The Internet Archive is under attack, with a popup claiming a ‘catastrophic’ breach
The Internet Archive is under attack, with a breach revealing info for 31 million accounts
I can’t think of any reason to attack that website, what have they done wrong?
I have zero proof of this so take it for the musing it is, but the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine can be used to view articles that have been taken offline (sometimes for political reasons). The IA is a very accessible way to prove that once something is on the Internet, it's out there forever. I used it in a recent post to show an Israeli newspaper article that argued Israel had a right to not just Palestine, but Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and other territories. It was taken off the newspaper's website a few days later, but IA had it.
This may explain why no one is taking credit, and there are no demands. Or it could very well be another reason, including people just being assholes.
so if this is the case then it could be a foreign government
Yeah, this is a bit like vandalizing a library. They are providing a valuable public service, leave them alone.
Yeah, and what kind of psychos would want to restrict public access to books in libraries?!?! I'm not on the conspiracy train until there's proof and I agree with your post. Just saw a bit of irony there since a lot of North Americans are currently in the process of dismantling libraries.
It's probably for the lulz I guess. There's only a few places left on the internet that are decent and good, archive being one, so why not shit all over it? People are so dumb.
There's currently a fuck ton of hacking going on everywhere maybe just prior to the US elections maybe something unrelated but there's definitely a concerted effort to turn the internet on its head.
In this case it’s looking like people trying to showcase their skill and possibly get bragging rights or at least a reputation for doing these attacks which they can use to earn money from others for these types of services.
We see this and think of an amazing and essential public service. A capitalist sees this and tries to find a way to make money with it, and the first step is to ruin the free product.
We just need to accept that there's terrible people in this world
The attacker(s) apparently just did it to do it.
Dipshits thought it was affiliated with the US government and attacked it to "avenge" Gaza.
I just sent a DMCA takedown last week to remove my site. They've claimed to follow meta tags and robots.txt since 1998, but no, they had over 1,000,000 of my pages going back that far. They even had the robots.txt configured for them archived from 1998.
I'm tired of people linking to archived versions of things that I worked hard to create. Sites like Wikipedia were archiving urls and then linking to the archive, effectively removing branding and blocking user engagement.
Not to mention that I'm losing advertising revenue if someone views the site in an archive. I have fewer problems with archiving if the original site is gone, but to mirror and republish active content with no supported way to prevent it short of legal action is ridiculous. Not to mention that I lose control over what's done with that content -- are they going to let Google train AI on it with their new partnership?
I'm not a fan. They could easily allow people to block archiving, but they choose not to. They offer a way to circumvent artist or owner control, and I'm surprised that they still exist.
So... That's what I think is wrong with them.
From a security perspective it's terrible that they were breached. But it is kind of ironic -- maybe they can think of it as an archive of their passwords or something.
Wah wah wah, my stuff's been preserved and I dont like it.
Not to mention that I lose control over what's done with that content -- are they going to let Google train AI on it with their new partnership?
Lmao you think Google needs to go through Archive to scrape your site? Delusional.
Not to mention that I'm losing advertising revenue if someone views the site in an archive.
The mechanisms used to serve ads over the internet nowadays are nasty in a privacy sense, and a psychological manipulation sense. And you want people to be affected by them just to line your pockets? Are you also opposed to ad blockers by any chance?
I have fewer problems with archiving if the original site is gone, but to mirror and republish active content with no supported way to prevent it short of legal action is ridiculous.
And how do you suggest a site which has been wiped off the face of the internet gets archived? Maybe we need to invest in a time machine for the Internet Archive?
Sites like Wikipedia were archiving urls and then linking to the archive, effectively removing branding and blocking user engagement.
What do you mean by "engagement", exactly? Clicking on ads?
About the only thing I can agree with you on here is I don’t like when people on Wikipedia archive a link and then list that as the primary source in the reference instead of the original link. Wikipedia (at least in English) has a proper method to follow for citations with links and the archived version should only become the primary if the original source is dead or has changed and no longer covers the reference.
They should also honor a DMCA takedown and robots.txt, but at least with the DMCA I’m sure there’s a backlog. Personally I’ve always appreciated the archive’s existence, though, and would think their impact is small enough that it’s better to have them than block them.
I have no sympathy for those who attack and deface our libraries, whether they be physical or digital
The corporations that took control of the Internet don't want us to remember.
Just got an email from HaveIBeenPwned.com stating 31 million logins were leaked. Email address, username, and bcrypt hashed passwords were obtained.
Edit: probably should have read the article before posting
Alright who has the donate link so I can help them out.
https://archive.org/donate This would be it if it were up and running. I wonder if there's any other avenues?
I recently went through most of my accounts and randomized the username, with the thought here being to limit the likelihood of one site being compromised leading to accounts at other sites being compromised. I don't have to remember them due to using a password manager, so it's really no skin off my nose.
I'll use this as a reminder to everyone to improve your security. Some ideas:
<user>
-<purpose>
@domain.com"; so "me-shopping@domain.com" or "me-games@domain.com" so it's easy for me to remember, but unlikely for a lazy hacker to pwn other accounts (a lot of these are automated); my real email is "me@different-domain.com"Sucks that people are targeting IA, I hope there isn't any lasting damage and that this is a simple defacement/DOS.
For e-mails, you can just get firefox relay with your own subdomain and generate infinite e-mail masks for 1$ a month. I usually take "nameofshop@mysubdomain.mozmail.com" for example. It's pretty great because you just make the masks on the fly.
Yup.
If you use the same email everywhere, they can try brute-forcing the password by using the email instead of your username. Give them less to go on. $1/month is absolutely worth it to prevent an important account from getting hacked.
What about plus addressing which is supported by most major mail services for free? You can just use personaladdress+nameofshop@gmail.com for example.
I recently went through most of my accounts and randomized the username, with the thought here being to limit the likelihood of one site being compromised leading to accounts at other sites being compromised. I don’t have to remember them due to using a password manager, so it’s really no skin off my nose.
I’ll use this as a reminder to everyone to improve your security. Some ideas:
use a password manager and use random usernames and passwords have multiple email accounts, and don’t use your “main” email w/ random signups - I use a simple mnemonic, like “<user>-<purpose>@domain.com”; so “me-shopping@domain.com” or “me-games@domain.com” so it’s easy for me to remember, but unlikely for a lazy hacker to pwn other accounts (a lot of these are automated); my real email is “me@different-domain.com” use 2FA if offered, even if it’s stupid SMS or email based; having any extra step can deter an attackerSucks that people are targeting IA, I hope there isn’t any lasting damage and that this is a simple defacement/DOS.
thanks for the advices ! Would you recommend a particular password manager?
Point 2... if you pay for a email aliasing service, you will be locked in. What I suggest is using plus addressing. e.g.
example+83hdo72@example.com
As long as you keep using randomized ones, this'll be as good as an alias against automated and manual login attempts. It just does not hide your base email, which would be
example@example.com
Many email services offer some free aliases. For example, I use one alias, along with my main email that is only used for important services. Other than that, I have an alias that is used for online accounts. This way, your main inbox is free of spammers. And even if your main address were to be the target of a spammer, the automatic spamming software most likely will not chop off the plus part, so you can easily block that email with the specific plus identifier. Not as good as external email aliasing services, but at least you won't be locked into the email aliasing service. Bitwarden has a generator for such things, really nice tbh.
Of all the places to do this to, why The Archive?
with as long as this has been going on it really surprises me that nothing has come out as a motive. it seems kind of pointless to do this sort of thing and not make your intentions known
maybe it's a government or organization upset that they are keeping archives of things they don't like
https://bsky.app/profile/archive.org/post/3l67dtwvulp23
“Update: @internetarchive’s data has not been corrupted. Services are currently stopped to upgrade internal systems.
We are working to restore services as quickly and safely as possible.
Sorry for this disruption.”
How can we help?
I used a 64 charcters unique password, so i don't think the bcrypt hash of it would be of any use for them.
I take it you've never had to log into a printer with an AD account before?
Yeah, I went out to 32 characters once. Until I needed to work on a printer.
The first time I got a password manager I set everything I could to 128. Can’t believe how many sites allowed me to do that… the first time I had to actually type one out I learned my lesson.
Good thing I use archive.org without creating an account.
Spare a thought for the users with accounts who upload content to IA for you to enjoy.
I was wondering why I hadn't been able to access Internet Archive yesterday... Who would take down what is the digital equivalent to the Library of Alexandria? I can only imagine some really childish people who have nothing better to do with their lives. I hope that the website can recover from the attack soon! 🙏
Who would take down what is the digital equivalent to the Library of Alexandria?
I can think of a few possibilities
1: peddlers of misinformation
2: people who love the poorly educated and want the misdeeds of their political allies to be forgotten.
3: copyright trolls.
Can't figure out if this is a joke or serious, so just in case, you might want to look up what happened to the Library of Alexandria.
Oh I already know about that. The Internet Archive has been dubbed the digital equivalent of the Library of Alexandria before, due to its size, similar purpose, and significance. My comparison was for that reason.
State actors? Maybe.
It's a bit tinhatty, though I'm betting on something akin to corporate espionage pointed at the Internet Archive.
Could just be a 14 year old kid with a bit of talent too. Wouldn't be the first time.