Describing a high intensity DDOS attack on one of the world’s most important resources as simply “mean” is unironically one of the funniest things I’ve read this year.
Hope they get some support soon.
You gotta be a special kind of sad to DDoS archive.org…
…or paid well.
They could do this with the bank of america instead
Or AP? Nobody gets payed and so they get more attention!
Banks are evil, nonprofits like archive.org are not.
Across social, economic, and political spectra, you can always tell the good guys from the bad guys by their stance on access to knowledge.
Had an argument with FIL where he argued his last child Is out of school so he votes against school taxes. I’m like you know that pays for the people you and your family will interact with. His response was “I want them as ignorant as me”. Even as joke it’s lacks wisdom. He just complained about doctors being uneducated an hour before.
Ffffuck that’s depressing.
I don’t even have kids. I’m actually pretty against having them in general. But education is an existential requirement to a functioning democracy, and even a basic education is so broadening.
The only reason to want people ignorant is if you’re trying to swindle them, which honestly benefits no one in the long run.
Foreign government, moneyed interests, or domestic dipshits, taking all bets.
Cloudflare
Internet Archive is also being sued by the US book publishing and US recording industries associations, which are claiming copyright infringement and demanding combined damages of hundreds of millions of dollars and diminished services from all libraries.
“If our patrons around the globe think this latest situation is upsetting, then they should be very worried about what the publishing and recording industries have in mind,” added Kahle. “I think they are trying to destroy this library entirely and hobble all libraries everywhere. But just as we’re resisting the DDoS attack, we appreciate all the support in pushing back on this unjust litigation against our library and others.”
The problem is that the litigation was entirely “just”, as far as the legal system goes. It’s an open-and-shut case and everyone saw it coming. The Internet Archive basically stood in front of a train and dared it to turn, and now they’re crying the victim. Doesn’t exactly entice me to send them donations to cover their lawyers and executives right now.
They really need to admit “okay, so that was a dumb idea, and ultimately not related to archiving the Internet anyway. We’re not going to do that again.”
Note that I’m not saying the publishers are “good guys” here, I hate the existing copyright system and would love to see it contested. Just not by Internet Archive. Let someone else who’s purpose is fighting those fights take it on and stick to preserving those precious archives out of harm’s way.
They really need to admit “okay, so that was a dumb idea, and ultimately not related to archiving the Internet anyway. We’re not going to do that again.”
It literally archives internet pages and files. What do you think the internet archive does if it doesn’t do that?
The lawsuit was about them distributing unauthorized copies of books. Not archiving, and not internet pages or files.
And that was exactly the problem.
Your calling files, book documents to be specific, books, doesn’t change that IA is storing files, ebooks to be specific, nor that the ruling shall affect all Libraries, which includes the Internet Archive to be specific. And the actual issue, is that the publishers refuse to offer ebooks to Libraries as they assume it’ll cost sales when in fact the folks using the Library are there as they are not going to go buy one.
doesn’t change that IA is storing files, ebooks to be specific,
Emphasis added. Storing files is not the problem. Nobody cared when they were just scanning and storing them. The problem arose when they started giving out copies. And worse, giving out copies without restriction - libaries “lend” ebooks by using DRM systems to try to ensure that only a specific number of copies are out “in circulation” at any given time, and so the big publishers have turned a blind eye to that.
Internet Archive basically turned themselves into an ebook Pirate Bay, giving out as many copies as were asked for with no limits.
Again, I don’t agree with current copyright laws, I think the big publishers are gigantic heaps of slime and should be burned to the ground. The problem here is that it’s not Internet Archive that should be fighting this fight.
I hate the existing copyright system and would love to see it contested.
My brother in Christ, they’re literally contesting it
Did you read literally the next sentences I wrote after that one? Here they are:
Just not by Internet Archive. Let someone else who’s purpose is fighting those fights take it on and stick to preserving those precious archives out of harm’s way.
The Internet Archive is like someone carrying around a precious baby. The baby is an irreplaceable archive of historical data being preserved for posterity. I do not want them to go and fight with a bear, even if the bear is awful and needs to be fought. I want them to run away from the bear to protect the baby, while someone else fights the bear. Someone better equipped for bear-fighting, and who won’t get that precious cargo destroyed in the process of fighting it.
Who else is better equipped? In my view it would solely depend on the lawyers that internet archive hires, and money plays a big factor in that.
Also, internet archive is going through the route process of how legislation gets overturned or upheld. Just because you perceive them as unworthy to bear the challenge doesn’t make that true, and as a result your commitment to not support them because they aren’t the one true chosen is ill-informed.
Who else is better equipped?
The EFF, for example. Fighting lawsuits for the sake of internet freedom is their reason for being. Sci-hub, for ebooks more specifically. Or Library Genesis. Those are organizations specifically devoted to fighting against excessive copyright restrictions on books.
Just because you perceive them as unworthy to bear the challenge
You’re not understanding what I’m saying here. I don’t think Internet Archive is unworthy to bear the challenge. I think they’re not well suited to it, and when they inevitably lose the lawsuits they’ve jumped head-first into they’re risking damage to other causes that are very important and unrelated to this particular fight.
Who else is better equipped? In my view it would solely depend on the lawyers that internet archive hires, and money plays a big factor in that.
The EFF. This kind of thing is why they exist.
The Archive making themselves an easier target was a huge misstep IMO. All it takes is one overreaching judge telling them they need to purge all copyrighted data (a common judgment in lawsuits like this) and the world becomes a worse place.
What can we do to help?
For more than two and a half decades, we have collected, preserved, and shared our digital cultural artifacts. Thanks to the generosity of our patrons, the Internet Archive has grown from a small preservation project into a vast library that serves millions of people each year. Our work has impacted the lives of so many of our users who value free and open access to information.
From the beginning, it was important for the Internet Archive to be a nonprofit, because it was working for the people. Its motives had to be transparent; it had to last a long time. That’s why we don’t charge for access, sell user data, or run ads, even while we offer free resources to citizens everywhere. We rely on the generosity of individuals like you to pay for servers, staff, and preservation projects.
If you can’t imagine a future without the Internet Archive, please consider supporting our work. We promise to put your donation to good use as we continue to store over 99 petabytes of data, including 625 billion webpages, 38 million books and texts, and 14 million audio recordings.
- Volunteer Positions:
- Volunteer as an Open Library Developer (Learn how to contribute, find easy tasks, look at our roadmap, and ask to join our community slack chat!)
- Volunteering as an Open Librarian (Want to make sure Open Library’s data is pristine?)
- Volunteer Positions:
Maybe temporarily switch to a different address? And leave fake addresses to catch the ddos. Then just keep changing addresses using an IPFS system to front-end the new address?
There’s no way to do this and let visitors know what the new addresses are, without also giving the new addresses to the attackers.
IPFS is a real solution though
Lol, no, the Blockchain has never been a “real solution”, and it never will be.
How is anyone still on the Web3 hype train?
IPFS is not built on a blockchain
Yeah, it’s just a modern peer-to-peer content distribution network
The Internet Archive needs to be distributed somehow. We can’t have a single point of failure like this or we’ve learned nothing since Alexandria.
I’ve got several terabytes just laying around that I’d happily devote to ancient copies of web pages.
This is why we need more websites to adopt secure client side scripting.
JavaScript may or may not be it, but the web needs to be reachable/archivable. It should also have attribution, but that’s a tangent.
As of January 2024, archive.org claims to have over 99 Petabytes of data stored.
That last sentence though…
- **“The cyberattacks share the timeline with the legal battle Internet Archive is facing from US book publishers, claiming copyright infringement and seeking combined damages of hundreds of millions of dollars from all libraries.” ** *
Can someone eli5 to me why it’s hard to track down these dipshits ? Even if it’s a distributed attack, picking a single IP and doing a lookup for the domain name and checking with the registrar might actually reveal their identity right ? Of course I’m guessing law enforcement needs to be involved to force registrars to give up that info if it’s not publicly available? Are there laws that say a ddos is illegal ?
There is no domain name associated with the IPs.
Most importantly, usually, DDoS attacks use infected devices (PCs, mobile phones, smart fridges, shady browser addons etc…) to get many ip addresses and devices/locations and attack from everywhere at once.
