作者： Alexandra  翻译：科大云炬

I decided to make a quick summary of facts about Sci-Hub and myself, because in our times you cannot fully trust articles published in media, Wikipedia pages. Well, they do present facts about Sci-Hub that are correct in general, but at the same time there are mistakes in minor details. These details however create incorrect impression about the project. So, I want to make a quick look-up page with basic information about Sci-Hub and me that is reliable and first-hand.

我决定对SCI-Hub和我自己的事实做一个快速的总结，因为在我们的时代，你不能完全信任在媒体、维基百科页面上发表的文章。 嗯，他们确实提出了关于SCI-Hub的事实，这些事实总的来说是正确的，但同时在小细节上也有错误。 然而，这些细节给项目带来了不正确的印象。 因此，我想做一个可靠地最原始地关于SCI-HUB项目和本人的回顾，

Who is Alexandra Elbakyan and how the project started?Alexandra Elbakyan是谁，项目是如何开始的？

I’m a computer programmer behind Sci-Hub. I created the website in September, 2011 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

In Kazakhstan, my homeland, access to LiveJournal website was blocked by government. LiveJournal is a blog system, where anyone can write their articles. Hence to access LiveJournal, I had to use ‘anonymizer’ websites. You go to such a website, paste a link to any webpage — for example LiveJournal article — and you can open it.

So I got the idea: we need the same for research articles. It took me two or three days to write the code and upload it to free PHP webhosting. And so Sci-Hub got live, and started processing requests from users (it almost immediately became very popular)

我是创建SCI-Hub的计算机程序员。 我于2011年9月在哈萨克斯坦阿拉木图创建了这个网站。

在哈萨克斯坦，我的祖国，访问LiveJournal网站被政府封锁。 生活期刊是一个博客系统，任何人都可以在那里写他们的文章。 因此，为了访问LiveJournal，我不得不使用“匿名者”网站。 你去这样一个网站，粘贴一个链接到任何（政府封锁的）网页-例如实时文章-你可以打开它。

所以我有了一个想法：我们在获取期刊文章方面也有同样的需求。 我花了两三天时间编写代码并上传到免费的php网上托管空间。 因此，sciHub上线了，并开始处理用户的请求（它几乎立即变得非常流行）

indeed, i had a dream to write software for easy access to research since 2009. i was an undergaduate student in kazakh national tech university and got into problems while trying to access research papers needed for my research project. so i thought it would be cool to write some software to automatically download such papers. however in 2009 it was only a blurry non-specific idea.

事实上，自2009年以来，我一直梦想着编写软件使科研变得更加边界。我是哈萨克国立理工大学的一名本科生，在试图获得我的课题所需的研究论文时遇到了问题。 所以我认为写一些软件来自动下载这样的论文是很酷的。 然而，在2009年，这只是一个模糊的不明确想法。

i learned html at age 12 using free tutorial avaiable on the internet. i started programming in high school and first learned php, delphi and assembly programming languages on myself, before i got to the university. i was interested in information security and entered kazakh national tech university in 2005 to study information technologies with a security speicalization. here i improved programing skills a lot.

我12岁时在互联网上使用免费教程学会了html。 我开始在高中编程，在我上大学之前，我首先自学了php、Delphi和汇编编程语言。 我对信息安全感兴趣，并于2005年进入哈萨克国立技术大学学习具有安全特色的信息技术。 在这里，我提高了很多编程技能。

After graduation I wanted to continue in science and do research in bioengineering. Apart from computer and information technologies, I was interested in neuroscience, consciousness and artificial intelligence and while studying at university, collected a lot of ebooks on that topic. They were all downloaded from ‘pirate’ websites.

毕业后，我想继续从事科学和生物工程的研究。 除了计算机和信息技术，我对神经科学、意识和人工智能感兴趣，在大学学习期间，我收集了很多关于这个主题的电子书。 他们都是从“侵权”网站下载的。

So in 2010 I tried to work in a few neuroscience research labs in Russia, Germany and United States. I read online that you can write to the professor and s/he will accept you to their lab. So I did the same and that’s how I got into laboratories. Here I also did programming, but for bioengineering applications. However I found it boring. I wanted to work on greater things: such as the Global Brain. I even was lucky to give a talk on that topic in H+ transhumanist conference in Harvard.

因此，在2010年，我尝试在俄罗斯，德国和美国的一些神经科学研究实验室工作。 我在网上看到可以通过给教授的写信的方式进入他们的实验室， 所以我采用这种方式进入了实验室。 在这里，我也进行了编程，但是用于生物工程应用。 但是我觉得很无聊。 我想从事更大的工作：例如Global Brain。 我还很幸运在哈佛的H+ transhumanist会议上就这个话题发表了演讲。

in 2011 i returned to kazakhstan and worked for a few months as a freelance web-programmer. i created websites and applications on php language. and finally i was able to code sci-hub.

在2011年，我回到哈萨克斯坦，做了几个月的自由职业网络程序员。 我在php语言上创建了网站和应用程序。 最后我能够编码SCI-Hub。

Was there any funding for Sci-Hub?SCI-Hub项目有资助吗？

there was no. sci-hub started by accident, there was no big plan behind it. after a couple of months, users asked to add some option to donate and help the project. sci-hub is living on the donations for years. there were some big donations, but there was never any specific funding behind the project.

没有。 sci-hub的创办是偶然的，背后没有什么大计划。 几个月后，用户要求添加一些选项来捐赠和帮助项目。 sci-hub依靠捐款生活了好几年。 有一些大的捐款，但这个项目的背后从来没有任何具体的资金。

Was any government involved in creating Sci-Hub?是否有任何政府参与创建SCI-Hub？ 

I was interested in politics and always supported communism, but Sci-Hub has always been a personal project. Even if some government helped, for example by sending anonymous donations, it was completely invisible to me. Using the Occam’s razor, no government was involved.

我对政治感兴趣，总是支持共产主义，但SCI-Hub一直是一个人项目。 即使有政府帮助，例如发送匿名捐款，它对我来说是完全看不见的。 使用奥卡姆的剃须刀原则，这个项目是没有政府参与的。

Is there any team behind Sci-Hub?在SCI-Hub后面有团队吗？

No, and never was. I do all the programming and server configuration myself. I also do all the Twitter posts and communication with users and media. I use Google to search for pictures to use on the website and social networks.

There a people though, who create mirrors of Sci-Hub articles database. I run a few mirrors and other mirrors are run independently, and Sci-Hub also uses accounts to access library resources provided by others.

不，从来没有。 我自己做的所有的编程和服务器配置。 我也做所有的Twitter帖子和与用户和媒体的沟通。 我用谷歌搜索网站和社交网络上使用的图片。 然而有人创建了SCI-Hub文章数据库的镜像网站。其中只有一小部分镜像网站是我运维的，其他大部分镜像镜像网站是由其他人在运维的，甚至还使用帐户访问访问图书馆的文献资源。

What is the relationship between Sci-Hub and Library Genesis projects? Sci-Hub和Libgen项目是什么关系

Sci-Hub started in 2011 as a web application to download research article requested by user, using library accounts. There was no storage for downloaded articles. In 2012 Library Genesis, that collected e-books, wanted to collect research articles too and started saving papers downloaded by Sci-Hub to their database.

In 2013 the number of requests to Sci-Hub grew, and I re-programmed Sci-Hub to check if article was already stored in Libgen; if it was, the user was redirected to Libgen database.

In 2014, I copied articles collected by Libgen to create Sci-Hub’s own database. I did not fork Libgen: only the papers PDF files were copied. Then I configured new servers to serve these files to Sci-Hub users.

Today Sci-Hub uses it’s own servers to store research papers. However all new articles downloaded by Sci-Hub are mirrored to Library Genesis databases too. Libgen also publishes torrents to download these papers.

sci-hub started in 2011 as a web application to download research article requested by user, using library accounts. there was no storage for downloaded articles. in 2012 library genesis, that collected e-books, wanted to collect research articles too and started saving papers downloaded by sci-hub to their database.in 2013 the number of requests to sci-hub grew, and i re-programmed sci-hub to check if article was already stored in libgen; if it was, the user was redirected to libgen database.in 2014, i copied articles collected by libgen to create sci-hub’s own database. i did not fork libgen: only the papers pdf files were copied. then i configured new servers to serve these files to sci-hub users.today sci-hub uses it’s own servers to store research papers. however all new articles down

SCI-Hub于2011年开始作为一个Web应用程序使用图书馆帐户下载用户要求的研究文章， 下载的文章没有存储。 在2012年，Libgen项目收集电子书和研究文章，并开始将sci-hub下载的论文保存到他们的数据库中。2013年，对sci-hub的请求数量增加，我重新编程sci-hub，以检查文章是否已经存储在libgen中；如果是的话，用户被重定向到libgen数据库。2014年，我复制了libgen收集的文章，以创建sci-hub自己的数据库。 我没有完全拷贝libgen：只复制其中的PDF文献。 然后，我配置了新的服务器来向sci-hub用户提供这些文件。今天，sci-hub使用自己的服务器来存储研究论文。然而，所有由sci-hub下载的新文章也被镜像到 Libgen数据库。 Libgen还发布了下载这些论文的种子文件。

…and question that is always asked:

How is Sci-Hub different from Aaron Swartz?总是被问到的问题：sci-hub和Aaron Swartz网站有什么不同？

how different between each other are plos one, arxiv.org and budapest open access initiative? all these projects work on providing free access to research papers, however it is easy to see: there are very different between each other.

SCI-HUB和PLOSOne、Arxiv.org和 budapest等获取预印稿的网站有什么不同？ 所有这些项目都致力于免费获得研究论文，但很容易看到：彼此之间有很大的不同。

sci-hub is a web application that can open research paper requested by user, from database or by downloading it. all downloaded papers are collected in database. the database grew for a few years.

SCI-Hub是一个Web应用程序，可以打开用户请求的研究论文，从数据库或下载它。 所有下载的论文都收集在数据库中。 数据库增长了几年。

a. swartz, as far as i know his story, made an attempt to download a few million research papers from jstor website in 2010. the download was noticed and he got arrested. perhaps he wanted to upload all downloaded research articles on torrent. in 2009 i did similar things: i downloaded nature and scientific american journal volumes and uploaded them on ‘pirate’ websites where people share e-books, and i also shared there volumes on torrents. a lot of people were doing it then.

据我所知，斯沃茨a.在2010年试图从jstor网站下载数百万篇研究论文。下载被发现了，他被捕了。 也许他想上传所有下载的研究文章到种子网站。 在2009年，我做了类似的事情：我下载了自然和科学美国期刊卷，并将它们上传到“侵权”网站上，人们在那里分享电子书，我也分享了大量的文献种子文件。 当时很多人都在做这件事。

in 2004 i even programmed a php script that could automatically download paywalled e-books from mit cognet website, using a bug. even though it sounds very similar to sci-hub, it is completely different in design and function.

在2004年，我甚至编程了一个php脚本，通过麻省理工学院Cognet网站的Bug可以自动从麻省理工学院Cognet网站下载付费电子书。 即使它听起来非常类似于SCI-Hub，它在设计和功能上是完全不同的。

before sci-hub, there were a lot of illegal websites where any person could download e-books for free. sci-hub became the first website where you can download articles on a massive scale, not e-books only. before sci-hub there were other websites to get research papers for free but they were also different from sci-hub in design.

在SCI-Hub之前，有很多非法网站，任何人都可以免费下载电子书。 SCI-Hub成为第一个网站，你可以下载大量的文章，而不仅仅是电子书。 在SCI-Hub之前，还有其他网站免费获得研究论文，但它们在设计上也不同于SCI-Hub。

there are similarities with a. swartz but to say they are the same is some kind of an illusion that arises from lack of understanding of complexity. the similar illusion is to think that all black people, or all chinese people are the same, because white person cannot easily recognize their faces.

我的做法与A.Swartz有相似之处，但要说它们是相同的，就是某种错觉，这是由于缺乏对复杂性的理解而产生的。 类似的错觉是认为所有的黑人，或所有的中国人都是一样的，因为白人不能轻易地认出他们的脸。

原文链接：Sci-Hub and Alexandra basic information – engineuring