> Here’s what’s going on. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has been hit by waves of high-volume automated traffic, and we’ve put protections in place to keep the service running.
I'm pretty certain this is scrapers that are trying to workaround blocks on accessing original sites by hitting the Wayback Machine copy instead. Appalling behavior.
In addition to the load it puts on this vital non-profit piece of Internet infrastructure, we've also already seen some sites opt out of the Wayback Machine to prevent their content from being scraped via this alternative route.
This is absolutely something that's happening. There are even paid scraper API's that offer "Wayback Machine fallback" as a feature.
Correct:Also, archive.* has actively edited archived sites to promote their agenda. Why folks continue to use them confuses me. One would think the big wikipedia purge would curb such behavior.
See the "Background" section of the Wikipedia RFC on banning archive.today links: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Archive.is_RFC_5" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment...
They bulk replaced one string (a name) with another one across many archived pages, and added malicious code to all archive pages that would rapidly send requests to gyrovague.com in an attempt to DDOS them.
Just out of curiosity, how do we know that what is in the Wikipedia comments is accurate? I have no skin in the game. I was just wondering. Anybody can post anything on Wikipedia comments. I find it odd that Ars Technica would use that as a source. Maybe it's fine for gossip and speculation but it shouldn't be in Ars Technica then.
There is a megalodon.jp archive of an archive.today page that shows the edits: <a href="https://megalodon.jp/2026-0219-1654-07/https://archive.ph:443/LZymb" rel="nofollow">https://megalodon.jp/2026-0219-1654-07/https://archive.ph:44...
There's also a bunch of previous hackernews discussions about it:
And you obviously have no reason to believe me, but I was following this when it was happening at the start of this year and can confirm that the DDoS script and archive text replacements really did happen.
simonw · · focus · HN ↗
I'm pretty certain this is scrapers that are trying to workaround blocks on accessing original sites by hitting the Wayback Machine copy instead. Appalling behavior.
In addition to the load it puts on this vital non-profit piece of Internet infrastructure, we've also already seen some sites opt out of the Wayback Machine to prevent their content from being scraped via this alternative route.
packetslave · · focus · HN ↗
bsimpson · · focus · HN ↗
gambiting · · focus · HN ↗
ValentineC · · focus · HN ↗
eek2121 · · focus · HN ↗
normie3000 · · focus · HN ↗
I use them. I haven't ever heard mention that the content is edited. Do you have a source?
uqers · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-might-blacklist-archive-today-after-site-maintainer-ddosed-a-blog/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-might-...
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Archive.today_guidance#Why_are_we_doing_this" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Archive.today_guidan...?
Besides tampering with content, the site was also using visitors to DDOS a blog that mentioned the owner of archive.today.
sam_lowry_ · · focus · HN ↗
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Mogzol · · focus · HN ↗
They bulk replaced one string (a name) with another one across many archived pages, and added malicious code to all archive pages that would rapidly send requests to gyrovague.com in an attempt to DDOS them.
sam345 · · focus · HN ↗
fc417fc802 · · focus · HN ↗
avadodin · · focus · HN ↗
Mogzol · · focus · HN ↗
There's also a bunch of previous hackernews discussions about it:
- <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47474255">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47474255
- <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46624740">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46624740
- <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47092006">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47092006
- <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46843805">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46843805
And you obviously have no reason to believe me, but I was following this when it was happening at the start of this year and can confirm that the DDoS script and archive text replacements really did happen.