Little known fact: your Sci-Hub downloads are not private - https://sci-hub.ru/stats has historic access logs with IP addresses, paper identifiers, and timestamps, and plans to publish more logs in the future.
- "To protect the privacy of Sci-Hub users, we agreed that she would first aggregate users’ geographic locations to the nearest city using data from Google Maps; no identifying inter- net protocol (IP) addresses were given to me. (The data set and details on how it was analyzed are freely accessible at http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.q447c.)"
https://sci-hub.ru/10.1126/science.352.6285.508 ("Bohannon, J. (2016). Who’s downloading pirated [sic] papers? Everyone. Science, 352(6285), 508–512")
2011-09-22 22:29:24 10.1007/BF01907940 www.springerlink.com/content/ppt42929g7645548/fulltext.pdf 213.87.138.* -176088 Russia
Sci-hub's offshore host: "DDoS-Guard is a Russian Internet infrastructure company which provides DDoS protection and web hosting services.[1][2] Researchers and journalists have alleged that many of DDoS-Guard's clients are engaged in criminal activity, and investigative reporter Brian Krebs reported in January 2021 that a "vast number" of the websites hosted by DDoS-Guard are "phishing sites and domains tied to cybercrime services or forums online".[3][1] Some of DDoS-Guard's notable clients have included the Palestinian Islamic militant nationalist movement Hamas, American alt-tech social network Parler, and various groups associated with the Russian state.[3][4][1]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDoS-Guard
Sci-Hub In 2017, a U.S. court ordered all internet infrastructure companies to stop doing business with Sci-Hub, the shadow library which shares scholarly papers without regard to copyright.[22][23] As a result, Sci-Hub switched from Cloudflare to DDoS-Guard for DDoS protection.[23][8] Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan says that DDoS-Guard initially contacted her, and that the company volunteered that it works with piracy sites including Rutracker.org.[23] Some experts identify Sci-Hub's use of DDoS-Guard as a security risk given its involvement with the Russian state and that it could monitor Sci-Hub's traffic.[23] Elbakyan says she pays DDoS-Guard about US$1,000 per month (one sixth of Sci-Hub's operating budget), all for DDoS protection; an expert found this amount credible.[23] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDoS-Guard#Sci-Hub