After nearly a week of downtime, the Internet Archive is back online in a “provisional, read-only manner.” You’re free to trawl the Wayback Machine, though the Archive’s broader collection of documents and software is still inaccessible.
The Internet Archive was brought down on October 9th following a DDoS attack from a small hacker group. Additional attacks hit the Archive one day later and were expected to continue throughout the week. So, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle decided that it was time for some maintenance. The Archive went offline as its team worked to “examine,” “strengthen,” and “upgrade” internal systems.
This period of intentional downtime may have also been influenced by the Archive’s September 30th data breach, which was disclosed on October 9th. Though it should be noted that SN_Blackmeta, the group that has claimed responsibility for the Archive DDoS campaign, denies involvement in the data breach. SN_Blackmeta cites the DDoS campaign as a preparatory step in web-based protests against the Israel-Hamas war—in other words, the Internet Archive was used as a high-profile guinea pig.
Archived data was not damaged as a result of the data breach or DDoS campaign. However, the Internet Archive has paused file uploads and webpage captures. The Archive’s broad collection of documents and software is also inaccessible at this time.
Like the Library of Congress, the Internet Archive is an incredible resource that aids in education, historical study, and preservation. It’s also the world’s most effective webpage archival service—the Wayback Machine can take you to the beginning of the internet, it can show you how a webpage looked yesterday, and it can reveal information that corporations or public figures have attempted to wipe from the web.
Attacks against the Archive disrupt humanity’s ability to preserve history and provide educational resources for the worldwide public. However, hacker groups are not the only threat to the Archive. Corporations successfully sued the Internet Archive for copyright infringement of books in 2023, and similar lawsuits are now coming from the recorded music industry. These lawsuits can undermine the Archive’s role, and successful copyright suits against the Archive set a legal precedent that could harm other archival or educational repositories.
We should see the full return of the Internet Archive in the coming weeks. I suggest following Brewster Kahle or Jason Scott on Mastodon for more immediate updates on the situation.
Source: Brewster Kahle
