If we all got to seeding, surely we’d have the oppressors bent over a filthy toilet in no time at all.
Torrenting anything potentially problematic without using a reputable VPN service is foolish. And make sure that the machine is firewalled, to block all traffic (including DNS requests) not using the VPN. Only the VPN client should have direct Internet connectivity.
For extremely sensitive material, it's prudent to use nested VPN chains. So no one provider knows both who/where you are, and what you're doing. The bandwidth hit for chaining is smaller than you might think.
You can also setup your own VPN server on a VPS. But make sure to lease that VPS anonymously, and pay with well-mixed Bitcoin. Do all that through Tor.
But do not torrent through Tor. It's usually very slow. And it screws up Tor for people who really need it.
And it's arguably good practice for everyone. Good OPSEC.
Why do I say that? Well, even in "free" countries, one never knows how stuff will go down. What will change. It's better to be safe, than to be sorry.
Also, mass adoption helps protect me, and others who love their privacy. Because it makes us less unusual. That's one of the standard arguments for widespread Tor use. But even so, I prefer to obscure my Tor use with VPN services. Because VPNs are still far more common than Tor. In some areas, VPN usage is over 50%.
And finally, it's a great hobby. Better than puttering in the woodshop. Or whatever.
Back in the day, I sent cash to Nanaimo Gold for Bitcoin. But I can't vouch for them now. In mailing cash, use printed labels, because handwriting attracts attention. It's best to use a B&W laser printer. Most inkjet printers use watermarking. And use a valid return address, because they're typically scanned. But not yours, obviously. I would often use an address for some charity, so they might get the money if something went wrong. And mail from a public box, not a post office, at some distance from your area.
If LocalBitcoins works in your area, that's a good option. But there's always risk of surveillance. Or theft.
These days, I mostly just use mixing services. Any one service could be incompetent or compromised. So it's best to mix at least twice, using different mixers.
Let's say that your Bitcoin are in some hosted wallet, and aren't anonymous. You need at least two ~anonymous wallets. One gets Bitcoin from the first mix. The other gets Bitcoin from the second mix, and spends.
I use Whonix instances in VirtualBox, each with a local Electrum wallet. The Whonix instances (VM pairs) reach Tor through a VPN service, running in the host machine. DeepDotWeb runs CoinMixer, which seems OK. I've used Bitcoin Fog for years, at http://foggeddriztrcar2.onion/ but it requires creating an account.
Edit: re Host Sailor and Bithost, I've typically gotten 800-900 Mbps (iperf3) for their gigabit uplinks, measured between VPS on each. And ~700 Mbps using such public test servers as iperf.volia.net and bouygues.testdebit.info
We had a nice chat on Facebook recently about copyright for song lyrics (I want to share a load of fan-made translations of Christian songs, but there's no CCLI in Taiwan so there's actually no legal way to proceed). Hearing about his experience amplified the chilling effect for me - if I had a limited-liability company, then there's more that I could do (e.g. VoiceTube), but as an individual it's not worth the risk.
It's a shame though that the publications are in zipped files…
Don't forget to download the metadata too !
b) High subscription fees increase university fees, which translate directly into student loans.
As many have pointed out before, publicly funded research should be open access. There's no reason the university should be both paying researchers (from tax dollars + student fees) and then paying a bunch of rent-seeking rent seekers for access to the published research (using tax dollars and student fees).
>Here's a couple: a) Gatekeeping publishers keep research from being available to less-elite schools that can't afford the subscriptions, creating a rich-get-richer dynamic in science. Leveling the playing field will lead to more-better output.
>b) High subscription fees increase university fees, which translate directly into student loans.
Sorry, but I didn't find them convincing.
>As many have pointed out before, publicly funded research should be open access.
That, we agree on 100%.
Sure, I can offer you the choice between death or a slap in the face, but if you'd choose the slap in the face, I wouldn't say you voluntarily asked for the slap in the face...
Right, but I don't see how breaking copyright law is a solution to fixing the problem either. The journals are just going to jack up the rates to cover their "losses".
Is there really no other way?
Long term, hopefully there are other ways, and there are plenty of people (including myself) trying to affect that change. If there was an easy way, I'm positive that we'd have found it already, unfortunately. That's not to say that change is in the air, and it might be for the better.
(Btw, as for journals jacking up their rates: most of those rates are pretty non-standard, and the result of "Big Deal" negotiations with university libraries behind closed doors. However, both the pressure of Sci-Hub and publication of the results of some of those negotiations have led to the representatives of public money now having a much stronger negotiating position, so if anything, I'd only expect rates to go down in the short term.)
I know several researchers who are tragic with anything computer-related. Even they picked up SciHub mere days after it made the news for the first time.
IMO jacking up prices in such a climate can succeed but is very risky.
I suspect that you either do not understand how academic reputation is built or you think it is somehow beneficial for society to ensure a system that makes scientific knowledge unavailable to anyone byt the elite.
What are you basing this on?
>I suspect that you either do not understand how academic reputation is built or you think it is somehow beneficial for society to ensure a system that makes scientific knowledge unavailable to anyone byt the elite.
Or neither. Its easy to think black/white, but thankfully the world is not so boring. I don't believe that any of the rationalizations that people have stated for breaking copyright law in this case. No, I don't agree that this is like slavery or student oppression or the driver of income inequality or the other myriad arguments people trot out.
> Researches either publish in high impact journals or lose funding. Publish or perish. Society loses out.
I don't see how breaking copyright law addresses this.