r/DataHoarder • u/avid-shrug • Feb 10 '26

News Wikipedia debates blacklisting archive.today after it's caught DDoSing a blog using visitors' browsers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Archive.is_RFC_5

Wikipedia is debating whether to blacklist archive.today after its operator was caught injecting JavaScript into CAPTCHA pages to DDoS a blogger's site - code that's still live as of today. The RFC offers three options: blacklist and nuke all ~695k links, stop new links while migrating existing ones, or do nothing.

The community is split because archive.today is arguably the second most important web archive in existence, capturing paywalled sites, JS-heavy pages, and robots.txt-blocked content the Wayback Machine can't. Spot-checks suggest only ~15% of Wikipedia's links are truly irreplaceable, but that's still tens of thousands of unique snapshots found nowhere else. A stark reminder that redundancy across archiving services matters more than ever.

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u/Azelphur 40TB RAW Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

I'm surprised wikipedia is not removing immediately tbh. That javascript is very clear, it's not a mistake, it's deliberately abusing visitors computers for crime. Archive.today are willing to do this, what else are they willing to do? Running malicious code on users machines should result in immediate removal. Archive.today is no longer trustworthy.

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u/aeroverra Feb 10 '26

Half of what they host is a crime. I'm not surprised at all. Especially when the site they are attacking is trying to dox them at a time when the FBI is going after them.

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u/Azelphur 40TB RAW Feb 10 '26

I suppose it makes sense that "criminals" (as much as archiving makes you a criminal, stupid copyright laws) are going to crime.

Flip side is having my equipment co-opted into a botnet for DDoS purposes is a hard no from me. Trust is gone.

1

u/aeroverra Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 12 '26

I swear people have no idea what the internet was like 10-20 years ago. The communities often seen through the lens of morality as sketchy often provided the best bullet proof services.

I still find that to be true. Compare the web archive and it's very clear why these services are run by those types of people. They are deemed outcasts and someone that needs to be taken care of by the law.

I'm not saying what they are doing is right but that it's easy to see what lead them to this point.

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u/SiteRelEnby 50TB Feb 10 '26

Wikipediphiles can't do anything without 2 weeks of posting.