Our Protector Against Memory Holing Under Attack 3 days — UPDATED

Webarchive Current Status

In recent news, the Internet Archive’s WebArchive (also known as Wayback Machine) has been affected by a security breach. On October 11, 2024, it was reported that the organization’s authentication database, containing information for 31 million registered users, was compromised. The stolen data includes email addresses, screen names, password change timestamps, and Bcrypt-hashed passwords.

DDoS Attack

Additionally, the Internet Archive suffered a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which was claimed by the BlackMeta hacktivist group. This attack occurred earlier in the day, around the same time the security breach was disclosed.

Impact on Users

For users who signed into web.archive.org with Google SSO accounts, their passwords would not have been stored in the compromised database. However, other user information, such as email addresses and screen names, may have been exposed.

Current Status

As of October 11, 2024, the Internet Archive’s website is still offline, with the organization prioritizing data safety over service availability. Kahle, the Internet Archive’s founder, has stated that the service will be restored to normal within “days, not weeks.”

Background

The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the internet’s cultural heritage. It has been working to archive the web since 1996 and has collected over 866 billion web pages, 44 million books, and 10.6 million videos. The organization’s Wayback Machine is a popular tool for researchers, historians, and scholars to access archived versions of websites.

Ongoing Efforts

The Internet Archive continues to work on preserving digital artifacts and providing access to information, including making publicly accessible books available in a protected Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) format. Despite the recent challenges, the organization remains committed to its mission of creating an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars.

UPDATE below is inaccurate, but we’ve come to expect that of AI. Webarchive came up for me a few minutes ago, but was very slow loading (2 Pm, Oct.14.) The info below still provides us some more insights.

  1. Current Status: As of October 14, 2024, the Internet Archive’s founder, Brewster Kahle, announced that the site will return online within “days, not weeks.”

Additional Context

The Internet Archive has been facing legal challenges, including a recent loss in the Hachette v. Internet Archive lawsuit, which argued that its digital lending library violated copyright law.

The Wayback Machine, a crucial component of the Internet Archive, is an initiative aimed at preserving the history of the Internet. Its temporary outage has raised concerns about the long-term viability of this digital archive.

Note: The Internet Archive’s website and services, including the Wayback Machine, are expected to return online soon. However, the exact timeline and details of the recovery process have not been publicly disclosed.

2 comments

  1. Now who in the world would like to NOT have a record of things they say and do………

    • riverrider on October 13, 2024 at 6:05 PM

    probably looking for that pic of diddy and kamala at his “party”.

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