The English-language edition of Wikipedia is blacklisting Archive.today after the controversial archive site was used to direct a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against a blog.
In the course of discussing whether Archive.today should be deprecated because of the DDoS, Wikipedia editors discovered that the archive site altered snapshots of webpages to insert the name of the blogger who was targeted by the DDoS. The alterations were apparently fueled by a grudge against the blogger over a post that described how the Archive.today maintainer hid their identity behind several aliases.
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When I said that Wikipedia should take it seriously and rip off the bandaid as quick as possible when the DDoS’s started, a few didn’t believe me when I said there was no reason to trust the content anymore if archive[.]today decided malicious activity using their traffic was okay. The owner’s ehtics (or lack thereof) showed that nothing stopped them from maliciously altering the content either, making any reason to hang on to the archive site null and void.
To those people doubting my perspective: Called it.
As of 13:27, 19 February 2026 (UTC), the owners are now batch-replacing certain names in archived pages with the real name of the gyrovague.com webmaster as a form of harassment.
The top piece of evidence (not in any special order) was redacted due to “revealing personal information”.
Other subsequent pieces of evidence were retained but names were replaced with abbreviations
I have another evidence of tampering: this is a Megalodon archive of a archive.ph archive of a post. The original post is now dead. Patokallio mentions this post in his blog – he would surely mention if the post mentioned him, in the way the archived version does. He quoted the original [N.P.] was a woman[…], while the archive.ph reads Jani Patokallio was a woman[…]
Sometime today, Archive.today replaced the name with the equivalent amount of spaces (only where N…'s name used to be). Ironically, “Jani Patokallio” is of the same length as “N…”.
Should I stop using archive.ph then? I mostly used it because it’s a lot faster than archive.org, which is a bit clunkier to use.
AFAIK archive.is , .ph and .today are all just different domains for the same site.
Yep, also owned by archive.today.
As is archive.is, archive.fo, archive.li, archive.md, and archive.vn.
Well, for accessing paywalled articles .org is no replacement for .ph/.today, sadly. But it’s advisable to use it as little as possible, it seems using visitors for DDoS’ing the blog is still going on.
GhostArchive came up in discussions.
The problem that web.archive.org and ghostarchive.org both have is that they regularly fail to archive content
Understandable. Archive.today is really good at getting website content, but their methods are proprietary and a little dubious.
If you just want to save things locally, I believe Single File is really good. It downloads the page that you see on your browser, as you see it.
Also, as the name indicates, it downloads the page as a single file. Obviously, it doesn’t help for archiving the page for other people, though.
Couldn’t you host it somewhere yourself? I guess there’s a question of trust there, but trust is the reason Wikipedia has decided to stop using archive.today
I would probably use the Wayback Machine for that. You can give it the page’s address and tell it to make a copy.
The Wayback machine is good, but it has limitations archive.today subverted. That’s why people are looking for alternatives specifically to the latter
People with lotsa money tried to make truth disappear…are you all fucking nutz?
Archive.today became non-citable the moment it began altering archived webpages, regardless of anything else.
This is peak incompetence, I think, but it maybe shows that they see their mission not in preserving credible sources, but in breaking paywalls or something else entirely that is not forfeited by petty revenge edits
This is still my number one fear to hear about any archive, because altering the data when done properly may go undetected and lead people to wrong conclusions
Yeah, archive.today came out of gamergate, so there’s a very good chance that the owner sees their mission as being to help jumpstart fascism. In a world where the truth is paywalled but the lies are free, becoming more useful on the left might have been a real problem for them.
It sounds like archive.today is behaving poorly. As far as I know, Wikipedia isn’t exactly “big money”. If you know different on either front, can you please explain. Otherwise your comments are meaningless.
Dunno if I would call it “behaving poorly”.
The blogger in question doxxed the owner/maintainer of Archive.today who in return doxxed the blogger. To me this sounds more like eye for an eye FAFO.
If it’s altering snapshots, it’s not a reliable archive. Simple as that.
The blogger in question doxxed the owner/maintainer of Archive.today who in return doxxed the blogger.
Did you actually read the two articles posted by the blogger? The archive.today owner wasn’t doxxed. No personally identifying information was provided; it only aggregates already-known info including a couple of fake aliases. The most it concludes is that the guy is Russian or operating out of Russia.
https://gyrovague.com/2026/02/01/archive-today-is-directing-a-ddos-attack-against-my-blog/
That’s inappropriate, childish, and unprofessional. It makes them untrustworthy for citations. There are better ways of handling it.
If altering snapshots for a grudge isn’t your definition of “behaving poorly” for a site archiving the state of the Internet, then you must not think they have to be an accurate source of information. If they’re not an accurate source of information, then Wikipedia has no obligation to allow them to be used in citations, and they should remove such citations.
Has the accuracy of the snapshots actually changed based on this edit? After all, if it’s factual information being presented…
I do agree that it raises the issue of what other modifications there may be, and it IS childish, but so is going after a person who provides a good service and wants to remain anonymous while doing so.
All I’m saying is that while I do not agree with the actions, I also am not saying I don’t understand the reasoning behind.
Has the accuracy of the snapshots actually changed based on this edit? After all, if it’s factual information being presented…
Yes! Quite literally, yes. They’re supposed to be an archive of what is on other sites. It doesn’t matter if the original site was, right, wrong, complete, incomplete, accurate, inaccurate, factual, unfactual, etc. If they change things, they’re editorializing and are no longer an archive, they’re new content - which is not the purpose people use them for.
I do agree that it raises the issue of what other modifications there may be,
That’s literally the point. It doesn’t matter how much you “understand the reasoning” (though you also think it’s childish and don’t agree with the actions). You can use it if you want to, no one is stopping you. The point is Wikipedia can’t trust it as a source of archived data and has every right to ban it.
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Now explain why you think that’s relevant to the article you commented on.
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“I am so smart, the answer is obvious. So I won’t tell you. If you don’t get it, you’re not as smart as me.”
🙄
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There is nothing as hilarious as someone trying to use fancy words but missing pretty basic concepts of the language.
You’re trying to sound smart. It’s making you sound dumber.
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You should try yelling “money” again, that’ll definitely convince people. Of. Well, whatever it is you’re trying to convince us of.
Money you can fuck? I don’t see why not. Not entirely sure how it’ll change hands moving forward but it’s time to shake things up.
I don’t. Our money doesn’t have sexy playboy models on it. Maybe some day. Sigh
Went to a strip club once and the stripper was handing out fake $69 bills with her image on it and a link to her OnlyFans…
I don’t want to do the sir this is a Wendy’s thing, but damn this is screaming for a Sir this is a Wendy’s kinda thing.
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But like, first you seem to be upset at the concept of money, which is silly on the face of it. Second, which part of money exchanging hands are you implying? The original DDoS attack or the blacklisting? And in either case, how is the exchanging of money the primary aspect of the story?
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I asked 3 questions. You ignored all 3 and answered with another question also not relevant to the post. You are not to be taken seriously.
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And the award for the biggest non-sequitur in Internet history goes to… This guy!
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Clicks on a website and absolutely nothing else
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Mmmk, better abandon this “money” experiment. Surprised it only lasted thousands of years, but I’m sure human nature will adapt
Money, an invented concept, because the difficulty of trading 2 cows for 500 bushels of grain to a farmer 100 km away induced people to come up with a better system than bartering you mean?
This is seriously some I’m 13 and this is deep bullshit
Km are just a made up unit, the only unit found in nature is football fields.
Just like murican Jesus intended brother!
In old Aztec lands, it was a crime to pass counterfeit cocoa beans. They used them as a medium of exchange.
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Humans believe things. We’re very symbolic animals.
jsyk your posts here just hurt the point you’re trying to make.
I strongly recommend you delete and revisit these thoughts and restructure them so you’re not being told “sir this is a wendies”.
AT’s ddos is because of personal reasons.
Unpleasant truth
