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Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today

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Re: Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today

#42
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's most likely the reason pressure is being put on them. Big media companies successfully shutdown 12ft.io, which was used to bypass paywalls, and forced the BPC (Bypass Paywalls Chrome) browser extension off the Mozilla Extension store, then Gitlab, then Github. Now the dev is hosting it on a Russian Github clone, presumably making it untouchable. Since archive[.]today is using some very obscure hosting methods…

What obscure methods are they using?

I guess it might fall under a bulletproof hosting type of setup. [1] There have been many people investigating to try and figure out who owns & operates who is actually behind archive[.]today and how they're continuously able to bypass the paywalls of paid sites, continue operating with such large infrastructure with no apparent income source.

There was quite a good article posted here on HN about someone trying to figure out those questions, but I can't seem to find it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_hosting

Re: Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today

#44
post #8

This just shows that LCEN, DMCA, etc are poorly crafted laws. They ineffectually stop the abuse they claim to end (like copyright infringement). But it does allow large organizations a cudgel to protect their own IP.

I think they’re well crafted laws because I think that’s their intended purpose.

“The purpose of a system is what it does.”

Re: Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today

#45

Its interesting that being unable to find a legal route to dig up dirt on archive.is, they're going the route of CSAM allegations. I first heard of this technique on a discussion on Lowendtalk from a hoster discussing how pressure campaigns were orchestrated. The host used to host VMs for a customer that was not well liked but otherwise within the bounds of free speech in the US (I guess something on the order of KF/…

It's unlikely law enforcement would take the risk to handle CSAM just to make a case against a Russian pirate, jeopardizing their careers and freedom, when the copyright case is pretty strong already. These are the doings of one of the myriad freelance "intelectual rights enforcement agents", which are paid on success and employed by some large media organization. Another possibility is that a single aggrieved indivi…

It’s grimly hilarious that anyone in 2025 believes the police wouldn’t do something because that thing is unethical and against their own standards.

> handle CSAM

They wouldn’t “handle” it, they’d have some third party do their dirty work.

Re: Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today

#47
post #37

Its interesting that being unable to find a legal route to dig up dirt on archive.is, they're going the route of CSAM allegations. I first heard of this technique on a discussion on Lowendtalk from a hoster discussing how pressure campaigns were orchestrated. The host used to host VMs for a customer that was not well liked but otherwise within the bounds of free speech in the US (I guess something on the order of KF/…

That would work but it is a very risky technique. For the mere mortal in your example this means possible jail time just to get some site closed down. For law enforcement personnel, at the very least would mean an end of a career if caught (also possible jail time)

[deleted]

Re: Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today

#48

Its interesting that being unable to find a legal route to dig up dirt on archive.is, they're going the route of CSAM allegations. I first heard of this technique on a discussion on Lowendtalk from a hoster discussing how pressure campaigns were orchestrated. The host used to host VMs for a customer that was not well liked but otherwise within the bounds of free speech in the US (I guess something on the order of KF/…

It's unlikely law enforcement would take the risk to handle CSAM just to make a case against a Russian pirate, jeopardizing their careers and freedom, when the copyright case is pretty strong already. These are the doings of one of the myriad freelance "intelectual rights enforcement agents", which are paid on success and employed by some large media organization. Another possibility is that a single aggrieved indivi…

This is probably the realm of intelligence agencies, who have less accountability and many reasons to eliminate public archives (primarily perception management).

Re: Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today

#49

I used the site several times to archive some page or send it to someone who cannot access the site directly. I never archived anything illegal and never stumbled upon illegal things there. So I don't know why they want to arrest the owner. Also the site is pretty advanced, it can handle complicated sites and even social networks. > But because it can also be used to bypass paywalls How? Does the site pay for subscri…

>> But because it can also be used to bypass paywalls

> How? Does the site pay for subscription for every newspaper?

Someone with a subscription logs into the site, then archives it. Archive.is uses the current user's session and can therefore see the paywalled content.

Re: Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today

#50
post #38

Its interesting that being unable to find a legal route to dig up dirt on archive.is, they're going the route of CSAM allegations. I first heard of this technique on a discussion on Lowendtalk from a hoster discussing how pressure campaigns were orchestrated. The host used to host VMs for a customer that was not well liked but otherwise within the bounds of free speech in the US (I guess something on the order of KF/…

It's the same technique that people on Reddit use to take down subreddits that don't agree with the carefully curated "hive mind".

I don’t know why you are downvoted, this is absolutely what happened semi-frequently until Reddit was finally forced to crack down on it. The same thing happened on Twitter/X for a while where bots would mass reply to targeted users with gore and CSAM.
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