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Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today

adguard-dns.io

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

#371

Post by refulgentis »

betaby wrote: post #110
codedokode wrote: post #80

Note that association's site is made from this free template [1] with minimal editing (can see it using diff). The web hosting account at name.com (prices starting from $5/year) was registered around Jan 12, 2025 [2]. The page also contains commented out section with a part of French mobile phone number and words "Emergency Standard" (the template contained fictional number here): Emergency Standard --> [1] https://w…

Quite possible that's just some bureaucrats kids running that site in exchange for EU grants. In fact in couple of countries that's precisely the case.

Probably not EU grant bureaucrat nepotistic corruption: all we have so far is A) FBI involvement B) el cheapo fake organization, claiming they are French, with a lowrent pressure campaign on behalf of commercial entities.

Smells like freedom fries to me (am American myself)

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

#372

Post by noosphr »

dpark wrote: post #364
PinkSheep wrote: post #331

Good job on AdGuard's end for bringing this to the Internet's attention. I especially enjoyed the unearthed details about this "N"GO's short history. I think the e-mail exchange should've been kept short, although it is good that the owner of archive.today was eventually notified (by them) about these links in good faith to remove them. Their reply should've been the following: " Thank you for contacting us. If you h…

> We have visited the URLs provided by you “You sent claims of CSAM hosted on someone else’s servers and we decided to download it.” Hell no. I don’t want to see that and I don’t want it being ingested into systems I control. Of all the stuff here, “download some supposed CSAM to see if it’s real” is the absolute worst advice I can imagine.

The above post contains csam, Dang please delete it without reading. Thanks.

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

#373

Post by cjbgkagh »

dmurray wrote: post #332
user_7832 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then, that would be a very interesting thing to watch when it happens! From the article, the penalty for a false report: > ...shall be punished by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of €15,000. Side note, would anybody know how "easily" do political elites get off the hook in France?

> Side note, would anybody know how "easily" do political elites get off the hook in France? The actual ex-president got sentenced to jail time last month (and even served some of it) so you're at least not guaranteed to escape the law as a political elite.

In some countries money will get you out of jail unless someone with more money wants you in jail.

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

#376

Post by cactusplant7374 »

stef25 wrote: post #65
pogue wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Isn't it just a question of pretending to be a search bot ? Sites will allow google bot to bypass the paywall so stuff gets indexed.

The owner must have subscriptions to these services. Some paywalls are absolute and it bypasses all of them with ease. I don't see it now but there was a time when archiving a reddit page showed the username that their bot was using.

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

#377

Post by point999 »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #359

If the archive.today contact is telling the truth, then this implies that WAAD had collected links containing CSAM and chose not to contact the person who could best get rid of the material. I think it implies either: 1. WAAD has developed a good way of detecting CSAM, but is ok with the CSAM staying available longer than it needs to, and remaining accessible to a wider audience than needed, in order to pursue their…

> If you know of a crime and intentionally hide it, that seem illegal.

Yet this is a standard way to become a wealthy lawyer.

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

#378

Post by trimethylpurine »

permo-w wrote: post #343
trimethylpurine wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood that they suspect a lone unknown criminal, and that they filed a police report based on that suspicion.

my understanding of the article is that they suspect FBI involvement based on the timing but don't have any concrete evidence to support it

I appreciate so much the pragmatist's approach to their methods. They mentioned the coincidence and that they had no evidence to support that hypothesis. They did not accuse anyone of anything, they only requested investigation.

I'm stating this because I think it might be the most important distinction in our lifetime. I think that wars are fought, lives are lost, and maybe even society itself will be lost, on that distinction and those of its like.

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

#379

Post by dpark »

noosphr wrote: post #372
dpark wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have visited the URLs provided by you “You sent claims of CSAM hosted on someone else’s servers and we decided to download it.” Hell no. I don’t want to see that and I don’t want it being ingested into systems I control. Of all the stuff here, “download some supposed CSAM to see if it’s real” is the absolute worst advice I can imagine.

The above post contains csam, Dang please delete it without reading. Thanks.

You misunderstand the situation and what I was suggesting. GP was saying that AdGuard should have checked the contents of some random URL supposedly containing CSAM on archive.today.

This is not AdGuard’s job. Knowingly downloading CSAM is very likely illegal. And it also potentially opens them up for additional liability if they do determine that CSAM is present.

AdGuard seems like they did exactly the right thing, which is to send the report along to the party actually responsible for cleaning up the supposed CSAM.

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

#380

Post by axiolite »

dpark wrote: post #379
noosphr wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above post contains csam, Dang please delete it without reading. Thanks.

You misunderstand the situation and what I was suggesting. GP was saying that AdGuard should have checked the contents of some random URL supposedly containing CSAM on archive.today. This is not AdGuard’s job. Knowingly downloading CSAM is very likely illegal. And it also potentially opens them up for additional liability if they do determine that CSAM is present. AdGuard seems like they did exactly the right thing,…

> Knowingly downloading CSAM is very likely illegal.

Put CSAM in a banner ad, and arrest everyone who was served that ad?

Post a CSAM photo behind plexiglass on a wall in a public space, and arrest everyone who walks by and glanced at it?

Just how stupid do you think lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, and police are? People get arrested for paying for, or sharing CSAM, not just stumbling on a website that might have something questionable. It is illegal to possess, but just loading a website is hardly possession... If it was, all of Facebook and Google's content moderators would be facing life-sentences.

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