4 ms·

Why? It’s accurate and if the owner has chosen to do this for months now, why should we ever trust they won’t again? Nobody should ever use that site and every

by dydgbxx 7mo ago

Why? It’s accurate and if the owner has chosen to do this for months now, why should we ever trust they won’t again? Nobody should ever use that site and every optional filter should block them.

JasonADrury 7mo ago
[flagged]
winkelmann 7mo ago
There's probably a worthwhile discussion to be had about what it takes for a site in this situation to be removed from blocklists. An apology? Surrender to authorities? Halting the malicious activity for a certain period of time? Regardless, another user reports the attack is still ongoing[1], so this isn't a discussion that's going to happen about archive.today anytime soon. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47474777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47474777
- ryandrake 7mo ago
  I suppose “evidence that the site’s leadership has permanently changed” would convince me. Whoever decided to put in the code that causes visitors to DDOS someone should never be running a web site again.
  - tumdum_ 7mo ago
    So, in your mind, there is no way for an individual owning archive.today to recover from this?
    - ryandrake 7mo ago
      I mean, probably not. Maybe if they posted a public apology (an actual one, not a 'I'm sorry I was caught' one), listed the steps that they would take to ensure it doesn't happen again and how the fact that they weren't doing it could be publicly verified. They've shown they're willing to deliberately weaponize their users to fight a personal dispute with someone, and didn't take corrective action when called out. Trustworthiness is something you lose and don't get back.
  - yencabulator 6mo ago
    The person behind archive.today has churned through multiple aliases already, so any such claim would be highly dubious. And since the site stores unauthorized copies of content, I don't expect any new leadership would be willing to announce much more than a pseudonym.
- jojomodding 7mo ago
  If there was an apology it could be considered, depending on the apology (i.e. is it earnest?). But so far that does not seem to happen.
- viktoresku 6mo ago
  That is called Chutzpah. HN and WP and the top communities (alongside with Reddit) using AT exclusively for piracy making all the legal troubles. Now the pirates require "apology" from a free service they abuse, threatening that they will stop pirating otherwise.
charcircuit 7mo ago
>Why? Because once the problematic content is removed it should no longer be blocked. >It's accurate It is neither a C&C server for a botnet, nor any other server related to a botnet. I would not call it accurate. >Nobody should ever use that site It has a good reputation for archiving sites, has stead the test of time, and doesn't censor pages like archive.org does allowing you to actually see the history of news articles instead of them being deleted like archive.org does on occasion.
- gbear605 7mo ago
  It is in fact a botnet - they’ve been hijacking user browsers to act as a botnet to DDoS.
  - charcircuit 7mo ago
    Are Hacker News users part of a botnet since they link to sites that when people click they go down due to all of the traffic? Am I part of a botnet if I have HN open as it means HN can execute javascript? I think it's stretching the definition.
    - gbear605 6mo ago
      Hacker News absolutely would be if it was making those requests to random sites that the user doesn’t know about, and have no reason to be making requests to other than attacking them. I suppose if all the users go on the site intentionally wanting to take part in a DDoS, then sure it’s not a botnet. But that’s not reality.
    - fastball 6mo ago
      If you don't think this is a DDoS with archive.today visitors acting as an unwitting/unwilling botnet, how do you think this normally works? It's not any more sophisticated. There is not much functional difference between someone telling my smart fridge to ping https://gyrovague.com https://gyrovague.com and a website telling my browser to do it.
quotemstr 7mo ago
Because it's not the place of a DNS resolver to police the internet.
- dqh 7mo ago
  This particular revolver is an opt-in service for users that want Cloudflare to block anything that Cloudflare designates as malware.
- ryandrake 7mo ago
  If I specifically choose a DNS server that promises to not resolve sites that will use my computer in a botnet, then it is that DNS resolver’s place to do that.
- qzzi 7mo ago
  1.1.1.1 is simply a free DNS, 1.1.1.2 blocks malware, and 1.1.1.3 blocks both malware and adult content. It's a service that does exactly what it's supposed to do.
- bawolff 7mo ago
  Literally what the product is here.
leonidasv 7mo ago
Also, they were caught tampering saved webpages as well, so the website cannot be trusted to fulfill it's main purpose anymore: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-archive-today-after-site-executed-ddos-and-altered-web-captures/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-a...

by dydgbxx 7mo ago

Why? It’s accurate and if the owner has chosen to do this for months now, why should we ever trust they won’t again? Nobody should ever use that site and every optional filter should block them.

JasonADrury 7mo ago

[flagged]

winkelmann 7mo ago

There's probably a worthwhile discussion to be had about what it takes for a site in this situation to be removed from blocklists. An apology? Surrender to authorities? Halting the malicious activity for a certain period of time? Regardless, another user reports the attack is still ongoing[1], so this isn't a discussion that's going to happen about archive.today anytime soon. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47474777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47474777

ryandrake 7mo ago
I suppose “evidence that the site’s leadership has permanently changed” would convince me. Whoever decided to put in the code that causes visitors to DDOS someone should never be running a web site again.
- tumdum_ 7mo ago
  So, in your mind, there is no way for an individual owning archive.today to recover from this?
  - ryandrake 7mo ago
    I mean, probably not. Maybe if they posted a public apology (an actual one, not a 'I'm sorry I was caught' one), listed the steps that they would take to ensure it doesn't happen again and how the fact that they weren't doing it could be publicly verified. They've shown they're willing to deliberately weaponize their users to fight a personal dispute with someone, and didn't take corrective action when called out. Trustworthiness is something you lose and don't get back.
- yencabulator 6mo ago
  The person behind archive.today has churned through multiple aliases already, so any such claim would be highly dubious. And since the site stores unauthorized copies of content, I don't expect any new leadership would be willing to announce much more than a pseudonym.
jojomodding 7mo ago
If there was an apology it could be considered, depending on the apology (i.e. is it earnest?). But so far that does not seem to happen.
viktoresku 6mo ago
That is called Chutzpah. HN and WP and the top communities (alongside with Reddit) using AT exclusively for piracy making all the legal troubles. Now the pirates require "apology" from a free service they abuse, threatening that they will stop pirating otherwise.

charcircuit 7mo ago

>Why? Because once the problematic content is removed it should no longer be blocked. >It's accurate It is neither a C&C server for a botnet, nor any other server related to a botnet. I would not call it accurate. >Nobody should ever use that site It has a good reputation for archiving sites, has stead the test of time, and doesn't censor pages like archive.org does allowing you to actually see the history of news articles instead of them being deleted like archive.org does on occasion.

gbear605 7mo ago
It is in fact a botnet - they’ve been hijacking user browsers to act as a botnet to DDoS.
- charcircuit 7mo ago
  Are Hacker News users part of a botnet since they link to sites that when people click they go down due to all of the traffic? Am I part of a botnet if I have HN open as it means HN can execute javascript? I think it's stretching the definition.
  - gbear605 6mo ago
    Hacker News absolutely would be if it was making those requests to random sites that the user doesn’t know about, and have no reason to be making requests to other than attacking them. I suppose if all the users go on the site intentionally wanting to take part in a DDoS, then sure it’s not a botnet. But that’s not reality.
  - fastball 6mo ago
    If you don't think this is a DDoS with archive.today visitors acting as an unwitting/unwilling botnet, how do you think this normally works? It's not any more sophisticated. There is not much functional difference between someone telling my smart fridge to ping https://gyrovague.com https://gyrovague.com and a website telling my browser to do it.

quotemstr 7mo ago

Because it's not the place of a DNS resolver to police the internet.

dqh 7mo ago
This particular revolver is an opt-in service for users that want Cloudflare to block anything that Cloudflare designates as malware.
ryandrake 7mo ago
If I specifically choose a DNS server that promises to not resolve sites that will use my computer in a botnet, then it is that DNS resolver’s place to do that.
qzzi 7mo ago
1.1.1.1 is simply a free DNS, 1.1.1.2 blocks malware, and 1.1.1.3 blocks both malware and adult content. It's a service that does exactly what it's supposed to do.
bawolff 7mo ago
Literally what the product is here.

leonidasv 7mo ago

Also, they were caught tampering saved webpages as well, so the website cannot be trusted to fulfill it's main purpose anymore: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-archive-today-after-site-executed-ddos-and-altered-web-captures/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-a...