Illegal humanitarianism: zlibrary; honeypot?
When you first visit zlibrary, a humanitarian organization providing illegal access to books online, it appears to be a honeypot for uploaders, requiring an email to sign up, and providing no access without an account.
But in the past, it turned out that you were permitted to make an account with an anonymous email, thus partially alleviating the concern.
Today it appears that they have confirmed their status as a honeypot by purging all* anonymous accounts from the platform.
*I had set up an anonymous account for research purposes (to observe the site) months ago. Today they made a telegram announcement about ongoing DOS attacks and anonymous account bans:
------ "⚠️Many of you have noticed that our website has been experiencing instability in the last few days, including registration problems and issues with email delivery. The fact is that we have been under a massive attack by bots during this time, and our team has been working diligently to address the consequences of these attacks. We have also blocked accounts that were registered using temporary emails and exhibited suspicious activity. If your account is listed as "deleted," please email us at support@z-lib.se and we will assist you in resolving the issue.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause." ------
After reading I checked my account, and it had been deleted, without having ever spammed at all!
I believe they they may intend to deanonymize the small portion of anonymous users. This may be an honest mistake, or it may mean the organization has been infiltrated, or that they have always been government. The risk of using the platform is now too great for those who rely on it for access to books, education, and culture. It is particularly risky for those that participate in the humanitarian efforts associated with the organization despite their illegally in powerful extremist capitalist and authoritarian countries like the United States and those under her control, who treat distribution of important digital content as a form of theft despite the reality that no one looses anything.
Update ( 1 week later): anonymous accounts still banned, new anonymous registrations fail silently (confirmation email is never actually sent)