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Tumblr Blocked Archivists Just Before Starting the NSFW Content Purge (techdirt.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: By now, of course, you're aware that the Verizon-owned Tumblr (which was bought by Yahoo, which was bought by Verizon and merged into "Oath" with AOL and other no longer relevant properties) has suddenly decided that nothing sexy is allowed on its servers. This took many by surprise because apparently a huge percentage of Tumblr was used by people to post somewhat racy content. Knowing that a bunch of content was about to disappear, the famed Archive Team sprung into action -- as they've done many times in the past. They set out to archive as much of the content on Tumblr that was set to be disappeared down the memory hole as possible... and it turns out that Verizon decided as a final "fuck you" to cut them off. Jason Scott, the mastermind behind the Archive Team announced over the weekend that Verizon appeared to be blocking their IPs. Thankfully, it didn't take long for the Archive Team to get past the blocks. Scott tweeted on Sunday: "why look at that the archiving of tumblr restarted how did that happen must be a bug surely a crack team of activist archivists didn't see an ip block as a small setback and then turned everything up to 11."

204 comments

  1. What does that mean? by 91degrees · · Score: 4, Funny

    "why look at that the archiving of tumblr restarted how did that happen must be a bug surely a crack team of activist archivists didn't see an ip block as a small setback and then turned everything up to 11."

    Huh? this is the most incomprehensible sentence since "Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?". Do I just need mode Covfefe?

    1. Re: What does that mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      If 'Scott' had known of punctuation:

      Why look at that, the archiving of tumblr restarted! How did that happen? Must be a bug - surely a crack team of activist archivists didn't see an IP block as a small setback and then turned everything up to 11?

    2. Re: What does that mean? by reanjr · · Score: 1

      I had the same problem until I realized it should be "well, look at that!" Turns out punctuation is important, despite what Twits thinks.

    3. Re:What does that mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Naah, this is just clear proof that the AI which is controlling the matrix has been rendered 'stjoepit' by all the internet trolls and dumbass political comments.
      That and the quality of slashdot has gone down over the years... must be something to do with the vaccinations causing autism or the fluoride in the water etc blah...
      since clearly, none of this ever happened before the year 2000... Come to think of it, it has to be the radioactive dust that got loose when the twin towers where demolished for insurance fraud. :)

      enjoy

      YMMV

      ps. yes, the sentence is pretty incomprehensible.
      proof : typical

    4. Re: What does that mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's called eloquence. If you are not a professional grade porn archiver, you probably will not understand.

    5. Re:What does that mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jason Scott, the mastermind behind the Archive Team

      Apparently, being a "mastermind" doesn't include punctuation or writing coherent sentences.

      What an ass hat.

    6. Re:What does that mean? by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      Think of all the time he saved though. That's time he could be using to stare at a progress indicator.....

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    7. Re: What does that mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IP blocking is a nasty business. It is all about psychological control. If a person sees that their IP is blocked they wonder why. Only people who are ignorant of such things or very challenged on the ethics of business would do this. I think the appropriate phrase is "The threat is worse than the execution".

    8. Re: What does that mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It looks like it was written by "Chrundle" Kelly from Paddy's Pub...

      Illiteracy? What does that even mean?

    9. Re:What does that mean? by Kreplock · · Score: 1

      i whipped out my mad literacy skills and translated it forthwith

    10. Re: What does that mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Illiterate punctuation-lacking morons save p0rn...wow! These guys got their priorities correct.

    11. Re:What does that mean? by Headw1nd · · Score: 5, Informative

      Somewhat ashamed to know this, but the lack of punctuation is a tumblr convention - Usage indicates that the writer is "speaking" quickly or off-the-cuff, and is frequently used in situations where someone is mocking another's actions or intent. It's meant to imitate a certain speech pattern where one speaks quickly at a consistent tempo.

    12. Re:What does that mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure about the sexual orientation of that, but it is a stupid idea.

    13. Re: What does that mean? by edris90 · · Score: 1

      When you're a mastermind you can engineer ways to success that make your punctuation irrelevant. If you still have to rely on posturing for other people and appearances, you're still playing on newb level

    14. Re: What does that mean? by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      Well punctuation does save lives. It could make the difference between you and Granny sharing a nice meal together; and Granny entangling and strangling herself using her dugs as bolas as she tries to ward you off because she thinks you are a cannibal.

      Let's eat, Grandma! vs. Let's eat Grandma!

      Likewise, proper capitalization can mean the difference between you assisting your Uncle Jack in dismounting from a horse, and you and your uncle going to prison and being registered as sex offenders (if helping your uncle jack off a horse is illegal in your state).

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    15. Re:What does that mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wow thats gay

    16. Re:What does that mean? by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      You ain't never did has seen any with as much skiiiiiils as me.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  2. Damn! Where am I gonna get my racy content? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 1

    Oh yeah I know: Pornhub, Youporn, Xvideos...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re: Damn! Where am I gonna get my racy content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'd call it a dick move but they keep censoring that sort of stuff.

  3. Food porn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Creimer went to a Shake Shack and only had a strawberry milkshake.

  4. Much ado about nothing by tuxkamen · · Score: 1

    This article has about as much content as a mainstream print magazine. So many words, so little message. All I got out of this was, "People are angry about lack of porn backup. They're going to try and do something about it. Film at 11." Wake me up please, when "turned it up to 11" actually means something was accomplished.

    --
    Use a little common sense once in a while. --Book of Mooch Ch. 5 verse 14
    1. Re:Much ado about nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "archive team" has in the past saved some pretty historical content by way of their ability to quickly mobilize technical solutions. Unfortunately they've also had some goals that quite frankly I don't understand, one of them is Tumbler. Sure save a sample of them but those pics have no historical value otherwise and will be used as extortion later (obviously not by the group themselves). We're not talking a few hundred gigs of data here but TB if not PB. The other thing to consider is that they are not partners in this which means they are breaking those sites TOS and violating the privacy of people who have posted images under them. What would be better is if users had the option to manually archive their own content if they wanted.

      The Internet Archive is one hell of a resource, and one central location to be shutdown.. say over the underage content.

    2. Re:Much ado about nothing by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Technically, the exemption to the DMCA that legitimate archival teams have allows them to violate copyright for the purposes of preservation. Copyright is the authority to impose a terms of use; For the use that Archive.org has, (archival), they are granted an explicit blanket exception--- so, they can basically ignore a terms of use document as long as their reason for doing so lies within their established operations.

      However, there do appear to be several grey and unexplored areas, legally speaking, with this action. See below, my semi-serious question.

    3. Re:Much ado about nothing by jythie · · Score: 2

      The thing about historical value is you tend to not know what is going to be important until later.

    4. Re:Much ado about nothing by dissy · · Score: 1

      For the use that Archive.org has, (archival), they are granted an explicit blanket exception--- so, they can basically ignore a terms of use document as long as their reason for doing so lies within their established operations.

      No, that DMCA exception for archive.org applies specifically to archive.org, and is written in the law as for "The Internet Archive, archive.org" explicitly by name.

      I can't see any possible way the unrelated ArchiveTeam.org group can claim that has anything to do with them.
      If they could, why couldn't literally anyone, you and I, claim the archive.org exception applies to us personally too? I doubt that would fly in a court :P

  5. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, the internet archive should be allowed to archive ALL AND EVERYTHING FOR ETERNITY
    Without ever having to delete anything.

    Clearly you wishing to make it easier makes you one of those shady individuals who has illegal activities to hide.

    captcha : aliases

  6. Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Interesting

    OK. In a legal battle between legitimate archival of content, and the laws governing unauthorized computer system access, which one wins?

    It is quite clear that Verizon DID NOT authorize the archivists to archive the data prior to the mass purge, as evidenced by the imposition of the IP blocking. As such, there is a strong case to be made that Archive.org was in contravention of the CFAA, and the workaround could be said to be a technical means of circumvention of that restriction of access (and thus, technically 'hacking', even though I REALLY hate to use such a word for such a simple solution.)

    It is also quite clear that there is a cultural asset that was going to be removed, purely for PR reasons by Verizon-- which was in need of preservation, and the Archive.org folks acted to accomplish that preservation.

    So... Which wins here? Just curious.

    1. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If a website is publicly accessible 24/7, how can you make a case for unauthorized access?

    2. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Archive.org admits that their IP range was explicitly blocked.

      This is like saying "Hey, I noticed there was a lock on the front door, so I went in the back. Clearly, this was the proper thing. There was never a lock there before!"

      Nevermind that the very presence of the lock, indicates that the building's owner wishes to restrict entry.

    3. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Verizon/tumblr are in a lose-lose situation.

      They block bot nets scraping their sites (that's what their "swaths of volunteers and warrior instances" are)? Headline: "A Final Fuck You To Free Speech"

      They allow bot nets to scrape their sites? Headline: "Verizon Lets Criminals Harvest Personal Information Unimpeded"

    4. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Desler · · Score: 2

      Because they were being blocked and publicly announced they were circumventing that very block. If Verizon wanted to be malicious that would provide perfect fodder for a case against them.

    5. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      Eh... if we are going to do a home analogy, it is more like putting up a privacy fence on one side of your yard, but that neighbor can see in the other side's picket fence when walking his dog on the public right of way.

    6. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      A more appropriate analogy would be:

      A bouncer at a night club that is open to the public, has been given explicit instructions not to let a certain person into the club.

      That certain person gets turned away at the door.

      Rather than accept that they were denied entry to the club, they put on a ridiculous fake nose and mustache disguise, and go in anyway.

    7. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >This is like saying "Hey, I noticed there was a lock on the front door, so I went in the back. Clearly, this was the proper thing. There was never a lock there before!"

      Not at all. Usernames and passwords are locks. This is like saying "Hey, I noticed you had a sign denying people with cameras, but I came in with mine anyways."

      Massive difference.

    8. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      This is like saying "Hey, I noticed there was a lock on the front door, so I went in the back. Clearly, this was the proper thing. There was never a lock there before!"

      More like a "no Homers" sign on the front, as the web site was publicly accessible from the rest of the internet.

    9. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      Indeed. It is more like a bouncer at a publicly accessible night club.

      "Hey, If this one fat chick stops by, tell her she can't come in. Here's her picture. In the past, she has done things we don't like on premises."

      That one fat chick stops by, and the bouncer says "No, you can't come in."

      The fat chick is undaunted, and puts on some outrageous lady-gaga disguise, (or cross-dresses, if you prefer), then proceeds to do the very things she was barred entry for. Proudly proclaims how she easily circumvented the bouncer, and did the thing.

    10. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's more like a sign saying, "Whites Only" so they got some white friends to go in for them and bring out the data.

    11. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Verizon would have difficulty arguing that it is the copyright holder of its users content, which means issues with standing if it did file a lawsuit claiming some sort of DMCA violation.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    12. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Thyamine · · Score: 1

      It's an interesting question. However I think that in this case tumblr is considered a public site and service, so I would liken it more to a store deciding to not allow one or two customers in when clearly everyone else is able to go in. They were not doing anything malicious, so denying normal access to an otherwise public site falls into a different realm.

      --
      I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
    13. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      funny, no one seems to be bothered when other corporations or the government do it to us. They require us to opt out of every single thing tracking us and collecting our data one by one, quite frankly i believe turn about is fair play. Verison has the resources to lock ALL of the doors and instead only decided to lock one of them, they deserve the same treatment that corporations give us.

    14. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      Archive.org is granted explicit exemption to copyright for its activities, BY the DMCA.

      It is not a copyright issue.

      This is a computer systems access issue. That is the CFAA, not the DMCA.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      See also, Craigslist vs 3Taps.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

    15. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have noticed that the younger generation doesn't understand this: if you put it on a public network and don't require authorization, it isn't "unauthorized access". You don't need permission. Oddly the younger generation seems fine with data collection by corporations without any "authorization" at all.

    16. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      What case? No one needs permission to access a publicly accessible website. Good grief. Have people sunk this low to think you need permission from everyone before doing anything?

    17. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      There is precedent against Archive.org, in the form of CraigsList vs 3Taps.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

      Craigslist is clearly a public site, however, they explicitly blocked 3Taps by IP range. 3Taps circumvented the block.

      The court ruled against them, and in favor of CraigsList.

    18. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      The issue is not with the content.

      The issue is with circumventing an access control technology to a network that contains it.

      See also, this case.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

      CraigsList is clearly publicly available data; However, the operators of Craigslist explicitly blocked 3Taps from scraping their data. (much like Verizon explicitly blocked Archive.org). 3Taps circumvented that lockout. The court handed them their teeth.

    19. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      I didn't say anything about the content. Courts make wrong decisions all the time. You don't need permission to access a public website.

    20. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Sumus+Semper+Una · · Score: 1

      Well, to make the analogy accurate it's more like saying, "Hey, I noticed that out of the millions of halls that lead to your house, you seem to have blocked off the set of halls I usually use to get there. So I went down one of the other halls."

      The building's owner did not wish to restrict entry. The building's owner wished to bar entry to a very specific entrant but otherwise remain public.

    21. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Gilgaron · · Score: 2

      If there was a login, maybe, but I'm not sure something that could be accidentally defeated by a dynamic IP is equivalent to a bouncer.

    22. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      For what it is worth, I agree with you.

      However, what you or I assert, is not what holds authority.

    23. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Falos · · Score: 2

      >there was a lock on the bathroom doors in a public park
      >there was a lock on a door on property marked private

      This analogy has always disingeniously leaned on a hidden implication.

      A public facing server with no credentials or any "authorization" demand is intentfully and openly broadcasting files.

      If your accidentally-posted spreadsheet says "For viewing by Supertech Inc employees only" at the top, I'm willing to acknowledge even that tiny shitstain as a mark of private property.

      If you accidentally staple it to the park message board, unlabeled, your tantrums will fall on deaf ears, blame the guy with the stapler or better yet, your failure-inviting IT budget.

    24. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "It is quite clear that Verizon DID NOT authorize the archivists to archive the data prior to the mass purge, as evidenced by the imposition of the IP blocking."

      So? I'm the copyright holder over my data, not Tumblr. If I say they can archive my shit, they can, Verizon/Tumblr be damned, and in fact this would be Verizon violating my copyrights by restricting whom i allow to archive, reproduce, or back up my material.

      Once again, you rear your ugly head to defend disgusting corporate practices.

    25. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm glad you admit this is a completely different situation.

      Breaking and entering is a felony and is almost always successfully prosecuted with evidence.

      Trespass is a misdemeanor and police rarely enforce it until it happens a second time after they present the offender with a written warning from the police. Having owned a store and told disorderly people to get out that refused, I speak from experience.

      I will let you ruminate on why this is the case.

    26. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The bouncer analogy is a good start, but not quite there yet. More like the club owner told the bouncer to deny entry to anyone walking to the club from directly across the street, so instead everyone crosses the street one block over and just comes in from either the left or the right.

    27. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Headw1nd · · Score: 1

      If they didn't want them to access the website they should have contacted them and made that clear. Otherwise it was simply a technical glitch that was resolved, that may or may not have been intentional.

    28. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      You misunderstand my position sir.

      I am not in favor of the corporatocracy, and its abuse of financial power to erode public rights.

      I am merely curious which side of this conflict the COURT SYSTEM will side on. In the past, they have sided with the interpretation that an explicit IP range block == sufficient notice of trespassing, and thus is a violation of the CFAA. That is an established fact.

      At no point did I assert a personal value, except to 110001101010 (or whatever his handle is), where I outright told him I agree with him and his position. What I personally feel, and what the legal system DOES, are defacto *NOT THE SAME THING.*

      Now, kindly cease and desist with this bullshit, M'kay?

    29. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      They should maybe ignore the headlines and simply follow the money. Because one question looms over them right now: What is tumbl still useful for now?

      Your family pics? There's better organized pages available for that, where you can pretty much create virtual photo albums and share them with exactly who you want to share them with.
      Your average "Gee, look at this shit" pics? Snapchat.

      Seriously, what is tumblr good for now?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    30. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      The key question here is whether tumblr wants to admit that they deliberately tried to block archive.org. The case between CL and 3T was clean cut, 3T tried to cut into the market of CL. archive.org doesn't, simply by virtue of tumblr explicitly stating that they want to withdraw from exactly this market.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    31. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I think the core theme will less be whether archive tried to circumvent a block but rather whether Verizon would admit that they tried to block them (which they would have to if they want to claim a circumvention). Because between 3T and CL it's easy for CL to "admit" the blocking. 3T tried to steal their revenue, there's no bad press to be expected from this.

      Blocking an archivist trying to preserve content from being lost is not as easily sold.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    32. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      If it were any other organization I would agree with you.

      This *IS* Verizon though. They continue to PERSIST with policies that have earned them a slot on the "Most hated company" list for early a decade solid.

      https://www.usatoday.com/story...

      What would normally be considered reasonable to assume, does not seem so in this particular instance. More than likely, Verizon was so concerned about the data throughput of a complete archival dumping process, that they explicitly tried to block Archive. They *COULD* save face by saying that if Archive had requested an offline copy be made, they would have obliged, but that Archive did not make such a request, and that Verizon is under no obligation to provide access to the information over the public internet, now that NN has been repealed.

      If anything, such a position would correspond to much of their lobbying over the past few years.

    33. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      It isn't clear that the same situation applies here. The archive didn't say that they were notified to stop archiving the site, just that the IPs appeared to be blocked. It also could be argued that the intent was different. There is no law against circumventing IP blocks.

    34. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by dj245 · · Score: 1

      They should maybe ignore the headlines and simply follow the money. Because one question looms over them right now: What is tumbl still useful for now?

      Your family pics? There's better organized pages available for that, where you can pretty much create virtual photo albums and share them with exactly who you want to share them with. Your average "Gee, look at this shit" pics? Snapchat.

      Seriously, what is tumblr good for now?

      Tumbler is fairly decent at finding and recommending other subs that you may be interested in. The format (endless scrolling) is better than many other sites that have "galleries" that you must click through. That's why it was useful for porn.

      Snapchat isn't that kind of service at all. The closest competitor in the SFW market may be Imgur, which (from a quick cursory look) doesn't seem to have a "if you like user X, try user Y's feed" function. Possibly Instagram, but I'm not familiar with them and I don't care to open an account just to look.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    35. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      Again, I would rather that Archive come out rosy.

      However, given the way things are, and how much more clout Verizon has legally than Archive, (and how much more money, and lobby presence) I am not confident in an Archive victory.

      Again, the title is "Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question". A devil's advocate is a person who attempts to interpret a position held by another person, that they do not themselves agree with. If I did not lamplight this well enough, I do apologize. Given the gravity of such a ruling (should Verizon decide to pursue this line of legal remedy against Archive), I am very much interested in an answer to it.

      Which is why I asked.

      The CFAA is one of the terror dildos that certain powerful orgs like to whip out to penalize people for inadvertent access escalations. (Like that poor schmuck that learned he could access other people's online banking features with a mistyped URL, and got subsequently beaten with it.) Given that Archive has admitted to blatant and intentional circumvention, it makes me a little sweaty palmed.

    36. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Etcetera · · Score: 1

      Archive.org admits that their IP range was explicitly blocked.

      This is like saying "Hey, I noticed there was a lock on the front door, so I went in the back. Clearly, this was the proper thing. There was never a lock there before!"

      Nevermind that the very presence of the lock, indicates that the building's owner wishes to restrict entry.

      That seems fuzzy though. Explicitly blocked *because they're Archive.org*? Or explicitly blocked because they're making 100's of thousands of connections while they try to download 85% of the entire website in a few hours?

    37. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      Why does everyone think I am Verizon's bitch on this?

      Do I need to point out what a Devil's Advocate is, in the opening statement, from now on?

      devÂil's adÂvoÂcate /ËËOEdevÉ(TM)lz ËadvÉ(TM)kÉ(TM)t/
      noun
      unpunctuated: devils advocate; noun: devil's advocate; plural noun: devil's advocates

              a person who expresses a contentious opinion in order to provoke debate or test the strength of the opposing arguments.
              "the interviewer will need to play devil's advocate to put the other side's case forward"
                      historical
                      the popular title of the person appointed by the Roman Catholic Church to challenge a proposed beatification or canonization, or the verification of a miracle.

      Or, in other words--- I am NOT in agreement that Verizon would be in the "Right" to do such a thing (or, in the wrong!), only that they COULD, and that I am curious--- This thread is explicitly to create debate, to better find truth.

      If anything, the cost of the bandwidth used by Archive could be ascribed by Verizon as a real cost of their unauthorized access, and was why they were explicitly forbidden said access, while other public accesses were not inhibited.

      For real people, I would rather that Verizon go fuck off and die in a corner. That's my official personal position on the matter, for the record.

    38. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Apology accepted.

    39. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Solandri · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is like saying "Hey, I noticed there was a lock on the front door, so I went in the back. Clearly, this was the proper thing. There was never a lock there before!"

      I'd agree with the analogy if tumblr had created all the content in the first place, content which made them famous on the web, then they decided to remove it from the web.

      That's not the case here though. Users created the content, and that content was what made the site famous. Then the company unilaterally decided to pull the users' content off the web, which they're allowed to do since it's their servers hosting it. Verizon doesn't own that content though, the users who uploaded it to tumblr did. As such, Verizon doesn't have the right to selectively block archive.org from accessing that content. The copyright holder has control over distribution, not Verizon. So Verizon has no right to discriminate against who can view the artworks (unless the copyright holders ceded that right to them - I dunno what tumblr's TOS say).

      So the more appropriate analogy here would be an art studio allowed people to hang their artwork on the walls of their building for the public to view. This became quite popular, making the building famous and a popular destination for tourists, and also making it quite valuable. Then suddenly the studio decides that it wants to remove some of that artwork (which it has the right to do since it's their building). Prior to the date of removal, the door is never locked. The public is still allowed to come in and view/make copies of the artwork. But when a photographer arrives to take photos of all the artwork to be removed, the studio blocks him (and only him) from entry.

    40. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're blaming the wrong folks because:
      "Archive Team is in no way affiliated with the fine folks at ARCHIVE.ORG"

    41. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      That's like claiming that if you do a public reading of a poem you wrote then reproducing or reusing that poem does not require authorization. It does, copyright does not get invalidated with the first public performance.

      Stuff on Tumblr is still protected by copyright law and while you have been given the right to view it on Tumblr anything else is still at the discretion of the copyright holder.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    42. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

      How about read this case law? It is similar but not exactly. Though, it is in California court.

    43. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by lgw · · Score: 1

      You're conflating two issues here. One is copyright. Archive.org is in the clear on that, thanks to language in the DMCA that explicitly allows archiving (and prior copyright law always allowed archiving). The other is "unauthorized access". When you make something public for everyone to see, there can be no unauthorized access. That may have changed when Verizon blocked their IPs, hard to say, but before that point there clearly was no issue.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    44. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Too bad the ruling went that way. I can understand the bandwidth issues of an archiver sucking it all up, but there are no other legitimate complaints. CL should have been required to get a restraining order from the court. And tumblr can just throtle their upload speeds after someone like an archiver goes past a set data cap. We should restrict the CFAA to sites that require a user login.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    45. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously, what is tumblr good for now?

      Containment for hordes of social justice warriors and annoying teenagers who try their hardest to be special by changing their gender and -kin status more often than normal people change their underwear.

    46. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's why I prefer the Crazy Ex analogy to the Locked Door analogy.

      Say you were dating someone and gave them a key to your house. Later you two break up but you don't bother to change your locks. You go on vacation. Your Ex decides to have a yard sale with all of your stuff. Am I at fault for buying your PS4 for $50? No, of course not. I had every reason to believe that the person selling it had the authority to do so. If you don't like the fact that the analogy included a sale, then lets say your Ex invites me into your house for a night of awesome sex on your bed. Am I at fault for trespassing? Again, of course not, as I had every reason to believe that the person inviting me in had the authority to do so.

      When someone improperly* secures their web server or puts confidential information on a public-facing server, they aren't leaving their door unlocked, they simply forgot that their Crazy Ex still had a set of keys to the house.

      *I don't mean like a hacker found a vulnerability in your server and tricked it into letting them in. I mean things like changing a number in a querystring and the server spits back information without bothering to validate that you should have access to that information.

    47. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Ichijo · · Score: 1

      the very presence of the lock [on the front door], indicates that the building's owner wishes to restrict entry.

      ...through the front door.

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    48. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are we even discussing this?

      Because every bit of law MUST be applied universally? That circumstances can never be taken into account when rendering a verdict / punishment?

      That's bullshit.

      The archivists win. Next question.

      Why? Because a corporation should not be allowed to unilaterally trample the speech of others. If they wanted to ban the content on their site for everyone, fine. Do so. But they are explicitly blocking the archivists, ahead of their massive censorship purge, for the sole reason of trying to purge the speech of others from their site and ensuring as much of that speech is irrevocably destroyed as possible.

      If such a thing were allowed to stand, it would be the beginning of the Ministry of Truth, going back to old documents and altering them for the purposes of aligning them to the political preferences of the current Party in power. That is disgusting in and of itself. The only difference in this case however, is that it would be a faceless and unaccountable corporation doing the modifications instead of a government. People may say "it's their site, they can do what they want with it.", but those people would be singing a very different tune if the likes of Google suddenly started censoring them, or the ideas they ascribe to. A possibility made much more likely given Tumblr's actions.

      The archivists win. Next question.

    49. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 2

      For what it is worth, I agree with you.

      However, what you or I assert, is not what holds authority.

      If enough of us assert it, it does. Either the laws are explicitly changed, or the courts "interpret" them to suit the current zeitgeist. I would argue that the "no permission needed to access any public website" convention is already firmly established in people's expectations, and IP range blocking does not constitute access control. When literally any other member of the public can access the site, an IP range block is the equivalent of "No Negros" on a public bathroom door.

      I am choosing that analogy with precision, not for the fact it triggers a percentage of the population. I consider the position of the copyright maximalist lobby to be precisely equivalent to the position of racists in 1960s America. They are that far diverged from the general population and they are that morally wrong. Media is culture. Attempting to own all media in perpetuity is attempting to own a culture, which is a hop, skip, and a jump away from owning people. Owning all media forever is an attempt to own minds, and from a certain angle, that looks an awful lot like slavery. Now I'm being slightly hyperbolic, but I'm also quite serious.

      George Orwell didn't make control of all media a central aspect of 1984 on a whim. He well understood the power it confers. I'm saying this is that. Between net neutrality being abolished and the CFAA being interpreted as a hammer to smash the likes of Aaron Swartz, we're well down that slippery slope, and accelerating. Archive.org pushing back is absolutely essential, and every last one of us needs to add our voices to theirs.

    50. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      You want the ideal analogy? Archive.org probably just downloaded such a vast amount that the tumblr operators noticed it and classed it as some sort of DDoS or abuse.

      So this is like an all-you-can-eat restaurant banning a customer because they have a stomach like a trash compactor.

    51. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why does everyone think I am Verizon's bitch on this?

      You asked a question, "In a legal battle between legitimate archival of content, and the laws governing unauthorized computer system access, which one wins?" Just because everyone seems to be in agreement that this does not qualify as unauthorized computer access, it doesn't mean we all think you are Verizon's bitch. But the fact that you think it means that, well, now I think you are since you are being so defensive about something no one is claiming. So.. congratulations?

      If I missed where someone did claim you were Verizon's bitch, then please correct me and link the post.

    52. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No (reasonable) limit on the size of text posts. Post a single word a novel.
      Posts in chronological order. I seriously don't know how people use other sites where this is not true.
      They don't collect personal data other than birth date.
      No presentation of how many followers a blog has; anyone's post can become popular is visible in the search.
      Better search/tagging capability that other sites.
      No limit on the number of posts you can have. (f*ck you, flickr, for your 1000 photo limit.)
      Works equally well for text or images.
      Communities range from neo-nazis to disabled muslim lesbian trans women.
      Easily accessible archives.
      Well-maintained API.

      There are a lot more reasons to use tumblr than porn.

    53. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is quite clear that Verizon DID NOT authorize the archivists to archive the data prior to the mass purge, as evidenced by the imposition of the IP blocking. As such, there is a strong case to be made that Archive.org was in contravention of the CFAA,

      You're confusing Archive.org and Archiveteam.org.

      First one has legal recognition from the US congress, second one is a group that describes themselves as 'a loose collective of rogue archivists'.

      From their home page:

      Archive Team is in no way affiliated with the fine folks at ARCHIVE.ORG

    54. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't pin this on 'the younger generation'. Plenty of old dudes seem to think this is 'unauthorized access'. See: court cases where 'hackers' were able to access 'private' data on a site through a publicly available URL but are convicted anyway.

    55. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I have noticed that the younger generation doesn't understand this

      Interestingly there doesn't seem to be anyone young writing or proposing laws on this topic, only old people. Rather than misattributing blame to some arbitrary age group, why not just call them by the label they deserve: Stupid people.

    56. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      It is quite clear that Verizon DID NOT authorize the archivists to archive the data prior to the mass purge, as evidenced by the imposition of the IP blocking

      How is that clear? How do you know that Verizon didn't make an honest mistake of auto-categorizing their traffic as a DoS?

      It seems to me they fanned out a bit to keep the Verizon IPS happy and kept some network engineers from having to deal with false alarms.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    57. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because I don't lock my door, doesn't mean it's an open invitation to walk right on in and make yourself a sammich or fuck my wife.

    58. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not quite. It is more like people coming from a particular direction are refused entry to the night club, so that person who was refused turns around and comes back from a different direction.

      They aren't blocking particular people, but people trying to enter arriving from a particular direction. Which barely even qualifies as security.

    59. Re:Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      just a note, Archive.org wasn't backing it up. ArchiveTeam was. the two aren't associated. but Jason Scott is somewhat in charge of both

    60. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      weev is a dick, but open, unconditional, zero-authorization-involved broadcast of data is public data, whether or not you "meant" it to be

    61. Re: Devil's Advocate / Semi-serious question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Cultural asset" is a very, very generous way of describing tumblr.

  7. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by rudy_wayne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good idea.

    Let the dictators write the history books.

  8. Re:Archiving tumblr is stupid. by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You might be surprised how valuable tumblr might be to future historians and anthropologists.

    The bullshit, and moronic things that people do with cameras and the like, are a valuable window in the the currently modern era. That it was uncensored, uncurated, and unabashed-- means it is of the MOST value to such future generations of historians-- It is free from the associated biases those practices append.

  9. My name is GayPK and I'm gay!! Woooooooo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My name is GayPK and I'm gay!! Woooooooo!

    I love 8=======D. I said I loooooooooove 8========D

  10. It doesn't matter anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They'll be gone just like the new myspace...

    If you shoot your fans, they usually don't come back. at least not in the same traffic.

    but maybe that was the point, a puritan company bought a product to kill.

    1. Re:It doesn't matter anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Tumblr was popular, but the thing is that there are many places to go from there. Pornhub is accepting all comers with open arms. People are interested in running their own sites with Amazon LightSail and WordPress, as you control the site, and can back it up, or use a WP extension to do that job for you.

      It is understandable to have a "family friendly" ethic, but I am pretty sure that the exodus from Tumblr to other sites will cost them more revenue than the "G" rated stance they have taken will bring in. Had Tumblr been "G" rated from the start, it would be a different story.

    2. Re:It doesn't matter anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Half Tumblr's content is not p*rn. That's a lot. And, I would venture, they've decided to build on that. Perhaps p*rn in some sense would have had a limited future on Tumblr. A tremendous amount of it is reblogged, and the ad revenue prospects are limited to companies that are willing to be associated with p*rn, prostitution etc. But going forward, establishing Tumblr as "family friendly" enables them to compete unhindered with the likes of YouTube for ad revenue.

  11. Pointless. by Colourspace · · Score: 1

    What an utter fucking waste of bandwidth and storage.

    1. Re:Pointless. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sure are

    2. Re:Pointless. by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      tumblr? Yeah, now it sure is.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  12. Which is the worst *BSD of all? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The weirdos who started BSD once had one kernel. Then they kept fighting with each other until it was split between a half-dozen incompatible kernels. But of all the fragments, I'd say NetBSD is the worst. It is so far behind the times that it will never catch up. Some subsystems are sort of current, others are ancient and full of bit rot. And really, the number of real users of NetBSD can be counted as maybe 100 or 200 max. Bad shit, amigo. Bad shit.

  13. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by butzwonker · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't see a any noteworthy difference between sexual exploitation and non-sexual exploitation. Some people get more upset about sexual issues than about other issues, because sex is still taboo in most societies and thinking about sex in the US is strongly influenced by Puritanism. The exaggerated concern about sexual issues is irrational and in some cases also very hypocritical. There is nothing wrong with sex, there is nothing wrong with masturbating and there is nothing wrong with pornography produced by consenting adult actors. And there is certainly nothing wrong with "female-presenting nipples". Moral outrage about these issues mostly indicates a certain lack of maturity.

    Now exploitation, that's a bad thing, or at least it sounds bad to me. We can agree on that. But that's a separate discussion.

  14. Hiding Misdeeds and Hypocrisy by Kunedog · · Score: 2

    It should be the case that they get express permission from a site owner before archiving a site.

    Or make it far easier than it currently is for a site to be deleted from the Archive.

    Plenty of sleazy journos who want to stealth-edit their articles agree with you.

  15. Protocols vs. services by Entropius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In the old days, the internet was built on protocols. "Social media" mostly meant things like Usenet and IRC, and people hosted websites by spinning up an Apache instance that spoke HTTP and would serve their content to anyone who asked. And so there was never that big of a stink about censorship-by-nonprovision-of-services, since anyone could run an IRC server. Communities themselves were responsible for their own infrastructure. Don't like a particular IRC client? Use a different one. Don't like the folks who run a particular IRC server? Run your own.

    But now that "I have apache running on a linux box in my basement hosting my blog" has given way to these "services", where communication platforms usually involve a for-profit company running all the infrastructure themselves in an opaque way. Aside from all the other issues that come from a corporate advertising-supported model, people are now learning that you can't trust these companies. The people I know who use tumblr as a primary means of communication are all going "gee, I wonder who else we can trust? We thought we could trust these folks."

    But ... this isn't inevitable, and there's no reason that the next big thing in social networking can't be designed as an open protocol, with no central point of control -- a system where people may choose to provide the infrastructure required to power their Facegram or Instabook or whatever themselves, or (more likely) hire someone replaceable to do it for them. Open protocols can't be sold out and can't be owned.

    Hardware capability is through the roof now. My smartphone has more storage, more processing power, and more bandwidth than the machines hosting IRC servers not that many years ago. There are no technical barriers to crowd-hosted social media.

    1. Re:Protocols vs. services by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Host your own content on your own server -> ISP bans you or the self-censoring CPU/MB removes the content for you. That's the direction we're headed. None of that "no central point of control" you're talking about. It will be baked into the hardware before the century is out. Good luck with that.

    2. Re:Protocols vs. services by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Agreed. Unfortunately, there's not a clear path from here to there.

      The good news is that in the lists of Tumblr alternatives, I did see some people seriously considering Plume, which is a federated blogging platform that can connect to other Fediverse federated blogs.

      In practice, the vast majority of people are not technical and aren't going to figure out how to run their own servers. That doesn't mean they'll never run their own servers; it means people with technical skills have to make running your own server user-friendly before they will. FreedomBox is one project working on that; the current state doesn't look super-user-friendly, but I think the goal is to be able to sell a box that you plug into your home internet that already has the software installed and can be configured over an easy web interface. Obviously, getting someone to install software is easier than getting them to buy a piece of hardware... although, most of the FreedomBox project is about making the software easier to use.

      Getting away from the corporate-hosted model for everyone's content involves both the outreach of making people understand it's a bad idea and actually giving them better options.

    3. Re:Protocols vs. services by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      The main use of social media isn't just hosting, it's discovery. You can post whatever you want on your own site, but it's almost certainly going to remain unknown - social media matches up your content with people who might actually want to see it.

    4. Re:Protocols vs. services by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      But ... this isn't inevitable, and there's no reason that the next big thing in social networking can't be designed as an open protocol, with no central point of control -- a system where people may choose to provide the infrastructure required to power their Facegram or Instabook or whatever themselves, or (more likely) hire someone replaceable to do it for them. Open protocols can't be sold out and can't be owned.

      Hardware capability is through the roof now. My smartphone has more storage, more processing power, and more bandwidth than the machines hosting IRC servers not that many years ago. There are no technical barriers to crowd-hosted social media.

      There's one huge technical barrier, which an anonymous coward two levels down touched on before disappearing down a Tor rabbit hole.

      Home connections are asymmetrical. Massively asymmetrical. An order of magnitude or TWO asymmetrical. Your home bandwidth can't handle serving up the data to support even your immediate family in hits, let alone your several hundred Facebook "friends". Not when you're posting high resolution images and video footage. It could eventually transmit everything to everybody the algorithms show it to, but by the time it could finish, most of them have hit the Back button and moved on. They don't have the patience to wait for it to load. Meanwhile on the centralized services, they can click and get a new page in 0.37 seconds, complete with a metric fuckton of "you might also like" thumbnails, advertising animated crap, and a streaming video in the corner that follows them down the page. Yes, a decentralized system can dispense with a lot of the bullshit, but it's an inescapable fact that the web today is rich media. It's not just text anymore. Your phone does have a ton of storage and a ton of processing power. It also has minuscule bandwidth compared to any datacenter anywhere.

      If we all had low latency, symmetrical gigabit connections, we could decentralize it all. The open source community could bash together the handful of missing pieces in a matter of months, and have a turnkey solution ready to plug in to any old random desktop in less than a year. Something to do with all that money the Mozilla Foundation is wasting on random bullshit changes to Firefox. But we don't.

      We can't build the decentralized web because we don't have the bandwidth for it. And the big national ISPs know this. They will work very hard to keep everything centralized because there's money on the line. There's lot of activities that can't be monetized when they're diffuse, but centralize them and suddenly you can milk millions, even billions of dollars out of them. The incumbents now have their hands on that money. They won't relinquish it easily. If ever.

    5. Re:Protocols vs. services by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      The good news is that in the lists of Tumblr alternatives, I did see some people seriously considering Plume, which is a federated blogging platform that can connect to other Fediverse federated blogs.

      In practice, the vast majority of people are not technical and aren't going to figure out how to run their own servers. That doesn't mean they'll never run their own servers; it means people with technical skills have to make running your own server user-friendly before they will. FreedomBox is one project working on that; the current state doesn't look super-user-friendly, but I think the goal is to be able to sell a box that you plug into your home internet that already has the software installed and can be configured over an easy web interface.

      FreedomBox has been around since freaking 2010. And it has Eben freaking Moglen behind it. And it's STILL too difficult.

      The last 20% of usability is 80% of the work. Open source is notorious for never exerting itself past the 80% mark. The difference between Linux on the Desktop and the Microsoft OSs is Microsoft spent the money to hammer away at that last 20%. It isn't much in functionality but it is a gulf of usability. Without it, FreedomBox and projects like it simply won't gain traction.

      Plex and FreeNAS are some of the pinnacles of achievement in self-hosted open source services today, and they both still require the care and feeding of a technical user or they don't work, or stop working in short order. Federated social media is harder than either of those things.

      Looming over all of this is security. Every set-it-and-forget-it device in the world today is a big fat lumbering target. Botnets are voraciously trying to vacuum up every last iota of unprotected equipment on the entire planet, and they have infinite machine patience. They're also increasingly sophisticated. I installed fail2ban at home, finally, and the goddamned things adjusted their behavior to compensate. It took less than a week.

      This is the environment in which FreedomBox and any similar project has to operate. On the user/owner side, enormous pressure to make things easy, which is nearly always inimical to security, and on the network side, enormous pressure from botnets attempting to pwn the device. That pressure is keeping the installed base down to a tiny sliver of what it would need to be before it puts a dent in any centralized service.

  16. Re:Archiving tumblr is stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    a valuable window into the^W the currently^W modern era

    Haha good god this is the sloppiest sentence I've ever seen

    (append??? WTF)

  17. IndieWeb is missing recommendation by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    people hosted websites by spinning up an Apache instance that spoke HTTP and would serve their content to anyone who asked. And so there was never that big of a stink about censorship-by-nonprovision-of-services

    How did people become "anyone who asked" in the first place?

    there's no reason that the next big thing in social networking can't be designed as an open protocol, with no central point of control

    The IndieWeb community is trying to build a more protocol-centric social web. Each IndieWeb user registers a domain and buys hosting to hold his or her own posts, and IndieWeb sites use Webmention requests (similar to pingbacks) to notify other sites that replies have been posted. Right now, the biggest missing piece of IndieWeb is a recommendation engine to suggest related works by other authors.

    Hardware capability is through the roof now.

    IPv4 address space, by contrast, is not. Nor is IPv6 routing; I haven't seen evidence that an IPv6-only website can become successful in gaining and keeping readers.

    My smartphone has more storage, more processing power, and more bandwidth than the machines hosting IRC servers not that many years ago.

    But it's missing one thing: the ability to accept incoming connections on IPv4. Most cellular ISPs put their subscribers behind carrier-grade NAT, as do even home ISPs in some countries. These ISPs give the same public IP address to a whole neighborhood and will refuse to forward inbound port 443 on your neighborhood's IP address to your machine.

    1. Re:IndieWeb is missing recommendation by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      It is only a matter of time before all ISPs switch to carrier NAT or block all incoming connections.

    2. Re:IndieWeb is missing recommendation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The IndieWeb is interesting but I'd like to point out that it suffers from what I'd call the "Web 2.0 Syndrom": It is impossible to find out what exactly it is (technically) or does (as a service) from the starting page. If you click the Join Now link, it suffers from the same vagueness. There is some talk about getting a domain, more salespitch, but no clear steps on how to obtain "IndieWeb" or join "IndieWeb" or what on earth this could mean.

      In a nutshell, from a quick glance at the web pages it is damn hard to figure out what IndieWeb actually is or does.

    3. Re:IndieWeb is missing recommendation by tepples · · Score: 1

      "why" and "Getting Started" would probably be the best entry points in my opinion.

      To join the IndieWeb, as I understand it:
      1. Start your own website on your domain.
      2. Configure your CMS's HTML output to use microformats2 classes.
      3. Configure your CMS to send and receive Webmention requests, so that you can leave replies to others' pages and show others' replies to your pages.

  18. SESTA? by jeti · · Score: 1

    And around the same time Facebook prohibits even the slightest sexual innuendo. Is this all coincidence or is it a response to the SESTA?

    1. Re:SESTA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. Basically anyone who has ever worked any time at all at Tumblr can vouch that upper management there are all completely and totally inept. For years now there has been a pro-pedophilia community operating in the open on Tumblr, using the site to traffic cp around, and Tumblr's management has fuck-all of any idea how to deal with it. So Tumblr's ultimate solution to this: just blanket ban all pornographic content.

      Given that verizon already wrote down Tumblr's value from $4 billion to basically worthless, I'd say it's got 6 months left to live.

    2. Re:SESTA? by Headw1nd · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure it's related. There are big moves afoot both against anonymity and for greater control of social media postings, all with the best of intentions (as always). I've recently seen otherwise reasonable people suggesting that the government needs to act to end anonymous posting, and I find it equal parts baffling, repugnant, and frightening.

  19. Re:Archiving tumblr is stupid. by wierd_w · · Score: 1

    From Webster:

    append verb
    apÂâpend | \É(TM)-Ëpend
    \
    appended; appending; appends
    Definition of append

    transitive verb

    1 : attach, affix appended a diagram to the instructions

    2 : to add as a supplement or appendix (as in a book) notes appended to each chapter

    In context--- The practices of censorship, curation, or social taboo attach additional biases to content that is otherwise free of those biases.

    Simply because your English parsing function got offended, does not mean you should turn off your brain sir.

  20. Re: Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Found the asshole social just-us nazi!

  21. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is still puritan thinking.

  22. Re: Yay! Save the porn! by kammermusik · · Score: 1

    Where is "they"? Let's beat "them" up!

  23. Re: Archiving tumblr is stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you wanna talk about sloppy, let's talk about your mom

  24. Re:Archiving tumblr is stupid. by sunking2 · · Score: 1

    I disagree. It's a massive amount of volume that doesn't really depict the real world at all. The real world looks nothing like what these 'influencers' or whatever depict.

  25. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Or make it far easier than it currently is for a site to be deleted from the Archive.

    archive.org retroactively honors robots.txt. How much easier do you want?

  26. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by kammermusik · · Score: 0

    So what? :o)

  27. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by MrNJ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's only a "problem" if you assume that selling your body for sex is somehow worse than selling your body for manual labor (getting paid to dig ditches or run network cables) or selling your intellectual ability
    It's not. It's the same thing. In a free society consenting adults can sell whatever they have.
    Of course on this site "free society" and "libertarian" are the insults.

    --
    I don't respond to or upvote ACs
  28. The Smug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "why look at that the archiving of tumblr restarted how did that happen must be a bug surely a crack team of activist archivists didn't see an ip block as a small setback and then turned everything up to 11."

    Oh my god, if that got any more smug it'd start selling Apple products.

  29. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by kammermusik · · Score: 0

    That's your opinion. Mine is different, I see a clear distiction between those two, as I expressed above. So let's agree to differ.

  30. Umm... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Where does the archive team host the content now?

    Asking for a friend.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
  31. Note quite by aepervius · · Score: 2

    It was more akin to have a guard at the door telling people they would not be accepted in if they came from the direction from the local library, but it is open door for everybody else not coming from the direction of the library. Then the local librarian went past the house and came back from the other way and the guardsman left him in. Nothing illegal and nothing was broken.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  32. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Sell their body for sex?

    Who pays for porn these days?

    And that's pretty much the problem, who do you think is behind those bans? And have you noticed that the only places that get hit by bans like that are the places where you get porn for free?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  33. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Opportunist · · Score: 0

    Me too! I feel disadvantaged and underprivileged, nobody would give a dime to see me fuck!

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  34. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by butzwonker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If this is about improving the working conditions of adult actors, then you can totally count me in. I've been for improved and free health care and social security not just for actors but also for sex workers during all my adult life so far. I also think there should be better mental health care for such professions (and paid leave, if necessary), because this kind of work is stressful.

    What I don't get is why consuming porn makes you "greedy" and what makes this "a problem". As I've said, this view is irrational and based on silly old taboos and religious superstitions. Adult actors are mostly in it for money, not for fun, these jobs pay way more than you could ever earn in any low wage job, but also come with a high level of distress and social stigmatization because of silly taboos. So your comparison to low wage jobs is puzzling. Now if your opinion is that it's better if adult actors would work at McDonald's and therefore the working conditions at McDonald's ought to be improved, I'd say, okay, that's an opinion one could have although I still don't see the point of it.

    Everybody should get a high enough salary to make a decent living under decent working conditions in any profession, so I'd focus on improving both kind of jobs.

  35. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by kammermusik · · Score: 0

    Aw, come on! Don't underestimate fetishism.

  36. Re:Archiving tumblr is stupid. by Falos · · Score: 2

    "Only applies to un/important things, as decided by Our Betters."

    This attitude seems benign in regard to what I too consider socnet drivel, but the same approach is used to arbitrarily axe, vilify, or even prosecute. Sometimes against a single person, sometimes upon a nation. Often it's Because Terrorists, Because Drugs, Think Of Children, etc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse)

    Let's say that big boy word again because it's The Point: arbitrarily

  37. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There needs to be some form of agreement what is meant to be persistent and what is meant to be ephemeral. The robots exclusion standard was a way of doing that, until the people at archive.org announced that they would ignore it and archive anyway. The alternative to a civilized agreement is that the majority of content will go "dark". Facebook is a good example of this. People no longer post their "blog" to the public. They mark everything private and only share with their friends. A radical archivist position means that there can be no ephemeral public information. As the stakes increase, many people find that they prefer to just take their communication private instead of living under the eternal scrutiny of having their online history archived. Radical archivists are killing the open web.

  38. Facebook Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There was story yesterday about Facebook tracking location even after user opted-out of tracking.
    Would this be in violation of the CFAA since they are using computer access to get information they were told not to get access to?

    Could they be sued for this?

    1. Re:Facebook Question by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      Possibly. There is no directly applicable precedent that I am aware of, and I am not a lawyer.

      I would very much LOVE for Facebook to have its greedy data grubbing paws lopped off in court with the CFAA on grounds of illegal device access. It would make my morning.

  39. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    so you think that we can kill the demand by eliminating the supply? If so, i have a bridge to sell you! There is a reason that someone who sells their body for sex is one of the oldest professions in history, reducing the supply will only increase the demand as every other type of prohibition has always done.

    Some people will always want to sell their bodies for sex as well, you should try talking to a sex worker, it may suprise you what their thoughts are on the matter. We definitly shouldnt be trying to make their minds up for them because the thing is that the majority of the consenting adults who perform in that industry could easily get other jobs and quite a few of them do have jobs and still do sex work because they like it and why not get paid for doing something you like.

    As for your argument about their psyche, are you a doctor? do you think its fair to paint everyone with the same brush? After all, how can you say that some events are bad for their psyche when they believe they are in it voluntarily? EVERY event in our lives marks our psyche and you have just determined that those specific actions are bad, based on no evidence and without having any form of communication with those people at all, instead you believe that your ideals are the best ideals and everyone else should have to follow them instead of being their own individual and making their own individual choices. Yet you have the gall to talk about exploitation in the same breath as you talk about exploiting the rest of us to fulfill your fantasy world.

    For the record, I sit in the legalize sex work camp, where people who want to do it can freely do it with the protections that every other kind of work gets. This also allows to reduce the stigma so that the people who don't want to do it can easily get out by going to the authorities. Much like how labor laws made it harder to exploit the worker, the same kind of protections should be made available for those who do and don't want to work in the sex work industry.

  40. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by kammermusik · · Score: 1

    Maybe. But did you ever think about the people who are exploited by their partners posting the supposedly private sex tapes/pics? It's not only money but also power. Btw., like everything else seemingly "free" you pay for porn with your data/via ad revenue.

  41. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    Sell their body for sex?

    Who pays for porn these days?

    And that's pretty much the problem, who do you think is behind those bans?

    The Amish?

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  42. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No "demand" by greedy people like you and me?

    If there was no "demand" Nike sneakers wouldn't be made with child labour in countries with low wage rates.
    If there was no "demand" iphones wouldn't be made in sweat shops by workers on the edge of exhaustion.
    If there was no "demand" we wouldn't be burning down rain forests to grow cows to make hamburgers.

    Every thing we do is driven by the "demand" of greedy people. This has nothing to do with the problem. How that demand is met is the problem and making a blanket statement like "porn is the problem" is no more valid than a blanket statement like "manufacturing iphones is the problem".

    I'm sorry if porn happens to be a trigger for you to lose your sensibilities.

  43. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    because sex is still taboo in most societies

    Your own words.

    I love porn, I don’t want it adorning the walls of my house.

    Post your crap somewhere else, on the GD INTERNET.
    but nobody else goes there
    Scornful facepalm.

  44. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by MrNJ · · Score: 1

    You did not explain what the distinction is.
    Why is it different in your opinion to
    a) make a video of yourself playing ping-pong clothed
    and
    b) make a video of yourself playing ping-pong naked.

    --
    I don't respond to or upvote ACs
  45. Archive them.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hopefully they archive the relevant boards, then use the same mechanism for DDoS of Tumblr. Have the sysadmins swearing "oaths" about their new overlords at Verizon/Oath/Yahoo. If you can't play with it, you can at least break the toy so no one else can have it.

  46. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Opportunist · · Score: 0

    There are things that should not be seen for what has been seen cannot be unseen.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  47. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Starts with the question why they pose for those tapes in the first place.

    But you might know that there are laws against this and it's fairly easy to get them enforced, so what exactly seems to be the problem?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  48. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's your opinion. Mine is different, I see a clear distiction between those two, as I expressed above. So let's agree to differ.

    That's fine for you, it that case I recommend you do not sell your body for sex.

    But that doesn't mean it isn't fine for other people who have different views.

  49. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by kammermusik · · Score: 0

    Greedy because I got hooked on it (which is my own fault). Problem because it creates demand. I compared it to low wage jobs because eco-fascists say, "you're not forced to do it", disregarding that people have to make a living somehow if they don't want to become criminals.

    I don't agree with you when you say all the distress is due to "silly taboos". It is stress to psyche per se with consequences like anxiety and depression. I suppose that people engaging in porn industry do not consider or maybe even know about the side effects beforehand.

    Apart from that: what's wrong with people that they have to archive pics or whatever from tumblr? As if there wasn't an incredible plethora of sources for that stuff available already. Noone could ever watch all that!

  50. Re:Archiving tumblr is stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ... doesn't really depict the real world at all. ...

    I have some bad news for you.

    Whatever 'real world' you think exists, just because you aren't part of a culture, group, or movement.... its value is not diminished nor heightened by your absence from it. Basically, your importance as you see it, and perspective, are over-rated. Just like mine, as I was not a part of Tumblr either.

    I'm hoping you realize there's 7 Billion people on the planet who don't care whether or not you or I exist, right?

  51. Who supports the ban? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It appears to me that the advocates for the Tumblr porn ban are a coalition of religious conservatives and radical feminists. But whenever I've seen this theory mentioned, the feminists vocally deny it, and claim that, "Mainstream feminism is generally sex-positive".

    I suspect that these denials are disingenuous. In fact, there is plenty of evidence of mainstream feminists advocating similar bans. For example, there was the Page 3 topless photo ban:

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/19/has-the-sun-axed-page-3-topless-pictures

    There was the Booth Babe ban:

    https://kotaku.com/5916237/e3-makes-me-really-appreciate-the-pax-ban-on-booth-babes

    And, of course, there is a very vocal anti-porn branch of femimism:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Porn_Culture

    I suspect that when somebody says that "Mainstream feminism is generally sex-positive," they're only supportive of a very specific, tightly-controlled, pro-feminist sort of sex.

    1. Re:Who supports the ban? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How dare you! I'll have you know, sir, that just yesterday I fucked a feminist!

      Er, wait... no I didn't. It was a rancid cantaloupe that I fucked yesterday. Sometimes I get those two mixed up. Sorry for the confusion.

    2. Re:Who supports the ban? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought it was the religionist puritans all along.

  52. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    People sometimes see themselves in the situation having to sell their bodies for sex. And that *is* indeed a problem

    I'll fix it one day.

  53. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    I've been for improved and free health care and social security

    So go fix it all, or help me fix it all.

  54. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Came here to post it, glad to see you raised that point. Sites can still take their ball and go home from the archive, but can't play Ministry of Truth and leave the content up.

  55. Re: Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is "punching a nazi" what you call it when you pull your pud to Tumblr porn?

  56. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    when has supply side anything worked?

  57. Punctuation Nazis by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 3, Funny

    Perhaps they are posting from an iPhone lol

    1. Re:Punctuation Nazis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, it seems to always be my friends using Androids that can't spell or punctuate for shit. Those on iPhones do just fine.

    2. Re: Punctuation Nazis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get new friends.

    3. Re: Punctuation Nazis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Buy new friends.

  58. Re: Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just stay away from linux.org. OMG.

  59. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, it doesn't anymore. It used to, but that changed.

  60. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No one would watch either of those videos.

    Now get your cat to play ping pong naked, and you'd make millions.

  61. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Radical archivists are killing the open web.

    I know you're trolling, but fuck you anyway. We have a right to archive anything we see. Period! You're just posting fascist bullshit.

  62. A list! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Holy Crap. A searchable list of 2.6million archived tumblr blogs: https://transfer.sh/13Aa3n/tum...

    By trying to rid the internet of porn, Verizon may have given us the best source yet.

    1. Re:A list! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Nice find. I managed to archive a couple-thousand images myself, but that's a drop in the ocean.

    2. Re:A list! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      On closer look, it's a list alone... where's the actual data?

    3. Re:A list! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Sadly on a closer look you're right. This was a list that the Archivers were hoping to scrape. Just doing a search around their Wiki it would seem they didn't even scratch the surface.

    4. Re:A list! by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I saw some people on /r/datahorders who had downloaded a good percentage. Some archivist might spend the next couple decades stitching it all together. One presumes that Verizon would rather crush the drives than help the archivists.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    5. Re:A list! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Where's the wiki? Might be able to throw in my tiny contribution.

    6. Re:A list! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      In TFS ;-)

  63. Because they refused the love of the truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Total Solar Eclipse Outtake: It has Blood on it!

    For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

    Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and hatred. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.

    Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.

    1. Re: Because they refused the love of the truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but, you smell bad.

  64. Re: Yay! Save the porn! by edris90 · · Score: 1

    Perhaps if it was easier to make as much money without exploitation then people would do it. But this is Western Society with its religious like infatuation with capitalism and profit. What you cactus in the majority of life is going to form a model for how you process the rest of life. It's unavoidable. What You practice you become good at until it feels natural, which means that is now the primary means of processing information by default

  65. Re: The more I think about the Internet Archive, t by edris90 · · Score: 1

    Censorship , business interest, and the demands of oppressive , hypersensitive, people with poor critical thinking skills is what's killing the web.

  66. Switch to CJDNS, I2P, Tor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The only reason any of this is an issue is because of how they chose to allocate IP addresses when they first 'commercialized them', then because of internet bandwidth caps enforced by ISPs (starting with people like AOL and Earthlink, and moving on to formerly unlimited ISPs as either their upstream providers started charging more, or as it became impossible to get unlimited bandwidth connections.)

    The real solution today is new backbones with flat allocations, similar to the older dedicated circuits of the telephone era, and pushing that no quota policy downstream so that the only restriction on internet bandwidth, both up and down, is based on actual traffic on a fairly queued allocation.

    But we can't have that, because moar moniez! Really if everyone could get datacenter style unlimited bandwidth at home, at comparable rates, none of this would be an issue, as everyone could host their own if they so desired. But today the only people who can do that are living in places they will be in for 1-3 years (contract for a business class connection) and are paying 2-3x the price for asymmetric internet, or up to 10x for symmetric internet speeds, compared to their quota'd asymm/symm residential internet packages.

    I know. I looked into it. Then I moved to Tor/I2P/CJDNS for my network accessable services. It may not guarantee anonymity or security, but it does guarantee network transparency and accessability almost anywhere in the world, which is more than IPv4 or IPv6 via clearnet carriers offers anymore.

    Make the switch, we can start the social and technical aspects of a new internet today, and begin saying 'fuck you' to corporate ownership of our personal information.

  67. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm giving you information. It doesn't matter whether you believe it. It's happening anyway.

  68. Re: Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Amish just block the porn by not having electricity in their buildings or vehicles. Even if young 13 year old Ike acquires an illicit mobile device from somewhere he has no place to charge it.

  69. Re: Yay! Save the porn! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    The Amish just block the porn by not having electricity in their buildings or vehicles. Even if young 13 year old Ike acquires an illicit mobile device from somewhere he has no place to charge it.

    Some around here have a phone on a light pol in the middle of a field. Guess that's okay. Maybe they use dilaup to get their porn fix?

    Hmm - sounds kinky.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  70. Re: Yay! Save the porn! by TheMeuge · · Score: 2

    So you're free not to look. Your freedom not to be offended doesn't give you the right to regulate legal content you find objectionable, as long as you're not forced to consume it.

  71. Re:Archiving tumblr is stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You might be surprised how valuable tumblr might be to future historians and anthropologists.

    Anthropologists always say they get more information out of a garbage heap than a library.

  72. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    But that doesn't mean it isn't fine for other people who have different views.

    Those people are free not to sell their own bodies and I applaud them for their independent thinking and would greatly appreciate if they kept their independence away from everyone else.

  73. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Sorry replied to the wrong comment. #tired #needcoffee #hotcoffeemod

  74. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1

    Here, here!

    --
    "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
    --- Jerry Garcia
  75. Typo in summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and it turns out that Verizon decided as a final "HUG you" to cut them off.

    ftfy

  76. The Epic Asshole by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're the worst kind of asshole. You can't control your shit, so you need it cast from thine sight so you won't be tempted by the devil. You can fuck right off a cliff.

  77. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

    Starts with the question why they pose for those tapes in the first place.

    But you might know that there are laws against this and it's fairly easy to get them enforced, so what exactly seems to be the problem?

    The problem is mostly that once it's on the internet, it's forever on the internet--and some of the really nasty cases, the answer to why they posed for those tapes in the first place basically comes down to "they didn't (willingly) pose." There's laws against this, too, but regardless of the ease of getting them enforced, the laws don't really do well at getting the material off the internet.

    I suspect it could be helped by setting it up so your protection against users posting these images does in fact require you do your own due diligence--with the gold standard being something along the lines of you requiring copies of the legal releases...which are standard to have for any work made for commercial release, because they protect your rear end against a lot of things. These things are boilerplate forms, too, so even a site specializing in amateur work should not have trouble--just provide users with the form. (It also is a good sign of how legit any modeling or acting job is--if they don't want a release, or they won't let you have a copy of it, run.)

  78. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    It sounds like one of the excuses for the conditions people "voluntarily" subject themselves to when they take on a minimum wage job. "They can quit anytime they want to, after all, right?".

    . . . If it sounds like that then it's a pretty ok system. Because... yeah, everyone voluntarily (with no quotes) subjects themselves to a job in exchange for cash. And except for some crazy contract, the military, some professionals, you can just choose to quit whenever. The alternatives are: Slavery, or abolishing capitalism. And remember that the minimum is a good thing and some people don't even make that at their job.

  79. Funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Verizon blocked their IPs, because they don't understand how the internet works. Which is pretty damned funny, considering they have bought a lot of it. LOL.

    Next someone's going to tell me I can only watch a DVD in the country I bought it in. Sigh.

  80. In other news... by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    Tumblr some time ago provided a switch that would allow blog owners to set their blogs as explicit or exclude them from search results (the latter toggled on automatically if you activate the former, although if you wanted to remove your SFW blog from search you could do so).

    Recently they disabled the ability to deactivate these toggles - once you opt out of search or mark your blog as 'explicit', it's permanent, the toggles grayed out. That is, unless you edit the HTML source (e.g. through built in dev tools of Firefox or Chrome) and remove the relevant 'disabled'. Submit the changes and your blog is SFW again.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:In other news... by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      (oops, didn't notice Tumblr deleted the original post... but since reblogs are actual copies and not just links, good luck deleting all the posts by people who reblogged it... e.g. link)

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  81. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm giving you information.

    No you're not. You're shoveling bullshit (trolling). And who cares if you don't like it? We have the right to archive anything put into public view, even if it's behind a login screen. So again, go fuck yourself

  82. Re:The more I think about the Internet Archive, th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You don't get it. Much of what would have been public won't be. It will be private communication. No, you don't have the right to archive that, and it won't matter whether you have that right, because you won't ever see it. And it's already happening.

  83. What a bunch of wankers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps you should stop looking at PICTURES of women and get out in the real world and actually talk to real ones? Face all the emotional pain and distress that that may cause you, and go through it. Eventually you may find a real woman who actually loves you, and you can actually make love to a real, living human being, who holds you and cares for you.

    Alternatively, spend the rest of your life clicking and clicking through picture after picture, using the 'death grip' on your penis while you try to ejaculate for the third time in two hours, and become impotent due to looking at pornography. What could possibly go wrong? Masturbation is completely unnatural, and is the act of a desperate individual. I know, I was just like you. I haven't masturbated for over a year now, I have a real, living girlfriend.

    www.yourbrainonporn.com

    1. Re: What a bunch of wankers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sound like a desperate virgin.

  84. Re:Yay! Save the porn! by djinn6 · · Score: 1

    Trying to remove something from the internet is the same as removing a piece of memory from thousands of people. It's possible if you're willing to lobotomize them.

    The real solution is to get over it. There are millions of porn videos out there, more than what any one person can reasonably see in a lifetime. Many of them far more appealing. Why should anyone watch yours?

  85. Re: Yay! Save the porn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Castrate them all.