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jtrn 3 hours ago

I also oppose fascism, militarism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, like what A/I do... And none of that is illegal... At least not in any civilised society. So what did they do to trigger so many? I remember the Norwegian stuff (since I’m Norwegian), and I remember thinking it sounded like bullshit to copy their entire server drive when they wanted access to the blog of two people.

From what I could gather, it seems various governments accused them of deliberately providing infrastructure to groups whose violent activities they supported, such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with communications associated with railway sabotage, attacks on energy infrastructure and the “Jane’s Revenge” arson campaign (whatever the hell that is).

Here’s a snippet I found on the net: "Italian police installed a server backdoor in 2004 during an investigation into the anarchist collective Crocenera. It was discovered in 2005. According to contemporary EDRi reporting, the access potentially exposed communications belonging to thousands of unrelated users; EDRi explicitly noted that actual collection of unrelated data had not been proven. EDRi’s contemporary report"

Huge disclaimer on this, since it’s just my musings: This might be one of the situations where both sides are in the wrong. It’s possible that A/I willfully turned a blind eye to actual illegal activity by its users, and refused to cooperate with legal investigations. At the same time, various governments, including mine, overreacted and behaved unethically and maybe even illegally because A/I “didn’t want to play ball.”

Just speculation. But the fact that I can’t easily find concrete examples of what A/I supposedly did wrong makes me inclined to feel sympathy for them. I hate unspecific allegations like “facilitation of problematic and terroristic-adjacent activities.” That’s some 1984-ish bullshit.

I have no clue what I’m talking about here, though. Strange situation and too little information...

reilly3000 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20... This designation offers some specific examples of violence being coordinated using their systems. Some are indeed extreme, if true. That doesn’t invalidate their mission or overall contribution to the world at large; it just was sufficient ammo for extinguishing another threat to power.

jtrn 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This does not show what they (A/I) did. The only concrete examples are of bad behavior by some users. Then there’s a bunch of generic claims against A/I, with NO specifics.

So, yeah, it might be true. But I find no concrete examples of what bad stuff A/I themselves did, just their users. Personally, I would like for there to be at least SOME concrete examples. Like, “This convicted terrorist had a blog on their infrastructure, and A/I refused to hand over data they had, even when presented with a valid court order.” Or something like that. Is it too much to ask that the government provide some concrete evidence, not just abstract vage accusations, when doing something as drastic as designating someone a terrorist organization? It would seem so...

This is a knock on the state.gov item, not your comment. Your comment was good.

SpicyLemonZest 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The problem is that, as A/I themselves explained (https://www.inventati.org/who/collective), they worked hard to ensure that they do not possess any evidence of or data about who is using their infrastructure.

3ahs1l 2 hours ago | parent [-]

autistici.org said the opposite:

https://web.archive.org/web/20260826145332/https://www.autis...

"We provide our services strictly for non-commercial use, in order to provide support exclusively to individuals or groups we feel we have an affinity with. In order to verify the existence of these pre-conditions, each and every service request is processed manually by one of our volunteers and is in a dialogical form. All requests are anonymized and will be destroyed."

Anonymized how? Before the first contact? After the conversation?

If anyone here wants to set up a similar service: This is patently stupid for an ISP to attempt.

aetch 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Sounds like they vet the users request before giving them access. After that the usage is anonymous. It’s not that deep

swiftcoder 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20... This designation offers some specific examples of violence being coordinated using their systems

All that demonstrates is that they operated a public email/messaging server. One could have coordinated the exact same things using ProtonMail or Signal.

upofadown 33 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I note that that extensive list only contains a single death, due to a power failure. Extreme civil disobedience, but not really terrorism.

philstephenson 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> “That doesn’t invalidate their mission or overall contribution to the world at large;”

Give me a break. Ends to not justify all means. This is a completely appropriate response by the state department.

queenkjuul an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Why aren't they banning Signal?

nullsanity 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

ranyume 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> And none of that is illegal... At least not in any civilised society

I mean, the capitalist system is a barbaric system with defenders that do make opposition illegal...

jtrn 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, but there are degrees. I’d rather have a conversation about trans rights here in Oslo than in Afghanistan.

ranyume 3 hours ago | parent [-]

How do you think LGBTQI+ rights came exist? It was not a pretty, blood-free, submissive process. And we're still far from LGBTQI+ rights being normalized.

How about workers rights? Slavery? Any progress that you'd think of as civilizing was not achieved without blood.

dvdkon an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I don't remember any LGBTQI+ wars here in the Czech Republic, so "blood free" actually seems like a good characterisation. Sometimes the system just works.

See also the Velvet Revolution for a pretty large shift away from totalitarianism without any deaths.

goosejuice 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Indeed. Must also acknowledge that such tactics generate the seeds of opposition. i.e. hate begets hate and violence begets violence.

akhasg 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

jtrn 3 hours ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

123hz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You go from "I have no clue what I’m talking about here, though. Strange situation and too little information..." to "That’s at best a simplistic framing."?

And allude to specific incidents without links? WTF?