Hey everyone! 📚 I’m excited to introduce Bookracy, an open-source shadow library dedicated to preserving and freely sharing knowledge. With a large and growing collection, Bookracy is (annoying) ad-free, non-profit, and lightning-fast ⚡—plus, it’s fully open-source and powered by a passionate community. Whether you're a reader, researcher, or developer, there’s a place for you here. Check out our Reddit, website, GitHub, and hop into our Discord to join the conversation and help grow this movement for open access! 🤝❤️

top 39 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Note: Author requested permission to post this.

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

ty i forgot to clarify❤

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Since you're maintaining a subreddit, you might want to create a comm in lemmy as well. Reddit has already taken down other piracy subs like GenP

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

yeah sure a little help on getting started would be great but ill get to it

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Done! https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/bookracy

[–] TheImpressiveX@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

!bookracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

[–] albert180@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is there any Upside over NexusSTC?
Is it decentralised?

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is there any Upside over NexusSTC? Is it decentralised? bookracy has faster and unlimited downloads, lack of popup/redirect ads, and a more active community. also from my knowledge NexusSTC is more academic content whereas bookracy has more of a range of content

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

also no Bookracy is not decentralised - it operates on centralized servers much like LibGen ect. This means that while it’s open-source and community-driven, our infrastructure still relies on traditional hosting, which can be vulnerable to takedowns or disruptions. However we've taken precautions for this and have a bulletproof proxy server which also caches inbetween the storage server and client

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

putting aside the obvious glowie talk someone else raised, you should really, really reconsider your opsec. And I mean, really. Using discord to communicate? And spamming Reddit, from a non-dedicated account, no less? Posting PII to justify downtimes? If this gets any traction at all, you're in deep shit. There's a good reason Anna is as anonymous as she is. Cat is out of the bag at this point, I'd recommend shutting it down. You could always continue developing the code for it, the frontend looks pretty good. But please, reconsider if you have the dedication and knowledge it takes to run a shadow library and not be caught.

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

our model is just like the old movie-web, we are open source and if we are DMCA'd then we will take it down but our mirrors will still be up but i understand the opsec point and may move from discord to signal

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

that's good and all, but as it stands now, it seems almost guaranteed your PII will leak. Are you okay to never set foot into a country that extradites to the US again?

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

since its open source and the backend will be open source in the future (after i rewrite) i can still step away from the project and everything can be taken and hosted by a different person

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

that's not how it works. the code and website may live on, but you are committing a crime right now (nothing wrong with that). If law enforcement comes after you, it won't matter if you've 'stepped away' in the mean time. You can either go the route of Anna, keep very tight Opsec and make sure nothing seeps through the cracks. Or you go the way of Alexandra Elbakyan, make your piracy public, to make a point. That means you willingly accept never being able to travel anywhere that has enforced copyright laws. If you half-ass it somewhere in between, you will get caught, and you will face prison time or hefty fines (potentially millions). Are you aware of that?

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Bookracy doesn’t exploit the copyrighted material for financial gain, unlike typical piracy websites that might sell access to pirated content or host popup / redirect ads for profit And for the part of me commiting a crime its always innocent until proven guilty - if it can be proven im storing the books fair play but weve taken precautions against that paying through crypto bulletproof servers ect

[–] laserjet@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

doesn’t exploit the copyrighted material for financial gain

@itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone mentioned Alexandra Elbakyan. Do you know who that is? Aaron Schwartz ended up dead just for having a lot of journal articles and giving away a bunch of public domain materials.

bulletproof servers

Oh my.. You sound really unprepared for what you are getting into. There is no such thing as perfect security. And if someone sold you on that premise, you were tricked.

Even if your host is doing the absolute best job possible, your group can still screw it up any one of a million ways. Given the cavalier attitude here, that's going to be happening soon and happening often.

Honestly you sound like a total heat score..

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The publishers don't care. They're suing LibGen, scihub, etc nonetheless. Non-commercialism will not protect you. Crypto can be very traceable, it's by definition an open ledger, and "bulletproof servers" is a term applied very broadly, often by dubious actors. Besides that, any Opsec is only as strong as the weakest link. You're running a second domain via Namecheap, for fucks sake! Don't take this lightly, this is not a game. A state actor could probably identify you within days. Are you ready for that?

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago

the namecheap domain was bought using fake details on a paypal that had no card connected to it - but i understand which is why i bought a .ru domain from cheapprivacy.ru

[–] Tramort@programming.dev -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

My opsec doesn't allow for any Russian projects at all

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

having a .ru domain is just precaution against takedowns - none of the devs are russian its just the west and russia dont get along so takedown requests for a .ru domain would be ignored by russia

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago

Fair, at least as long as they're not open-source

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Being “private” and having a discord is like an oxymoron.

I only see a front end on GitHub. Is this just a libgen mirror?

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No its not a libgen mirror - we have our own collections and are torrenting from libgen + zlib aswell - and backend is going to be open sourced in the future once its finished and ready - right now the code is very janky and im too embarassed to release it lol. Theres still alot of additions to do to the backend and once that is done I will release.

We also have a telegram and signal group - the discord was just for my existing community who are primarily discord users aswell

[–] PlexSheep@infosec.pub 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The backend is so janky that you are embarrassed to release it? I'm all for free knowledge but that is concerning.

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

when i mean janky it does and serves its purpose but my code isnt cleaned up and theres alot of redundant code - im currently doing a rewrite and when that is done i will release it

[–] Brylant@discuss.online -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Revolt.chat is a really solid alternative to Discord

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 month ago

Revolt.chat

ill check it out ty for the suggestion

[–] Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Based. I'll check it out and see if I can be of help on the development front. Been meaning to learn typescript

[–] besselj@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Saw some good engineering textbooks on there too. Great job.

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

🖖 ty

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

Thanks, this sounds like a great project! Also, glad dbzer0 was your choice of a community :)

Is there an rogue date where you'll release it to be open source?

Also, seeing you mentioned ad-free, i'm curious about this.

[–] drastico@lemminielettrici.it 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

btw you say “ad free” but I can see an ad in the home

Regarding the download speeds etc, also Anna’s archive was faster time ago but then the more you grow the more you have to take care

So my question is, are there any plans for scaling?

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

i said annoying ad-free i should have clarified i meant no popup or redirect ads - and yes there are plans for scaling and we have a few different services like you saw sponsoring the project aswell

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Bit gross that it's a RU domain though

[–] Teppichbrand@feddit.org 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why?

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You really have to ask?

[–] Teppichbrand@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I was an idiot and read it as .ro for Romania. Of course I know about Russia and the war.
Still I also wouldn't comment on people posting .com-links, even though the US are fighting endless illegal wars for decades and the president is wrecking democracy for a police state.

[–] Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 month ago

.com is not the cctld for the us, that would be .us

[–] simonlm@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago

Looks like the GitHub also has its location set to Russian Federation too. 👀