2mo ago

The Wayback Machine is back as a read-only service after cyberattacks

www.theverge.com The Internet Archive is back as a read-only service after cyberattacks

The Wayback Machine is back online.

edit: adjusted title slightly

61 comments

...Google started adding links to archived websites in the Wayback Machine
They better be compensating it..
- I don't agree. Free linking has always been a vitally important part of the open internet. The principle that if I make something available on a specific URL, others can access it, and I don't get to charge others for linking to a public URL is one of the core concepts of the internet itself.
  
  Google killed off their own cached pages last month and they're now using IA as a replacement. Free linking is definitely important, but this is Google we're talking about, and them using IA to save money - this feels a lot more exploitative if Google isn't funding them in some way.
  
  There's a difference between your average Joe linking something and a massive tech company linking something. The first should always be allowed, the second should have an expectation of some form of compensation. That's why there are differences in licensing terms for lots of services, if you're using something commercially, you pay a different rate than if you're using something privately.
  That said, this is on IA to enforce, and I believe they should.
  
  This view is a bit naive in that it doesn't take into account a lot of variables. It favors established large actors in their ability to extract and accumulate ever more value from the ones they link.
- I don't know if there is compensation but the internet archive says it's a collaboration and they seem to be happy about it.
  https://blog.archive.org/2024/09/11/new-feature-alert-access-archived-webpages-directly-through-google-search/

op forgot to mention that it is a "provisional, read-only manner,” according to founder Brewster Kahle.

I really hope the rest of the archive comes back soon. I was in the middle of a book and it was a book I hadn't read since I was a kid.
Yeah, I could pay for it or wait for it to come via interlibrary loan (it's not exactly a well-known book), but I really didn't need a physical copy. And it isn't even all that long.
Sigh.
- Damn it'd be a shame if someone DM'ed me the name of the book and I had to go looking to see if there's an epub/pdf version available for download in certain places. A real shame indeed.
  
  I don't care saying what book it is right here, because I've looked for both and came up wanting. It's not available normally as an ebook for purchase, so I have my doubts.
  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/997118.Doktor_Bey_s_handbooks_of_strange_sex
  Basically, the IA had it because they scan in masses of texts without even caring what they are. As long as they get a copy and it isn't in the archive yet, they'll scan it in.
  FWIW, it's pretty amusing.
- That's why I download everything
  
  Downloading books you have to borrow from the IA is not easy these days.

Capitalism hates a memory. Hates/fears anything it can't update, whitewash or otherwise directly control or obscure after the fact.
If humanity had any hope, we'd surround this thing with torches to defend it tooth and nail.
- Thanks, I just used their PayPal link to send my support and light my torch!
  https://archive.org/donate/
  
  You give me hope, I've done the same.

Ok, serious question. Why is it normally read/write? I’ve always treated it as being read only.
- To you as a user it's readonly. To the thousands that submits urls for archival it is readwrite.
- You can (well, could) put in any live URL there and IA would take a snapshot of the current page on your request. They also actively crawl the web and take new snapshots on their own. All of that counts as 'writing' to the database.
  
  Not just websites. Basically any digital media. From PDFs, book scans, manuals, floppy disks, CDs, basically anything even remotely worth archiving

What's frustrating is that the ones who claimed to have done this are self-proclaimed "hacktivists". You're stupid if you think the Internet Archive is the enemy in this day and age.

currently* back only as readonly

Glad to see it's recovering. I hope the whole archive can come back up soon!

Ok, serious question. Why is it normally read/write? I’ve always treated it as being read only.
- I mean how else would they archive web sites or content?
  
  Web crawling?
  
  I’ve always thought they were a crawler.
- My most frequent use case of the IA in general is the Cover Art Archive, and I frequently upload cover art for albums to the CAA via MusicBrainz. That's how I discovered the IA was down, when an upload failed.

great job, mr. peabody

61 comments