More fun publisher surveillance: Elsevier embeds a hash in the PDF metadata that is *unique for each time a PDF is downloaded*, this is a diff between metadata from two of the same paper. Combined with access timestamps, they can uniquely identify the source of any shared PDFs.

@AndyPerfors @ceptional good question, and unfortunately yes the metadata does seem to be intact on sci-hub. Gently, since we may be on same page, I think the time for being coy is over, and it's time to start vocally advocating against and actively working to replace the for-profit publication system.

@json_dirs @AndyPerfors @ceptional > I think the time for being coy is over Exactly! I mean, this "I would never actually advise you to take the stolen goods back from that bully in the corner" was cute for the first year or so, while the idea of publishers being unethical and evil was still novel and surprising.

@json_dirs @AndyPerfors @ceptional Aaron Swartz

@json_dirs @AndyPerfors @ceptional yes but the metadata on sci-hub doesn’t change on every download and publishers are likely to know all the tags on sci-hub articles already. conversely if you share an article downloaded from sci-hub publicly they will know the copy is from sci-hub

@json_dirs @AndyPerfors @ceptional Por que no los dos? Can't claim any infringement against a specific individual if we strip the metadata. Can't prosecute us - yet, anyway - for advocating against the Tivoization of academic research. Best of both worlds. Working temp solution + working on a perm solution.