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Wikipedia blacklists Archive.today, starts removing 695,000 archive links (arstechnica.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The English-language edition of Wikipedia is blacklisting Archive.today after the controversial archive site was used to direct a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against a blog.

In the course of discussing whether Archive.today should be deprecated because of the DDoS, Wikipedia editors discovered that the archive site altered snapshots of webpages to insert the name of the blogger who was targeted by the DDoS. The alterations were apparently fueled by a grudge against the blogger over a post that described how the Archive.today maintainer hid their identity behind several aliases.

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[–] 53 points 8 months ago (6 children)

It sounds like archive.today is behaving poorly. As far as I know, Wikipedia isn't exactly "big money". If you know different on either front, can you please explain. Otherwise your comments are meaningless.

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  • [+] -12 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Dunno if I would call it "behaving poorly".

    The blogger in question doxxed the owner/maintainer of Archive.today who in return doxxed the blogger. To me this sounds more like eye for an eye FAFO.

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  • [–] 35 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    That's inappropriate, childish, and unprofessional. It makes them untrustworthy for citations. There are better ways of handling it.

    If altering snapshots for a grudge isn't your definition of "behaving poorly" for a site archiving the state of the Internet, then you must not think they have to be an accurate source of information. If they're not an accurate source of information, then Wikipedia has no obligation to allow them to be used in citations, and they should remove such citations.

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  • [+] -13 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Has the accuracy of the snapshots actually changed based on this edit? After all, if it's factual information being presented...

    I do agree that it raises the issue of what other modifications there may be, and it IS childish, but so is going after a person who provides a good service and wants to remain anonymous while doing so.

    All I'm saying is that while I do not agree with the actions, I also am not saying I don't understand the reasoning behind.

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  • [–] 33 points 8 months ago

    Has the accuracy of the snapshots actually changed based on this edit? After all, if it's factual information being presented...

    Yes! Quite literally, yes. They're supposed to be an archive of what is on other sites. It doesn't matter if the original site was, right, wrong, complete, incomplete, accurate, inaccurate, factual, unfactual, etc. If they change things, they're editorializing and are no longer an archive, they're new content - which is not the purpose people use them for.

    I do agree that it raises the issue of what other modifications there may be,

    That's literally the point. It doesn't matter how much you "understand the reasoning" (though you also think it's childish and don't agree with the actions). You can use it if you want to, no one is stopping you. The point is Wikipedia can't trust it as a source of archived data and has every right to ban it.

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago

    The blogger in question doxxed the owner/maintainer of Archive.today who in return doxxed the blogger.

    Did you actually read the two articles posted by the blogger? The archive.today owner wasn't doxxed. No personally identifying information was provided; it only aggregates already-known info including a couple of fake aliases. The most it concludes is that the guy is Russian or operating out of Russia.

    https://gyrovague.com/2026/02/01/archive-today-is-directing-a-ddos-attack-against-my-blog/

    https://gyrovague.com/2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-of-the-mysterious-guerrilla-archivist-of-the-internet/

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