schwartz or this entire ridiculous
movement of subversion instead of facing up to the challenge and taking it
extremely seriously and tackling it up front and openly with some pride and
courage.

I'm glad people are fighting to keep this alive anyway. That imo is part of
the right approach, to defeat the law by showing its futility in the face of
reality when it is very far into the wrong. But ffs, don't hide from what you
have done like some kind of child. Face up to your responsiblity and take it
on the chin... and let people be angry about that, because that is an actual,
serious wrong.

"Words are wind."

------
thaw13579
Maybe this is an opportune time to bring up a related concern. It's crucial
that any system for disseminating scientific work be reliable and persist
indefinitely. I don't like the current system, but I wonder how this will be
achieved otherwise.

~~~
DarkLinkXXXX
I agree. I don't want papers to dissapear indefinitely due to an IT mistake,
and I'm sure there are many researchers that don't save previous papers
locally. That, and being able to access cited works is also important.

------
alwaysdownvoted

      echo "93.174.95.27  elsevier.com" >> /etc/hosts
    

[http://elsevier.com/scimag](http://elsevier.com/scimag)

------
return0
trivial but handy bookmarklet link for scihub:

    
    
      javascript:window.location='http://sci-hub.bz/'+window.location

------
joelthelion
Are people working on a better system to replace DNS? This little game is
quickly becoming tiring.

~~~
ashitlerferad
GNUnet has the GNU name system:

[https://www.gnunet.org/gns](https://www.gnunet.org/gns)

~~~
nickpsecurity
Tks for tip. Never heard of it.

------
gherkin0
How big is the sci-hub database?

Are there full/partial mirrors published anywhere?

~~~
DarkLinkXXXX
We can see here, over 50mil papers.
[http://libgen.io/scimag/repository_torrent_notforall/](http://libgen.io/scimag/repository_torrent_notforall/)

As you can see here, they have three mirrors. One Moscow, one Ocean(ia?), and
one Cyber(ia?). Libgen also has a mirror.

As for BookSC, they seem to be quite a bit out of date, or something.

------
plg
why not set it up as a tor hidden service?

------
x5n1
Long live Aaron Swartz

------
cloudjacker
yeah but where's the torrent?

------
blue_dinner
Just like with music and file sharing, this will not hurt the large
corporations. It will only hurt the researchers that depend on these papers
for funding and make it more difficult for them to make a living in the
future.

It will also push companies to keep research more private and proprietary. Why
would I spend millions of dollars on research, only to have it freely
distributed to everyone, including my potential competitors?

I've never witnesses a time where more people fight to give up more and more
of their own power and hand it over to governments and large corporations on a
silver platter...and then complain when it's all gone.

~~~
gradschool
Are you aware that unlike musicians, academic researchers don't get paid
royalties on their publications? A list of prestigious publications on one's
cv leads to funding and job opportunities regardless of whether anyone pays to
read them.

~~~
maxerickson
Lots of academics are collecting royalties on books.

Typically not large royalties, but they are collecting them.

~~~
gradschool
Yes, that's a fair point. I was thinking only of journal articles and
conference proceedings. One way of making money off textbooks is to be a
professor in an institution with a large number of students and make them a
requirement for the course. It also helps to make a few small changes every
year and call it a new edition, so each year the next class of students has to
buy new ones instead of used copies from the previous year's class. I question
whether this practice is worth defending.

~~~
SCHiM
> Yes, that's a fair point. I was thinking only of journal articles and
> conference proceedings. One way of making money off textbooks is to be a
> professor in an institution with a large number of students

Yeah that behaviour is detestable. Absolutely utterly unethical and everyone
who engages in this type of behaviour should take a long look in the mirror
and realize that there's an Evil person looking back.

I've lost so much money to f*ckers like this and I have no recourse, it makes
me so mad I can spit.

~~~
MichaelBurge
The professors don't actually make much money. The publisher takes a huge
commission. I've heard 5-10% royalties in some cases. Usually if they use the
book for their own course they'll waive even that to avoid having the
appearance of a conflict of interest.

They _could_ make a ton of money doing it this way: Physics textbooks can sell
for hundreds. But many don't.

Using your own book for a course(separate from the money) has its benefits:
The book has exactly the content that you want to teach off of, and you can
also choose good problems.

When I took a Differential Geometry course in college, the professor had a
translated version of some paper from a Russian mathematician back in the
1950s that he taught off of. It was cheaper to get copies from Kinko's, and
it's not like the math changes. The old pioneers can sometimes give better
intuition too.

------
michakirschbaum
Looking forward to watching the Streisand Effect play out.

