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You can help Anna's Archive by seeding torrents
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- FabHK 2y agoAnna’s Archive, a mirror (arguably the successor) of Library Genesis and Sci-Hub, is asking for help seeding over 500 TB of book and papers for long-term preservation. Currently, 40% of that are seeded by fewer than 4 nodes. Note: This is 30M+ books, 100M+ papers. Depending on your philosophy and jurisdiction, you might be stealing a few billion $. Or not. > By seeding these torrents, you help preserve humanity’s knowledge and culture. These torrents represent the vast majority of human knowledge that can be mirrored in bulk.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoWhat are the most favorable jurisdictions to run seeding out of, mitigating risk of copyright related reporting and account closure (assuming virtual compute)?
- ThrowawayTestr 2y agoRussia
- esdf 2y agoUkraine, Russia, Moldova, Romania, Vietnam, Africa. Often anywhere near those too
- toomuchtodo 2y agoTurkey?
- esdf 2y agoI think Turkey would be fine but I don't know or have anything to base it off of
- derefr 2y agoHow about favorable places given an anonymous virtual credit card that you bought on a spamming-services forum? (As in, if you don't have to worry about being identified, and it's just a question of wanting the seedbox itself to be unlikely to get taken down)
- esdf 2y agoA lot of english-advertising hosts from the regions in my comment are going to advertise DMCA-ignore, freedom of speech, and/or privacy. And you basically can't go wrong with any of them. Seedbox-as-a-service providers specifically are going to be generally be fine too although many of those are hosted in Netherlands which is slowly becoming less copyright-infringement -friendly. One specific host I'll mention is vsys.host (UA) (which anna's archive uses too) but they're not going to be the cheapest option.
- magic_hamster 2y agoProbably Sweden. Edit: I knew Sweden is a piracy hub but I was under the wrong impression regarding how Sweden legally sees piracy. Yes this is where TPB was raided, but also this is where TPB launched, and there seems to be a certain ideology in Sweden that propels sites like TPB. Either way, please stay safe online.
- r3trohack3r 2y agoIsn't that where The Pirate Bay folks were prosecuted? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay_trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay_trial
- worksonmine 2y agoAbsolutely not for anything large scale like this.
- SCUSKU 2y agoIs LibGen & Sci-Hub at risk of coming down? I know it's a game of cat and mouse, but I was just under the assumption that they were both doing fine relatively speaking. And what makes Anna's Archive better/different?
- FabHK 2y agoDisclaimer: not an expert in any of this, just stumbled across that page on Anna's Archive. Sci-Hub is down (as in, you can't search/view/download papers from sci-hub.se), AFAIK. Anna's Archive aggregates into a unified database material from Libgen.rs, Sci-Hub, Libgen.li, Z-Library, Internet Archive Controlled Digital Lending, and DuXiu 读秀. (See: https://annas-archive.org/datasets https://annas-archive.org/datasets )
- dredmorbius 2y agoThe .se domain was seized in Jan 2023: <https://torrentfreak.com/domain-registry-takes-sci-hubs-se-domain-name-offline-230126/ https://torrentfreak.com/domain-registry-takes-sci-hubs-se-d...>
- dredmorbius 2y agoIf nothing else, investment diversification. Z-Library was significantly attacked recently. There was a huge takedown in 2022, and I'm finding reports as of March 2024 as well: 2024: "FBI Carries Out Fresh Round of Z-Library Domain Name Seizures" <https://torrentfreak.com/fbi-carries-out-fresh-round-of-z-library-domain-name-seizures-240530/ https://torrentfreak.com/fbi-carries-out-fresh-round-of-z-li...> 2022: "Z-Library operators arrested, charged with criminal copyright infringement" <https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/18/zlibrary_operators_arrested/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/18/zlibrary_operators_ar...> The Z-Library arrests were of Russian nationals, but were arrested in Argentina. The first Torrentfreak article mentions two other actions in Spring and November 2023. Sci-Hub has played cat-and-mouse with domains for years, and AFAIU has still withheld posting new scientific articles given pending litigation/prosecution in India. Another Torrentfreak article from Nov 2023 gives an update on numerous issues with text liberation sites, including Anna's Archive, Sci-Hub, and Z-Library. At the time, the Anna's Archive twitter account had been "wiped out", so much for that platform's "free speech" stance. <https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-piracy-news-brief-1-extra-news-views-updates-from-tf-231115/ https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-piracy-news-brief-1-extra...>
- jprete 2y ago> By seeding these torrents, you help preserve humanity’s knowledge and culture. These torrents represent the vast majority of human knowledge that can be mirrored in bulk. I am having a hard time reading that claim as anything other than a bad-faith justification. Torrent nodes are not at all a good way to "preserve humanity's knowledge and culture". EDIT: I'm no longer convinced I'm correct.
- l33t7332273 2y agoCan you elaborate on why you believe it’s in bad faith.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- FabHK 2y agoI only quoted a small bit from their website. Immediately below the quoted bit is this explanation: > These torrents are not meant for downloading individual books. They are meant for long-term preservation. With these torrents you can set up a full mirror of Anna’s Archive, using our source code and metadata (which can be generated or downloaded as ElasticSearch and MariaDB databases). I'm not an expert in any of this, but it doesn't strike me as a bad-faith justification of anything.
- parentheses 2y agoSeeding 500TB I'm guessing requires 500TB of disk space. I don't have even close to that. I would if I could though, so excited to see anyone answer the call!
- optimus_banana 2y agoMost torrent clients let you select subsets of file to download (and thus seed) so you can choose a portion to download whatever amount of disk space you are willing to lend.
- novagameco 2y agoYou don't have to download all files in the torrent. Most torrent clients support partial downloads and you would only seed those parts. The main concern would be that you would be undoubtedly distributing copyrighted material
- dantillberg 2y agoIt's possible to download/seed just a fraction of a torrent.
- Shank 2y agoIt seems you can specify the storage space you want to devote, and it will suggest torrents to match. For example, duxiu is only ~40gb. This is separate from torrent-client limiting -- you can just seed specific parts of the collection if you want.
- Dutchie987 2y ago100 people sharing a shard of 5TB each is even better (more resilient).
- wongarsu 2y agoThe individual torrents are only a couple GB to a couple TB each. You can automatically generate a list of torrents of how ever many terabytes you are willing to seed 1: https://annas-archive.org/torrents#generate_torrent_list https://annas-archive.org/torrents#generate_torrent_list
- hnpolicestate 2y agoI have this mentality problem where I don't like using my VPN except when I specifically need too. To permanently seed some of these torrents I'd have to keep it on all the time. Would have to keep my desktop running 24/7 too?
- novagameco 2y agoOr take an old laptop and use as a seedbox
- Dutchie987 2y agoYou don't have to seed 24/7. It's OK as long as (parts of) torrents get seeded regularly.
- wongarsu 2y agoExactly. If you seed it a couple hours once a week that still ensures that whoever wants the torrent can get it.
- menthe 2y agoI don’t get it. If you do not want to participate in the preservation and distribution of the archive, why don’t you just move on instead of complaining? Besides, gluetun+chihaya+qbit containers do the job without breaking a sweat, and without ever having to remember that you run a VPN - as it’d only be tunneling the containers of your choice. gluetun is the best image ever made!
- DiggyJohnson 2y agoThey’re not complaining they’re asking a question. I think you completely misread the tone.
- hangonhn 2y agoHang on. I think the OP is trying to find a middle ground between their level of comfort and contributing to the project. I think their intentions are positive; they want to help but are constrained by their other needs or priorities.
- y-curious 2y agoIs there a link to the legal considerations of contributing as a seeder?
- lyu07282 2y agocopyright law would've already burnt the library of alexandria several times over, just something to consider about the validity of these laws written and bribed into law by publishers
- gizajob 2y agoWhat does that mean? The library of Alexandria was happy to burn down all on its own, centuries before copyright.
- vsuperpower2020 2y agoHe's not saying that copyright literally burned down the library of Alexandria.
- its_ethan 2y agoIt's fine that you don't agree with the laws, but the guy is asking what the actual legal impact may be if he participates. Answering with "who cares, the laws are dumb" isn't helpful to him... people get arrested and charged against dumb laws all the time, and it sounds like he'd like to avoid that. edit: this is maybe the link he's after? looks like you need to be logged in to see it though. https://annas-archive.org/copyright https://annas-archive.org/copyright
- lyu07282 2y agoso what if I didn't answer their question? its called a comment for a reason. (also: its "them", don't assume their gender like that, come on its 2024)
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y agoHow so? We literally have libraries today, and copyright law hasn't burned them down.
- renewiltord 2y agoOkay so is there somewhere on the Internet that I can get a VPS with crypto? Because I'm not going to use traditional payment methods to access this. EDIT: Thank you to everyone for your recommendations. I shall find an anon seedbox. I don't mind if it's nuked. I imagine I'll just pay per month and losing one month's spend won't hurt.
- ptero 2y agoMullvad will even let you pay with cash (stuff dollars into an envelope).
- soulofmischief 2y agoI highly recommend https://mullvad.net/ https://mullvad.net/
- skrebbel 2y agoI don’t think they sell VPSes though
- renewiltord 2y agoSorry, maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not storing this data locally. I want to seed it from the Internet without a connection to me except for SSH. Essentially, how can I get a seedbox with crypto. Though it does strike me now that any such service will be primarily used by criminals.
- throwie1223456 2y ago[flagged]
- realce 2y ago>Though it does strike me now that any such service will be primarily used by criminals. Just think of them as "anti-state actors" Getting a small VPS with crypto and tunneling from your home seems like a better pathway to me?
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- boramalper 2y agoThey also use Telegram actively for latest announcements, fyi. https://t.me/annasarchiveorg https://t.me/annasarchiveorg
- F00Fbug 2y agoWouldn't this be a good application for IPFS?
- treyd 2y agoIt's already on BitTorrent. IPFS doesn't do much BitTorrent doesn't already, most of it is a new coat of paint and making the same mistakes BitTorrent figured out years ago.
- kevincox 2y agoOne major benefit of IPFS is that people seeding individual works and people seeding the large archive groups can share data. It seems that these torrents are blocks of data that aren't of direct use. That being said while the IPFS protocol is decent the implementations kind of suck. Bittorrent is well established with many high quality implementations.
- derefr 2y agoIt does one thing BitTorrent doesn't — you can compose a new CAR file by combining a few new chunks with a bunch of existing chunks. So you don't get the problem where releasing a new version of an archive means nobody's seeding it; and anyone moving over to seeding the new version stops seeding the old version. Instead, the new file is already pre-seeded by all the old version's seeders on all but the new chunks (because they're seeding the chunks, not the file); and the old file stays seeded as the seeders find the new version and seed its blocks too. Really, BitTorrent could do this by making all torrent files a small fixed size and then having "torrent files of a directory of torrent files" where the torrent client knows to queue the sub-torrents as they're discovered+downloaded in the parent torrent. But that's not how any part of the ecosystem works. IPFS is a "do over" that allowed them to fix this.
- tux3 2y ago>releasing a new version of an archive means nobody's seeding it; and anyone moving over to seeding the new version stops seeding the old version BitTorrent v2 would in theory be able to seed individual files even if they come from a different torrent. But clients have no reasonable way to look for other versions of a torrent that contain a file they already have. The main Bittorrent clients already support creating and seeding v2 torrent. But there's just no infrastructure for seeding at the individual file level.
- r3trohack3r 2y agoInteresting. IIRC, libgen used IPFS for preservation efforts. Anna's Archive (seemingly the successor) appears to have migrated to BitTorrent. I wonder what motivated the move? Edit: asking as someone who works daily on building p2p software. We've abandoned mainline BitSwap (IPFS) in our work for similar reasons as the rest of the rust-libp2p community, but haven't found a particularly good "successor" protocol for a generalized use case yet. We are currently using our own ad-hoc hand-rolled chunking/transfer protocol as needed.
- dtx1 2y agoI suspect in part it's the required capacity. This Project is far beyond what even the largest private trackers could host but if anyone comes even close to be able to keep this alive when the copyright mafia comes it's the torrent community.
- tux3 2y agoNexus - another very large archive - is using IPFS. But in my experience Bittorrent works a lot better at this scale. The IPFS UX is full of papercuts, when it isn't outright bugging out or crumbling under the size of the dataset.
- boramalper 2y agoIIRC, Nexus is using Iroh[0] instead: > Starting with v0.3.0, Iroh is a ground-up reimagination of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) focused on performance. Also see, A New Direction for Iroh[1]. [0] https://www.iroh.computer/docs/ https://www.iroh.computer/docs/ [1] https://www.n0.computer/blog/a-new-direction-for-iroh/ https://www.n0.computer/blog/a-new-direction-for-iroh/
- ffk 2y agoI'm guessing the decision comes down to ease of use for people to participate in mirroring. My underestanding is IPFS tends to require more infrastructure, and still requires someone to pin the data. Many bittorrent clients let you click a button to continue seeding the data over time.
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- jimsimmons 2y agoWhy is everyone acting like this is some radio active data. If you don't distribute further, it should be pretty ok to download and play with this?
- dumbobaggins999 2y agoKindly recall the predicament of Aaron Schwartz that led us to this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz
- jimsimmons 2y agoHe broke into a network though
- FabHK 2y agoIf you download a torrent, your client will offer to upload pieces for other clients to download.
- jimsimmons 2y agoYou can choose to not seed further or set your upload levels to zero
- machomaster 2y agoIt looks like you don't understand how torrenting works and what "helping by seeding torrents" means.
- pskkk 2y agoI wonder if there is any benefit to using something like DwarFS (https://github.com/mhx/dwarfs https://github.com/mhx/dwarfs) for something like this.
- eh_why_not 2y agoI'm told Anna's Archive forces a javascript Cloudflare human-browser check on the visitor. Given how much data Cloudflare (and other similar giants providing this service) has, this pretty much identifies the person to them. Any plans to change that to a more privacy-protecting solution?
- shanewilhelm 2y agoWould their plan of keeping the entire archive in torrents alleviate that concern? Like, if a person sourced an index from somewhere privacy-centered, they could directly download from the torrents in whatever private method they wish, right?
- eh_why_not 2y agoI'd expect the number of users from browsers to always be orders of magnitude larger than torrent users.
- FabHK 2y agoFrom what I gather, in some jurisdictions downloading copyrighted material is legal (eg via HTTPS from a website), or at any rate not prosecuted, while uploading (offering to download) it (eg while downloading it via BitTorrent) is illegal (and prosecuted).
- eh_why_not 2y agoNot an expert on laws/jurisdictions; but data is collected, stored forever, and in some places is (legally) on sale. And laws get changed quickly based on lobbying.
- no_time 2y agoYour mistrust is not unreasonable. However I think if state actors/rightsholders/CF were serious about monitoring user activity covertly they could just simply volunteer to host a mirror/CDN for Anna. And that would also expsoe paying users.
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- sillysaurusx 2y agoAs a PSA, one additional reason to seed is because Anna accidentally doxxed herself via GitHub. So it’s worth preserving the archive on the basis that we should expect {the centralized portion of} it to disappear within the next couple years. I was sad to see that happen, but it’s important to be objective and plan future actions accordingly. (And sure, there’s always the chance that some random person on GitHub just so happens to be named Anna and is an archival enthusiast, but a jury of one’s peers may find that it passes the reasonable doubt threshold.) My legal troubles with books3 weighed on me pretty heavily, and I wasn’t even the target. Yet. I can only imagine what it feels like to be waiting for an indictment. There ought to be some sort of protection for preserving books in bulk. No one is going to read two million books. But of course, one could also argue that having a readily available archive is harming the economic profitability of the works, on the basis that content licensing for AI is now a multimillion industry. It’s weird, because it feels like important work, rather than criminal — someone should put into words exactly what the distinction is.
- iwontberude 2y agoI think you’ve stumbled upon a paradox where the data is worth preserving because of its scarcity, but once it no longer scarce, the value is diminished along with the priority to preserve and make it discoverable. Similar in some way to the antique/collectibles market and the U shaped curve. The issue is that the data can become so devalued that we create a scarcity in the future. It’s one of those self-regulating systems.
- jprete 2y agoI think the Library of Congress already does preservation; it seems to be legally required to give the LoC two copies of every published work in the US (https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ7d.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ7d.pdf). Preservation of works is very obviously not why Anna's Archive is asking for torrent seeders. Seeding is for distribution and availability, not preservation. It would be more honest to say "preservation of ML training fair use access".
- FabHK 2y ago
- lynndotpy 2y agoAre any of these legal to seed in the US, i.e. not in violation of copyright? E.g. Consider someone with a gigabit connection that their VPN can't keep up with. It would make sense to seed the legal items without the VPN, and the other items with the VPN.
- pentagrama 2y agoI want to help but I guess I'm not being able to, maybe someone can help me. I want to give 5GB (don't have much storage), so I put "Max TB:0.005" and "Type:URLs". It give me this url: https://annas-archive.org/dyn/generate_torrents?max_tb=0.005&format=url https://annas-archive.org/dyn/generate_torrents?max_tb=0.005... Who has this two torrent files: https://annas-archive.org/dyn/small_file/torrents/external/libgen_li_magazines/m_1282000.torrent https://annas-archive.org/dyn/small_file/torrents/external/l... https://annas-archive.org/dyn/small_file/torrents/external/libgen_li_magazines/m_35000.torrent https://annas-archive.org/dyn/small_file/torrents/external/l... I put that torrents on Transmission, one is 5GB and the other 4MB, the 5GB is not downloading/seeding, the 4MB was downloaded and is seeding: https://imgur.com/a/80k3y1D https://imgur.com/a/80k3y1D Any help?
- pilimi_anna 2y agoAnna here. Thanks for the broadcast. We're soon releasing another few hundred TB of completely unique materials (mostly books, also lots of magazines), so help with preserving all of this is sorely needed. Much, much thanks to everyone who has contributed in one way or another already!