this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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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! 🤝❤️

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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 161 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Note: Author requested permission to post this.

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 5 hours ago

From the responses in this thread, it seems like OP is either a fed, or, much more likely, extremely inexperienced and naive when it comes to Opsec. At the very least, they are putting themselves at risk. Is it still advisable to leave this post up?

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[–] SchwertImStein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

why github and not codeberg?

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 20 minutes ago

project started a few months ago idk we started on github but I will host a repo on codeberg soon

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 71 points 12 hours ago (3 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.

[–] NedRyerson@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I'd be more than a little interested to be pointed towards a guide, or even just a bullet point list, of good opsec considerations or tools for a project like this. I've got time and technical ability but don't spend a lot of time thinking about these concerns. The last thing I want is to cause myself trouble I'm not ready for, but I'd like to make a significant contribution to the community, so I want to prepare adequately.

Any guides or lists you can think of?

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Becoming a provider (on any significant scale) should be treated like a second job, at least. If you want to go the silent route, you need to completely separate your daily life from the illegal stuff. Obvious stuff, like no shared email- or other accounts, but even down to no shared browser sessions. The old fashioned way is a second laptop. If you want to make an impact and contribute to the community, consider seeding torrents for some of the existing shadow libraries. Anna's Archive has about a petabyte of torrents that have less than three seeders, for example.

[–] NedRyerson@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

I can appreciate your concern and point of view, but I asked "so if I want to do this, how can I prepare to do it safely?" And your response was "just don't, do this instead." I can certainly seed, but that's not what I'm aiming for. I am far more interested in creating systems and providing content. My time is...flexible. Suffice to say, the time concern is not going to be the roadblock.

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 54 minutes ago

You're right, and I'm sorry if I came over as condescending. The thing is, with projects like these, you need to front load a lot of the safety concerns if you are going to be the one actually hosting the content. It'd be an easier entry to contribute to existing structures, staying more low-key and learning along the way. Many established projects are open-source and need programmers and hackers to help improve and secure their codebases, for example.

That said, if you wanted to start something of your own, I think Anna's blog is a nice starting point, before you delve into the technical nitty-gritty:

https://annas-archive.org/blog/blog-how-to-become-a-pirate-archivist.html

https://annas-archive.org/blog/how-to-run-a-shadow-library.html

Then, for the actual hosting process, much depends on the stack you use. Never pay for anything in a way that can be traced, which basically only leaves cash or anonymous crypto like Monero. Don't use any account names, emails, passwords, etc that you've ever used before. Never, ever go boasting to strangers, or even worse, friends, about what you're doing. Do all the standard things of hardening your servers, but always plan around some or all of them being shut down it seized. Even "bulletproof hosting" providers get raided every once in a while. That means decentralization, and don't put convenience over safety.

Now, while shadow libraries and other forms of media piracies certainly are sought-after targets, you're likely not going to be anyone's number one priority, while there's still rings of child abusers and terrorists on the web. But once you reach a certain size, state actors will come after you, like they did after z-lib a while ago. I don't have any comprehensive guides on Opsec (and I'm no expert on it, by any measure), but most of it boils down to common sense and keeping your mouth shut, anyways. Most people that get busted don't have missed some technical vulnerability, but because they've talked about their illegal projects on accounts linked to their real name, or something similarly trivial.

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 hours 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 16 points 9 hours ago (6 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?

[–] lars@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 8 hours ago

Are you saying there is a way to escape my student loa*s forever?

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[–] Tramort@programming.dev 9 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

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

[–] rdwxth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 9 hours 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

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[–] bastionntb@lemmy.ml 10 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Tried downloading a book and it's just giving an error saying it failed to download. Book name

God i norsk 1 - Tekstbok A1/A2 : norsk for voksne innvandrere

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