Month: December 2019

Laut Statistischem Bundesamt suchen die Unternehmen kaum mehr IT-Fachkräfte. Sie beschweren sich aber zunehmend über zu wenige oder unzureichend qualifizierte Bewerber, die zu wenig Berufserfahrung hätten oder ein zu hohes Gehalt wollten. (Arbeit, Bitkom)

Whenever Library Genesis (Libgen) or Sci-Hub hit the headlines, what tends to follow is a fracturing of opinion on where these sites sit in the piracy landscape.

Both are best known for their massive archives of scientific articles and research papers. They are also notable for their absolute commitment to the spread of knowledge for the betterment of society as a whole. This means that even some otherwise staunch opponents of piracy pause for thought.

While huge publishing companies want them gone, support for these platforms among the knowledge-thirsty can be robust. Just over a week ago, the passion for keeping Libgen alive became evident in a Reddit thread (posted by a user known as ‘shrine’) titled ‘Charitable seeding for nonprofit scientific torrents’

“Libgen is a 33 terabyte scientific library with 2.4 million free books covering science, engineering, and medicine,” ‘shrine’ began.

“It’s the largest free library in the world, servicing tens of thousands of scientists and medical professionals around the world who live in developing countries that can’t afford to buy books and scientific journals. There’s almost nothing else like this on Earth – they’re using torrents to fulfill World Health Organization and U.N. charters.”

However, the torrents used by Libgen were not in good shape so ‘shrine’ began a movement to boost the quality of their swarms. The project was quickly spotted and then supported by two companies (Seedbox.io and UltraSeedbox.com) that offer ‘seedboxes’, effectively server-based torrent clients with plenty of storage space and bandwidth available – perfect for giving swarms a boost.

The project gained plenty of traction and as a follow-up thread details, considerable success. Today we catch up with ‘shrine’ for some history, background information, and an interesting status report.

“Ironically this all started when I saw the TorrentFreak article about [Libgen] mirrors getting taken down. I immediately decided I wanted to find a way to preserve and protect the collection,” ‘shrine’ says.

“I started out, but realized that the Plex server in my living room wouldn’t be enough to back up the largest free library in the world. That’s when I wrote my plea to /r/datahoarder hoping for a few guys to help out. Once the project exploded my role since then has been coordinating the hundreds of seed donations out of my Google Doc and answering as many questions as I can.”

Shrine is completely unconnected to the Libgen site but says he’s been a user for years. Before his project began he didn’t have a clear idea of how the site operated or what it took to keep it online but he’s now focused on two primary goals – back up Libgen and distribute the data so that people can find new ways to utilize it.

“The collection we’re seeding now is 32TB (18%) of [Libgen’s] total collection, so it’s just the first step in preserving the project,” he says, pointing to Libgen’s stats page.

We asked ‘shrine’ if any stats on swarm strengths were taken when the project began, so a comparison can be made today. He told us that an index for the collection didn’t even exist a week ago, so planning and coordination was difficult. However, some stats are available.

“The first thing I did was find a way to scrape the torrents to motivate seeders and track progress. I started collecting data on November 30th using a very cool open source indexer on GitLab,” he reveals.

While the previously-mentioned seedbox suppliers provided a huge boost to the project, there are plenty of anonymous donors and supporters behind the scenes too, even people who had no previous experience of using BitTorrent.

“I am overjoyed with the outpour of support. I have PMs from people who’ve never torrented before, have 1GB to spare, and want to know the best torrent client,” ‘shrine’ notes.

“Scientists in the Reddit threads are sharing stories of how LibGen made their research possible. Unnamed cloud providers have pledged 100TB allocation on their servers. The response has been overwhelmingly positive from everyone.”

Although ‘shrine’ regularly uses the term “we” in respect of seeding, he points out that he’s the project evangelist and there’s “nothing but Linux ISOs” on his own server. Nevertheless, the project has now turned into a movement, one that could have a profound effect on the overall free availability of scientific research.

“I only know there is no way to take the books back once they’ve been seeded. It’s a permanent library card for the world,” ‘shrine’ concludes.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Es sollte alles super werden, stattdessen kommen seit MacOS Catalina, dem neuen iOS und iPadOS weder Apple noch Entwickler und Nutzer zur Ruhe. Golem.de hat mit vier Entwicklern über ihre Erfahrungen mit der Systemumstellung gesprochen. Ein Bericht von Jan Rähm (MacOS, Apple)

Das schon etwas ältere PC-Actionspiel Tron Evolution lässt sich nicht mehr starten. Das liegt vermutlich daran, dass Disney die Lizenzgebühren für das Kopierschutzsystem Securom nicht bezahlt hat. (Tron, DRM)

Bisher hat Nikola Motors zwei Brennstoffzellen-Trucks vorgestellt. In Europa startet das US-Unternehmen aber mit einem konventionellen Elektro-Sattelschlepper, der 2021 auf den Markt kommen soll. (Elektroauto, Technologie)

Nach der Ankündigung auf der CES 2019 geht Plex' kostenloser Videostreaming-Dienst an den Start: Ohne monatliche Zahlungen können Nutzer Filme und Serien schauen, die Finanzierung erfolgt durch Werbeeinblendungen. In Deutschland ist die Auswahl noch ausbaufähig. (Streaming, Amazon)

Erste chinesische Hersteller bauen ungewöhnliche Mini-PCs mit AMD-CPUs. Ein Beispiel ist der Maxtang VHFP30 mit AMD Ryzen 5 2500U und passiver Kühlung. Auch an Anschlüssen fehlt es dem System nicht. (Mini-PC, AMD)

Die Gesundheitsapp Ada hat Nutzereingaben an Facebook und Aplitude übermittelt. Die Techniker Krankenkasse konnte dies nicht ausräumen und stellt nun ihre Kooperation mit Ada ein. Das freut den Entdecker: Er hofft, dass die Gesundheitsbranche endlich wachgerüttelt wird. (Medizin, Datenschutz)

Die Linux-Distribution Ubuntu ist das beliebteste System für Kunden von Amazons Web Services (AWS). Um dies auch in Einnahmen umzuwandeln, startet Distributor Canonical nun eine Pro-Version von Ubuntu, mit einigen Zusatzfunktionen wie zehn Jahre Support und Kernel-Livepatches. (Ubuntu, Cloud Computing)

Huawei versucht weiter, gerichtlich gegen die von der US-Regierung auferlegten Handelseinschränkungen vorzugehen: In einer jüngsten Klage gegen die FCC geht es um Geschäfte mit lokalen Netzanbietern. Der erwartete Gewinnverlust für 2019 wird allerdings geringer als erwartet ausfallen. (Huawei, FCC)