Z-Library Blog: "Unprecedented seizure of our domains with books on rare languages"

ancuuiqter@lemmy.world to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 582 points –
z-library.se

Today we are forced to share some sad news - yesterday many of our domains were seized again. We should highlight that the majority of the seized domains were not mirrors of the Z-Library website. Instead, they were separate sub-projects, containing only books in rare languages of the world, and their blocking is perplexing. For instance, these domains included books in Tamil, Mongolian, Catalan, Urdu, Pashto, and other languages:

afrikaans-books.org

bengali-books.org

urdu-books.org

marathi-books.org

chamorro-books.org

Over the 15 years of the project's existence, we've managed to collect an impressive collection of rare texts in many uncommon languages. These domains featured many unique texts that can't be found anywhere else, including rare books, documents, and manuscripts. All of this is a priceless heritage, contributing to the preservation and study of world cultures, and serving as important material for researchers in linguistics, anthropology, and history.

Z-Library also states in the blog post that they did not lose the files, just the domains.

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This eerily reminds of books burning.

It's more like if a landlord canceled the leases on a bunch of properties that a chain of privately owned libraries was renting.

"keep your books but you can't keep them here" in a way.

Well, the files are intact, it's "just" registrar douchiness. Not that that makes it good, by any stretch, but it's not all Alexandria either

Book burning bad, literally Roman style war crimes...

Given that domain seizure is becoming such a common tool for this sort of thing, maybe we need a work around for DNS?

For example, we could distribute z-library name/IP pairs in the form of a hosts file via torrents and then write little wrapper programs for each OS that would just crawl the DHT for the latest version to update your local hosts file.

A more extreme option would be to build a pirate browser that has a bunch of name/IP pairs baked into it. People could just launch the browser and visit websites as usual without DNS being an issue.

I'm aware that using Tor is also an option, but there's a bunch of problems there with usability like installation and setup (for non-technical people). Onion URLs aren't easily discoverable either, and much of what you find in there just kids cosplaying as digital freedom fighters posting links that load really slowly... at least that was my experience the last time I tried out a TOR browser.

What you're looking for is an alternative DNS root. Although I despise the blockchain, crypo and web3 world with every fiber of my being due to the entire scam ecosystem built into everything, decentralized DNS could be one of the only legit applications of blockchains as a technology. No court can order blockchains to take down domains, much like how no court can order Bitcoin to reverse transactions. You don't have the private key to change the domain? Too bad, fuck off.

Could you explain your complaints with blockchains and web3? Genuinely curious

Not the lemming you asked, but as far as I can tell the issue is that due to the unregulatable nature of blockchain, scammers like SBF are almost an inevitability with the tech as long as we are trying to use it to make money out of thin air. In the long term this will only further erode public trust of new technologies.

The best solution I can think of is to have something like Tor.taxi

Bittorrent already doesn't depend on DNS. Any clown solution that depends on DDL will always be inferior to just straight up Bittorrent.

You know what? Insulting people isn't helping. I'm just going to block you.

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That is so so so dumb that it's actually impressive you decided to add on being a dick to top it off.

Although I agree that bit torrent is a good protocol, DDL is still a valuable method of maintaining mass accessibility, and an important aspect of transport as it requires next to no background skills or knowledge, it's also symbolic to the concept that many people simply do not believe piracy is necessarily a crime unless it turns a profit, or prevents or reduces a sale from occurring.

Why are libraries still existing despite all the wild cunt kings high on their own megalomania who've gone and burned libraries and attempted to destroy civilization?

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I am sorry. But who is doing this and why?

.org/.net/.com domains are American so my guess is the same as the post author's – USA and the FBI. But they don't have a clue either why these specific domains were targeted. On the other hand, with the mess that is the DMCA and with copyright interests in the US being controlled by corporations it's not hard to imagine .org domains being blocked on a whim.

Copyright trolls, because they can. Maybe Z-library should do better so this cannot happen in the first place.

Ikr? What are we paying Z library so mu--

Hold on a second..

I couldn't find anything, just clicking around. Does z library not have a mechanism for others to make backups of its data? It looks like generally there are lots of limits around downloading, which makes sense. Most people need a handful of books. But without full data backups spread around multiple data hoarding nerds systems globally. When the inevitable day comes that the whole thing gets shut down they'll be nothing to bring back

Wouldn't it be possible to move the entire library into the dark web and leave just a few snorkels behind?

Or move it to a model similar to zeronet?

I believe it is already on Tor. But not everyone knows how to use tor, so they also have traditional domains.

They also have an I2P address. More secure than Tor, because alot of the end nodes are controlled by government and private institutions.

Oh, this is a great reason to use I2P!

I really wish torrenting would move to I2P too!

I didn't know Zlibrary was still up. I got too confused when they went down and was never sure how to get back in. Ended up paying pocket for the remainder of my textbooks.

With the Z-Lib app (v1.10.1(17) atm) you can get 10 daily downloads without signing up.

They're still up, but you have to pay a subscription to download. At least that's what the webisode I found said.

Did torrents become extinct? Or even something like ipfs?

You can find torrents here if you're willing to seed 181TB for the full dataset, or 43TB for just zlibrary https://annas-archive.org/torrents

Torrents aren't a great option for a niche thing that doesn't have a wide audience.

Torrents suck for things that aren't all that popular. Once the last seeder stops seeding, that torrent is useless.

I once left a torrent on for ~three years at 50%, obviously no one seeded that anymore. one day i realised it was completed, and i have no idea when. now i only streamed my high sea amusements, i don't even have a torrent client on anymore, but i like to think that the three copies seeded from mine (based on uploaded data) is still out there somewhere.

Is it still possible to get personal domains working? I know they had them before but not sure if they still do

Nothing in here is as perplexing as dumbasses behind Z-library not "hosting" their files on Usenet and Bittorrent to ensure that this can't be blocked unless feds turn off internet globally.

Heads up, this guy is a troll picking fights for no reason. Don't try to engage him, he only replies with deflection and insults. Check out his profile

Completely agree that this guy is a troll, but a check of his profile shows that the person who engages with them the most is you.

You're right. I was one of the first people he talked to, on a post yesterday about the paradox of tolerance where he proclaimed that his sole reason for existence is to be an asshole to people who call themselves tolerant.

We argued back and forth for awhile, but I eventually clocked him as a troll and I really just want to see if I can get him to burn out.

Also want to give people a heads up so that they don't end up in the same loop I did at first. This guy is pretty vile. Just today he denied that the holocaust was even that bad because "not all the jews died"

I get it, just pointing out that you should be following your own advice on this as there is no point in feeding the trolls. Just block and move on bro. No point following them around lemmy engaging with them at every opportunity. People are smart enough to work it out for themselves.

I'll take your advice into consideration. I probably will when I get bored of it. I'm actually quite amused just wasting this guy's time at the moment

Well the rest of us just see two trolls instead of one so don't expect anyone to treat you favourably when you're acting just as bad as the original troll.

That's a perfectly fair conclusion. But I don't mind. I'm not really trying to impress anyone

I see, making fun of clowns who don't understand why centralized database for books is retarded is "trolling".

Goodluck with your eggs in one basket idea, don't tell me that I didn't tell you so when Z-library fails, and it will, because it can't even keep few domains up, lmfao.

Oh wow, no joke. Let's try this blocking feature then

What he said was abrasive but not entirely wrong. Tempted to say you're the troll for looking up people's histories as your only proof of anything.

He's obsessed with me because everything I say is true and truth makes brainlets mad.

It's amusing that on a Piracy community, someone will go ahead and block me, you clowns are no better than companies who screech about piracy in the first place.

Maybe I should go contribute in working to get Z-library taken down because it's a piece of shit that tries to monopolize books via DDL's instead of making it a decentralized effort because even bypassing blocks must be monopolized...

Dude you're sending this to the wrong person. Check who you're replying to in this thread 😅.

I mean their stuff is all there, you could upload it for them

Ah yes, I could just make millions of torrents by DDLing one by one through their shitty web UI because retards who have database and files all on their servers aren't willing to do it.

What an amazing idea...

You clowns clearly don't care about preserving books.

Doesn't really sound like you do either. Sounds like you just want to feel superior about pointing it out 🤔