As the world’s leading free distributor of millions of oftentimes ‘paywalled’ research papers, Sci-Hub is often described as “The Pirate Bay of Science”.
While this status warms the hearts of many researchers, academics and students around the world, especially those with limited resources available to access education, Sci-Hub has also accrued many high-powered enemies.
These are not limited to major publishing houses angry at their content being distributed for free. Founder Alexandra Elbakyan is also a person of interest to elements of the US government’s intelligence and security services, which appear to be conducting an investigation into the computer security expert.
Elbakyan’s Apple Account Compromised
In May 2021, Elbakyan received an email from Apple (via her Gmail account) advising her that in 2019, Apple had received a request from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) that requested “information” from her Apple account.
Quite what information the FBI requested wasn’t made clear but Apple did advise the Sci-Hub founder that due to the nature of the request, Apple was only allowed to provide “delayed notice” to Elbakyan.
Now, 10 months later, it appears that the FBI also made another request, this time to tech giant Google.
Google Now Confirms It Too Handed Over Data to the FBI
In January 2021, Twitter suspended the official Sci-Hub account so when site updates are published, they now tend to appear on Elbakyan’s personal account. A new tweet this week reveals that Google was also required to hand over her account data.
In an email to Elbakyan dated March 2, 2022, Google advises that following a legal process issued by the FBI, Google was required to hand over data associated with Elbakyan’s account. Exactly what data was targeted isn’t made clear but according to Google, a court order required the company to keep the request a secret.
“Google received and responded to legal process issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation compelling the release of information related to your Google account,” the email reads.
“A court order previously prohibited Google from notifying you of the legal process. We are now permitted to disclose the receipt of the legal process to you.”
Google notes that since it is “not in a position” to provide Elbakyan with legal advice or to discuss the substance of the legal process, the Sci-Hub founder may wish to contact an attorney.
The big question remains – what exactly is the investigation about?
Usual Piracy Allegations or Something More?
Given the scale of Sci-Hub and its notoriety around the world, it’s certainly possibile that a criminal copyright infringement investigation is underway in the United States that could feasibly lead to an indictment for Elbakyan and any cohorts involved in the operation. However, more serious allegations have been made in the past.
Back in December 2019, The Washington Post reported that Elbakyan was being investigated by the US Justice Department on suspicion that she “may” be working with Russian intelligence to “steal U.S. military secrets from defense contractors.”
No solid evidence was published to back up those allegations but the publication did note that Elbakyan may have collected log-in credentials from journal subscribers in order to access academic literature, presumably so that it can be offered on Sci-Hub.
For her part, Elbakyan denied the more sinister allegations of being connected to Russia in any official capacity.
“I know there are some reasons to suspect me: after all, I have education in computer security and was a hobby hacker in teenage years. But hacking is not my occupation, and I do not have any job within any intelligence, either Russian or some another,” Elbakyan said at the time.
“I think that whether I can be a Russian spy is being investigated by U.S. government since they learned about Sci-Hub, because that is very logical: a Russian project, that uses university accounts to access some information, of course that is suspicious. But in fact Sci-Hub has always been my personal enterprise.”
The case number relating to the data release from Google: 18-2; 18gj3650; 18-3532
