On October 9 2024, the Internet Archive suffered not only a massive DDOS attack that took several services (including the Wayback Machine) offline, but also a data breach that saw the emails, usernames, and passwords of nearly 31 million accounts leaked.
As of the last time I checked, the Internet Archive remains down, and the hacker group claiming responsibility has openly stated that they took down the Archive because it’s “owned by the US Government” (Spoiler Alert: it’s not, it’s an independent non-profit that happens to be based in the US).
I was very upset, to say the least, when I heard of the Archive getting taken offline, and appalled at the reason given as to why it was targeted. The fact that someone would want to, or in this case, go through with taking down such a rich and diverse center of information, as well as the Internet’s very own history book in the form of the Wayback Machine, is disturbing. Additionally, to have this come nearly months after the Archive lost a landmark copyright case against book publishers, and two months after record companies announced their own lawsuits against the Archive, makes this situation feel like a cup of salt being poured into an open wound.
The Internet Archive is such a vital source of information for everyone on the Internet, whether it be people wanting to revisit an old website from their childhood on the Wayback Machine, or looking for any other form of media from digitized VHS recordings to full books and magazines that are out of print. The Archive is a vital resource for all, and one that we must defend and support now more than ever.
At this moment, the Internet Archive remains down and the details of the breach have been imported to Have I Been Pwned (if you have an IA account, I highly encourage you to check your email address on HIBP to see if it was in the breach data). When it comes back online, I feel like we need to evaluate how we can help the Internet Archive going forward. Whether it be with downloading and storing Archive content on our own systems or supporting the Archive monetarily when able. One thing is clear: going forward, supporting the Internet Archive is going to need to be a community effort, like it has always been since the first files were uploaded to its oldest servers. We’ll all need to contribute in our own ways, so that content from the Internet Archive continues to be preserved and accessible, even in a catastrophic event like this one.
Post updated: October 13, 2024 at 3:12 AM EDT
(October 13, 2024, @342 .beat Time)Post made: October 11, 2024 at 7:00 AM EDT
(October 11, 2024, @500 .beat Time)