Bonum Certa Men Certa

He Said, Xi Said: Hard to Censor Techrights and It's More Than a Web Site

Video download link



Summary: An explanation of some of the latest Techrights changes (mostly work on IPFS and Gemini this week, as they complement the Web site)

HAVING just published this article about the purposeless office, EPO, where two corrupt politicians are basically demolishing the institution for personal gain, we turn again to our censorship resistance mechanisms. The video above discusses changes to our IPFS index pages and changes to the Gemini capsule, mostly intended to better suit blind readers (we've received some constructive suggestions). Gemtext/Plain Text are now better separated, there's a complete index in archive form (over 30,000 blog posts), and we've finally added a link to the feeds, as well as an archive of older feed elements ("daily-feed" and "feed" now appear in the front/landing page, as more software supports capsule subscriptions in Gemini).



"It's infeasible to take us (or the information) down."What does it all mean to people who are lesser technical or differently technical (proficient in a technical field that isn't computing or the Internet)?

Can't censor this *Xi-tLet's explain this very briefly.

Gemini is self-hosted (from my own home), it's simple and light, and it should generally be robust to censorship unless my connection is cut or the home gets raided or something radical to that effect.

IPFS is a decentralised Web/Internet network akin to P2P; it's almost impossible to take down and as long as copies of objects reside on several machines around the globe it's really difficult to take down some controversial/sensitive bit of information (or an object; any kind of file would do, even video). We don't have reasons to believe that the EPO will try to take down this (Web) site, which is possible with lawfare directed at DNS or World Wide Web equipment (routers, servers). The EPO has blocked Techrights for 6 or 7 years already. Of course staff can evade the block, especially when working from home or some mobile network (inside the Office many would not use the local Wi-Fi; it's not trustworthy when it's controlled by what many employees call "Mafia").

Either way, the Web site has become just one of three methods for accessing the material. It's infeasible to take us (or the information) down. They know it, so they're less likely to even try. Deterrence works.

It's worth noting that there are things in IPFS and Gemini that don't exist anywhere in the site. So in a sense we're already at a point where they're not mere mirrors of the site.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Topics We Lacked Time to Cover
Due to a Microsoft event (an annual malware fest for lobbying and marketing purposes) there was also a lot of Microsoft propaganda
EPO Education: Workers Resort to Legal Actions (Many Cases) Against the Administration
At the moment the casualties of EPO corruption include the EPO's own staff
 
Links 22/11/2024: Dynamic Pricing Practice and Monopoly Abuses
Links for the day
Microsofters Try to Defund the Free Software Foundation (by Attacking Its Founder This Week) and They Tell People to Instead Give Money to Microsoft Front Groups
Microsoft people try to outspend their critics and harass them
[Meme] EPO for the Kids' Future (or Lack of It)
Patents can last two decades and grow with (or catch up with) the kids
Gemini Links 22/11/2024: ChromeOS, Search Engines, Regular Expressions
Links for the day
This Month is the 11th Month of This Year With Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (So Far It's Happening Every Month This Year, More Announced Hours Ago)
Now they even admit it
Links 22/11/2024: Software Patents Squashed, Russia Starts Using ICBMs
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 21, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 21, 2024
Gemini Links 21/11/2024: Alphabetising 400 Books and Giving the Internet up
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Links 21/11/2024: TikTok Fighting Bans, Bluesky Failing Users
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Links 21/11/2024: SpaceX Repeatedly Failing (Taxpayers Fund Failure), Russian Disinformation Spreading
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Richard Stallman Earned Two More Honorary Doctorates Last Month
Two more doctorate degrees
KillerStartups.com is an LLM Spam Site That Sometimes Covers 'Linux' (Spams the Term)
It only serves to distract from real articles
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: Game Recommendations, Schizo Language
Links for the day
Growing Older and Signs of the Site's Maturity
The EPO material remains our top priority
Did Microsoft 'Buy' Red Hat Without Paying for It? Does It Tell Canonical What to Do Now?
This is what Linus Torvalds once dubbed a "dick-sucking" competition or contest (alluding to Red Hat's promotion of UEFI 'secure boot')
Links 20/11/2024: Politics, Toolkits, and Gemini Journals
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: 'The Open Source Definition' and Further Escalations in Ukraine/Russia Battles
Links for the day
[Meme] Many Old Gemini Capsules Go Offline, But So Do Entire Web Sites
Problems cannot be addressed and resolved if merely talking about these problems isn't allowed
Links 20/11/2024: Standing Desks, Broken Cables, and Journalists Attacked Some More
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: Debt Issues and Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban
Links for the day
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar), Magna Carta and Debian Freedoms: RIP
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar) & Debian: from Frans Pop to Euthanasia
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
This Article About "AI-Powered" is Itself LLM-Generated Junk
Trying to meet quotas by making fake 'articles' that are - in effect - based on plagiarism?
Recognizing invalid legal judgments: rogue Debianists sought to deceive one of Europe's most neglected regions, Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Google-funded group distributed invalid Swiss judgment to deceive Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: BeagleBone Black and Suicide Rates in Switzerland
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 19, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 19, 2024