this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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I believe that knowledge should be free, you should have access to knowledge even if you don't have the money to afford buying it. This uses IPFS.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Doesn't Anna's Archive already include a full backup of Sci-Hub and distribute it via Torrent and IPFS in addition to their website and the providers and mirrors they usually use for uploading?

[–] Imgonnatrythis 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Scihub database stops in 2021. Big win for corporate publishers and wealthy scientists; they've had an edge since then. It's super important to have access to up to date resources. The database here seems to fill the gap - Merry Christmas to me!!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Anna's Archive allows new uploads though. From their website:

We have the full Sci-Hub collection, as well as new papers.

https://annas-archive.org/scidb

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Wrong. Annas Archive doesn't Accept Uploads directly themselves (at least <10.000), and they recommend STC too.

To upload academic papers, please also (in addition to Library Genesis) upload to STC Nexus. They are the best shadow library for new papers.

https://annas-archive.org/faq

[–] Imgonnatrythis 3 points 23 hours ago

That's great! Stc looks like a different effort. Variety is great on this front as it's a monumental task archiving these papers.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I think they stopped endorsing IPFS. I can't find a good source right now. If you wan't to support Anna's Archive, you can help seed their torrents. They don't seem to have that much redundancy.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You're right.

We’ve decided that IPFS is not yet ready for prime time. We’ll still link to files on IPFS from Anna’s Archive when possible, but we won’t host it ourselves anymore, nor do we recommend others to mirror using IPFS. Please see our Torrents page if you want to help preserve our collection.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 14 hours ago

IPFS is not for bulk mirroring, it's for content delivery. IPFS works well enough if the content publishers and end users know what they're doing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm curious, could anyone more knowledgeable about IPFS give an impression of the state of the protocol? It seems like a really interesting technology, but it also leans heavily into web3 and crypto bullshit. It's that reflective of the network, or just bad marketing?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago

You can use IPFS fine without any crypto bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

It seems like most big projects have dropped it. I remember reading one of the big fall backs was it has one central node hosting via cloudflare then they dropped it or something. Only half remembering. It sounds so cool! Sad it doesn’t work

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

IPFS is designed for decentralized pinning and decentralized use. You're supposed to run a local node or use browsers with built-in IPFS to access content. If you're using it wrong it will suck.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Yes of course you need to run the program but it all runs through a central node which barely works

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago

Again, if you're usung central anything with IPFS you're using it wrong and you are getting the worst of two worlds.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Can confirm. Meddled with it a little bit a while ago trying to productively use it to host Lutris installer files. It's an absolute mess; slow, unreliable, without proper documentation and a really bad default node application.

Also it managed to get our server temporarily banned by the hosting provider since the "sane default settings" includes the node doing a whole sweep of your local subnet on all NICs respectively, knocking at multiple ports of every device it can find. Because the expected environment of a node apparently is your home network… a default setting that caused problems for many people for many years by now.

A project like in this post might benefit from looking at more modern/mature reimplementations of IPFS' concept, like Veilid (which would also offer additional features as well).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Just looked up Veilid seems to similar to I2P, but it is still in development and can't be used for now. Also I agree that IPFS is horrible and not just the setup, the developer themselves are against piracy. What is the point of a decentralised network that picks and chooses what it hosts? BitTorrent, Tor, Freenet, and I2P never did this as far as I know.

DCMA Denylist https://github.com/ipfs-inactive/faq/issues/36#issuecomment-140567411

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I think you're all making look a bit worse than it is. I downloaded a few PDFs via IPFS and it worked for me. And I was happy it provided me with what I needed at that time. I can't comment on reliability or other nuances. It also was slow in my case, but I took that as the usual trade-off. Usually, you either get speed or anonymity, not both. And there are valid use-cases for denylists. For example viruses, malware, CSAM and spam. I'd rather not have my node spread those. It's complicated. And I also talk in public like that. I think what matters is what you do and implement, not if you say you comply with regulation and the DMCA...

Thanks for the links, I'll have a look.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

What are talking about, IPFS isn't anonymity network, it is similar to torrenting everyone can see your ip.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago

So use an anonymyzing network overlay if you want anonymity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

I thought it had that factored in. But yeah, if it's bittorrent, just as a CDN, this isn't anonymous. I'll look it up.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 13 hours ago

When I first heard of IPFS, I also thought it was anoymous, but I researched and it just like bittorrent everyone can see your IP. You have to use VPN.

https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/how-to-make-ipfs-node-ip-address-anonymous/12359/3

If you want an anonymous P2P try freenet or I2P. There is also a new anonymous network currently being developed called Vailid which seems promising.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

I'm seeding around 10TB of Anna's Archive data

[–] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago

The IPFS backups of that and libgen are dead but the torrents work!