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Posted by nobody9999 5 hours ago

Wikipedia deprecates Archive.today, starts removing archive links(arstechnica.com)
Related:

Archive.today is directing a DDoS attack against my blog - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46843805 - Feb 2026 (168 comments)

Ask HN: Weird archive.today behavior? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46624740 - Jan 2026 (69 comments)

175 points | 98 commentspage 2
casey2 2 hours ago|
Anecdotally I generally see archive.is/archive.today links floating around "stochastic terrorist" sites and other hate cults.
mrguyorama 4 hours ago||
>In emails sent to Patokallio after the DDoS began, “Nora” from Archive.today threatened to create a public association between Patokallio’s name and AI porn and to create a gay dating app with Patokallio’s name.

Oh good. That's definitely a reasonable thing to do or think.

The raw sociopathy of some people. Getting doxxed isn't good, but this response is unhinged.

jMyles 3 hours ago||
It's a reminder how fragile and tenuous are the connections between our browser/client outlays, our societal perceptions of online norms, and our laws.

We live at a moment where it's trivially easy to frame possession of an unsavory (or even illegal) number on another person's storage media, without that person even realizing (and possibly, with some WebRTC craftiness and social engineering, even get them to pass on the taboo payload to others).

oytis 2 hours ago|||
I mean, the admin of archive.today might face jail time if deanonymised, kind of understandable he's nervous. Meanwhile for Patokallio it's just curiosity and clicks
ouhamouch 4 hours ago||
That was private negotiations, btw, not public statements.

In response to J.P's blog already framed AT as project grown from a carding forum + pushed his speculations onto ArsTechnica, whose parent company just destroyed 12ft and is on to a new victim. The story is full of untold conflicts of interests covered with soap opera around DDoS.

MBCook 2 hours ago|||
Why does it matter it was a private communications?

It’s still a threat isn’t it?

ouhamouch 56 minutes ago||
They negotiate extent of damage one party can cause to another, and AT did not threat with anything uglier than JP already had done to AT.

And, in their private communication, JP _first_ started with threats like "do so and so and keep caml or else ...".

Received adequate threats in response, started playing a victim.

Yossarrian22 3 hours ago|||
Can you elaborate on your point?
ouhamouch 3 hours ago||
The fight is not about where it is shown and not about what, not about "links in Wikipedia", but about whether News Inc will be able to kill AT, as they did with 12FT.
Yossarrian22 3 hours ago||
What is News Inc? Are they a funder of Wikipedia(I think Wikipedia didn’t have a parent company so they’re not owners)?
ouhamouch 2 hours ago||
They are owner of ArsTechnica which wrote 3rd (or 4th?) article on AT in a row painting it in certain colors.

The article about FBI subpoena that pulled J.P's speculations out of the closet was also in ArsTechnica and by the same author, and that same article explicitly mentioned how they are happy with 12ft down

Yossarrian22 2 hours ago||
… Ars is owned by Conde Nast?
ouhamouch 53 minutes ago|||
from the Ars article:

--- US publishers have been fighting web services designed to bypass paywalls. In July, the News/Media Alliance said it secured the takedown of paywall-bypass website 12ft.io. “Following the News/Media Alliance’s efforts, the webhost promptly locked 12ft.io on Monday, July 14th,” the group said. (Ars Technica owner Condé Nast is a member of the alliance.) ---

ValveFan6969 1 hour ago||
[dead]
paganel 2 hours ago||
At this point Archive.today provides a better service (all things considered) compared to Wikipedia, at least when it comes to current affairs.
anilakar 2 hours ago||
> If you want to pretend this never happened – delete your old article and post the new one you have promised. And I will not write “an OSINT investigation” on your Nazi grandfather

From hero to a Kremlin troll in five seconds.

rdiddly 2 hours ago||
So toward the end of last year, the FBI was after archive.today, presumably either for keeping track of things the current administration doesn't want tracked, or maybe for the paywall thing (on behalf of rich donors/IP owners). https://gizmodo.com/the-fbi-is-trying-to-unmask-the-registra...

That effort appears to have gone nowhere, so now suddenly archive.today commits reputational suicide? I don't suppose someone could look deeper into this please?

ndiddy 1 hour ago|
The archive.today operator claims on his blog that this was nothing major: https://lj.rossia.org/users/archive_today/

> Regarding the FBI’s request, my understanding is that they were seeking some form of offline action from us — anything from a witness statement (“Yes, this page was saved at such-and-such a time, and no one has accessed or modified it since”) to operational work involving a specific group of users. These users are not necessarily associates of Epstein; among our users who are particularly wary of the FBI, there are also less frequently mentioned groups, such as environmental activists or right-to-repair advocates.

> Since no one was physically present in the United States at that time, however, the matter did not progress further.

> You already know who turned this request into a full-blown panic about “the FBI accusing the archive and preparing to confiscate everything.”

Not sure who he's talking about there.

alsetmusic 4 hours ago||
I will no longer donate to Wikipedia as long as this is policy.
jraph 4 hours ago||
Why? The decision seems reasonable at first sight.
chrisjj 4 hours ago||
Second sight is advisable in such cases. Fact is, archives are essential to WP integrity and there's no credible alternative to this one.

I see WP is not proposing to run its own.

mook 3 hours ago|||
Wouldn't it be precisely because archives are important that using something known to modify the contents would be avoided?
esseph 3 hours ago|||
> something known to modify the contents would be avoided?

Like Wikipedia?

beej71 26 minutes ago||
No, not like that. There's a difference between a site that:

1) provides a snapshot of another site for archival purposes. 2) provides original content.

You're arguing that since encyclopedias change their content, the Library of Congress should be allowed to change the content of the materials in its stacks.

By modifying its archives, archive.today just flushed its credibility as an archival site. So what is it now?

esseph 3 minutes ago||
[delayed]
chrisjj 3 hours ago|||
Obviously not, since archive.org is encouraged.
huslage 2 hours ago||||
What exactly is credible about archive.today if they are willing to change the archive to meet some desire of the leadership? That's not credible in the least.
chrisjj 1 hour ago||
A lot more credible than archive.org that lets archives be changed and deleted by the archive targets.

What's your better idea?

RupertSalt 53 minutes ago||
> the archive targets

Isn't there a substantial overlap with the copyright holders?

that_lurker 3 hours ago||||
The operators() of archive.today (and the other domains) are doing shadey things and the links are not working so why keep the site around as for example Internet archives waybackmachine works as alternative to it.
chrisjj 2 hours ago||
What archive.today links are not working?

> Internet archives wayback machine works as alternative to it.

It is appalling insecure. It lets archives be altered by page JS and deleted by the page domain owner.

that_lurker 26 minutes ago||
Currently as far as I know at least both archive.today and archive.is have the same ddos code on the main page. For more details https://gyrovague.com/2026/02/01/archive-today-is-directing-...
throw0101a 3 hours ago||||
> Fact is, archives are essential to WP integrity and there's no credible alternative to this one.

Yes, they are essentional, and that was the main reason for not blacklisting Archive.today. But Archive.today has shown they do not actually provide such a service:

> “If this is true it essentially forces our hand, archive.today would have to go,” another editor replied. “The argument for allowing it has been verifiability, but that of course rests upon the fact the archives are accurate, and the counter to people saying the website cannot be trusted for that has been that there is no record of archived websites themselves being tampered with. If that is no longer the case then the stated reason for the website being reliable for accurate snapshots of sources would no longer be valid.”

How can you trust that the page that Archive.today serves you is an actual archive at this point?

chrisjj 2 hours ago||
> If ... If ...

Oh dear.

> How can you trust that the page that Archive.today serves you is an actual archive at this point?

Because no-one shown evidence that it isn't.

rufo 2 hours ago||
The quote uses ifs because it was written before this was verified, but the Wikipedia thread in question has links to evidence of tampering occurring.
chrisjj 1 hour ago||
Lets see them, then.
Jordan-117 2 hours ago|||
Did you not read the article? They not only directed a DDOS against a blogger who crossed them, but altered their own archived snapshots to amplify a smear against them. That completely destroys their trustworthiness and credibility as a source of truth.
ouhamouch 48 minutes ago|||
Altered snapshots = hide Nora name?

ArsTechica just did the same - removed Nora from older articles. How can you trust ArsTechica after that?

chrisjj 1 hour ago|||
Sure I read it. But I don't believe everything I read on the internet.
Larrikin 3 hours ago|||
About how much had you previously donated over the years?
kmeisthax 3 hours ago|||
[flagged]
selridge 4 hours ago||
[flagged]
shevy-java 3 hours ago|
Anyone has a short summary as to who and why Archive.today acted via DDos? Isn't that something done by malicious actors? Or did others misuse Archive.today?
zeroonetwothree 3 hours ago|
If you read the linked article it is discussed