Comment by humanistbot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by humanistbot | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Sci-Hub's existence is an international security risk. Even if you believe that China and USA are rational actors who won't use cutting edge sci/tech for malicious ends (a reasonable supposition), the unadulterated democratization of leading edge research presents increasingly asymmetric applicational risk by rogue non-govt actors.

What are you talking about? Sci-Hub provides free access to research that is already published in journals. If some government wants to get access to a paper and sci-hub didn't exist, they can just pay for it or go to a well-funded university library that subscribes in bulk. Sci-Hub isn't like the WikiLeaks of science. They aren't publishing confidential or private research.

Sure, it's not classified research. But, putting it out into the open increases risks as stated.

The problem, more generally, is the willing openness of researchers in high risk areas.

It's already "out in the open" because tens of millions of college students around the world have access. You've shown zero domain knowledge here; just withdraw and apologise.

Is your belief that the scientists and researchers of China or other adversaries wouldn't be able to afford their own journal subscriptions?

As Sci-Hub only publishes already open content, you are saying all rich entities should have access to all the research even if they have malicious intent?

And people with no mal-intent shouldn't have access to research material if they don't have enough money?

Do you even know what you are talking about?

These are papers that are published in journals, by definition they are publicly available, you just have to pay the $20-40 fee, email one of the authors, or work at a university or company that has a subscription to said journals.

Where do you get this bizarre idea that the content of these journal is somehow not in the open?

These are the opinions of someone who clearly does not do any research and is afraid of information in general.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com