The Internet Archive needs to be distributed somehow. We can’t have a single point of failure like this or we’ve learned nothing since Alexandria.
I’ve got several terabytes just laying around that I’d happily devote to ancient copies of web pages.
As of January 2024, archive.org claims to have over 99 Petabytes of data stored.
This is why we need more websites to adopt secure client side scripting.
JavaScript may or may not be it, but the web needs to be reachable/archivable. It should also have attribution, but that’s a tangent.
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dweb.archive.org loads for me
That last sentence though…
- **“The cyberattacks share the timeline with the legal battle Internet Archive is facing from US book publishers, claiming copyright infringement and seeking combined damages of hundreds of millions of dollars from all libraries.” ** *
i wonder why print is dead
How is print books dead ?
https://www.statista.com/chart/24709/e-book-and-printed-book-penetration/
And that’s only units, in terms of revenue, ebooks is still pocket change in comparison.
i wasn’t speaking in comparison to ebooks. ebooks suck in every way imaginable.
What other long-form text format has beaten print books ?
why are you coming up with these categories? “print is dead” doesn’t mean “because there’s print 2.0 now”
—radio is dead
—excuse me, but internet radio is nothing compared to am stations
—yeah, obviously people who don’t listen to radio don’t want to listen to radio with extra steps
—what other forms of radio has beaten radio?what are you even
I am trying to understand what’s the argument behind your statement. I mean, there are more books being published than ever and there are more readers than ever. So, I fail to imagine how are books dead. That’s why I am asking these questions.
The argument is that no one reads books anymore. Most media consumed today is in modern video and audio formats like YouTube and podcasts. You shouldn’t compare paper books to ebooks, you should compare them to views on YouTube.
Describing a high intensity DDOS attack on one of the world’s most important resources as simply “mean” is unironically one of the funniest things I’ve read this year.
Hope they get some support soon.
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What the Internet Archive is doing seems to be to be a pretty textbook case of fair use to me.
The claim that the publishing and recording industries are somehow harmed by a site that can only make copies of content that was made freely available and isn’t being resold is ludicrous stupid.
Could these publishers try to set up these court cases to position it in front of the US Supreme Court?
The problem is that the litigation was entirely “just”, as far as the legal system goes. It’s an open-and-shut case and everyone saw it coming. The Internet Archive basically stood in front of a train and dared it to turn, and now they’re crying the victim. Doesn’t exactly entice me to send them donations to cover their lawyers and executives right now.
They really need to admit “okay, so that was a dumb idea, and ultimately not related to archiving the Internet anyway. We’re not going to do that again.”
Note that I’m not saying the publishers are “good guys” here, I hate the existing copyright system and would love to see it contested. Just not by Internet Archive. Let someone else who’s purpose is fighting those fights take it on and stick to preserving those precious archives out of harm’s way.
I hate the existing copyright system and would love to see it contested.
My brother in Christ, they’re literally contesting it
Did you read literally the next sentences I wrote after that one? Here they are:
Just not by Internet Archive. Let someone else who’s purpose is fighting those fights take it on and stick to preserving those precious archives out of harm’s way.
The Internet Archive is like someone carrying around a precious baby. The baby is an irreplaceable archive of historical data being preserved for posterity. I do not want them to go and fight with a bear, even if the bear is awful and needs to be fought. I want them to run away from the bear to protect the baby, while someone else fights the bear. Someone better equipped for bear-fighting, and who won’t get that precious cargo destroyed in the process of fighting it.
Who else is better equipped? In my view it would solely depend on the lawyers that internet archive hires, and money plays a big factor in that.
Also, internet archive is going through the route process of how legislation gets overturned or upheld. Just because you perceive them as unworthy to bear the challenge doesn’t make that true, and as a result your commitment to not support them because they aren’t the one true chosen is ill-informed.
Who else is better equipped? In my view it would solely depend on the lawyers that internet archive hires, and money plays a big factor in that.
The EFF. This kind of thing is why they exist.
The Archive making themselves an easier target was a huge misstep IMO. All it takes is one overreaching judge telling them they need to purge all copyrighted data (a common judgment in lawsuits like this) and the world becomes a worse place.
Realistically, they could just move their servers abroad to a country with less problematic copyright rules and wind up their US operations. It would make no difference to the end user, unless ISPs are also ordered to block access. And even then it’d only be a VPN away.
The risk of total data loss is not zero, but it’s also not the likely outcome.
Who else is better equipped?
The EFF, for example. Fighting lawsuits for the sake of internet freedom is their reason for being. Sci-hub, for ebooks more specifically. Or Library Genesis. Those are organizations specifically devoted to fighting against excessive copyright restrictions on books.
Just because you perceive them as unworthy to bear the challenge
You’re not understanding what I’m saying here. I don’t think Internet Archive is unworthy to bear the challenge. I think they’re not well suited to it, and when they inevitably lose the lawsuits they’ve jumped head-first into they’re risking damage to other causes that are very important and unrelated to this particular fight.
They really need to admit “okay, so that was a dumb idea, and ultimately not related to archiving the Internet anyway. We’re not going to do that again.”
It literally archives internet pages and files. What do you think the internet archive does if it doesn’t do that?
The lawsuit was about them distributing unauthorized copies of books. Not archiving, and not internet pages or files.
And that was exactly the problem.
Your calling files, book documents to be specific, books, doesn’t change that IA is storing files, ebooks to be specific, nor that the ruling shall affect all Libraries, which includes the Internet Archive to be specific. And the actual issue, is that the publishers refuse to offer ebooks to Libraries as they assume it’ll cost sales when in fact the folks using the Library are there as they are not going to go buy one.
doesn’t change that IA is storing files, ebooks to be specific,
Emphasis added. Storing files is not the problem. Nobody cared when they were just scanning and storing them. The problem arose when they started giving out copies. And worse, giving out copies without restriction - libaries “lend” ebooks by using DRM systems to try to ensure that only a specific number of copies are out “in circulation” at any given time, and so the big publishers have turned a blind eye to that.
Internet Archive basically turned themselves into an ebook Pirate Bay, giving out as many copies as were asked for with no limits.
Again, I don’t agree with current copyright laws, I think the big publishers are gigantic heaps of slime and should be burned to the ground. The problem here is that it’s not Internet Archive that should be fighting this fight.
Library, look it up. And the publishers always hated Libraries.
Unlimited copies, look it up. Internet Archive’s “emergency library” broke the customary limits that other libraries stick to in order to keep publishers off their backs - they were giving out as many copies of a book at once as people were requesting, rather than keeping a limited number “in circulation.”
It really was basically just a piracy site all of a sudden. It’s absolutely no surprise at all that the publishers came down on them like a ton of bricks.
You are simply wrong from the get go. This is the only way it’ll ever get addressed, is 100% in the stated purpose of the Internet Archive, the dumb part isn’t on the side of preservation efforts, there isn’t a separate issue nor is there a separate copyright the publishers are the same with the exact same unsustainable arguments regardless of web page, code, or ebook.
You are making the same mistake made upon a lot of patents, assuming “but on a computer” is somehow transformative.It’s an open-and-shut case and everyone saw it coming.
And yet whoever’s doing this evidently doesn’t expect to succeed via legal means.
This subthread switched specifically to the topic of their pending lawsuits, it’s not about the DDoS. I doubt the publishers are behind this DDoS because they’re already easily winning in the courts, there’s absolutely no need for them to risk blowing their case and getting countersued this way.
This subthread switched specifically to the topic of their pending lawsuits
Because Internet Archive implied a potential connection to the DDoS attack. And given the large-institution scale of the attack and the lack of motivation for any other actors on that scale, it seems like the most plausible explanation.
Edit: And I’m not sure where you’re trying to go with this whole subthread—you tried to narrow the topic exclusively to the legal case by arguing that the case is unrelated to the DDoS attack, while at the same time pointing to the lawsuit to imply that IA had it coming.
Then the Internet Archive is being an idiot and risking a lawsuit. Again. They’ve already been raked over the coals for copyright violation, I guess they want to add libel to the list as well?
The Internet Archive has plenty of enemies, many of whom don’t have an easy legal arsenal to throw at them like those big publishers did. The publishers have been playing smart so far and have won already through legal means, it makes no sense for them to suddenly turn stupid and launch this DDoS.
Okay well they’re being sued for millions of damages? If they just agree to those damages they put themselves at higher risks of losing other court cases and the money to run the site
They’re only at risk when they take risky behaviours. Simply archiving the Internet, like they’ve been doing for years, is not what they got sued over.
If they’re going to keep doing the same thing they got sued over then they’re going to keep losing court cases, because obviously they are. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. They should stop doing that.
Well said. Within the existing framework of copyright law, the emergency open library thing that got them sued seems obviously illegal, despite it being a good thing. What’s good and what’s legal don’t always line up.
The Internet Archive’s work is too important. The library portion (that does controlled digital lending of published books) is nice, but I wouldn’t be too hurt if it goes down. Regular public libraries can fill a lot of that role. But the archive itself is incredible, and losing that would be a huge shame.
Legally, I don’t know that admitting fault and saying sorry does much good, but it certainly isn’t surprising that they got into hot water here.
It probably wouldn’t help their current lawsuit, at this point. Maybe right at the beginning, before it went to court and they could negotiate a bit in search of a reasonable settlement, but at this point they’ve already lost it hard.
What it would do is reassure me that they’re not going to do something dumb like this in the future, which would make me more willing to donate money to them knowing it’ll go to actual internet archiving activities instead of being thrown into big publishers’ pockets as part of more lawsuit settlements.
Just not by Internet Archive.
Why not them in particular?
I explained why not in the sentence directly following the one that you quoted. Here it is again:
Let someone else who’s purpose is fighting those fights take it on and stick to preserving those precious archives out of harm’s way.
To explain in more detail: The Internet Archive is custodian to an irreplaceable archive of Internet history and raw data. If they go and get themselves destroyed at the hands of book publishers fighting lawsuits over ebook piracy, that archive is at risk of being destroyed along with them. Or being sold off at whatever going-out-of-business sale they have, perhaps even to those very giant publishers that destroyed them.
That is why not them in particular. Let someone who isn’t carrying around that precious archive go and get into fights like this.
You gotta be a special kind of sad to DDoS archive.org…
…or paid well.
You can go ahead and say ‘Evil’.
I bet the attack is coming from Big Hollywood
Foreign government, moneyed interests, or domestic dipshits, taking all bets.
Barnes & Nobel going rouge.
who was trying to sue it out of existence recently? probably them.
Cloudflare
They could do this with the bank of america instead
Or AP? Nobody gets payed and so they get more attention!
Banks are evil, nonprofits like archive.org are not.
Lolwut?
Across social, economic, and political spectra, you can always tell the good guys from the bad guys by their stance on access to knowledge.
Had an argument with FIL where he argued his last child Is out of school so he votes against school taxes. I’m like you know that pays for the people you and your family will interact with. His response was “I want them as ignorant as me”. Even as joke it’s lacks wisdom. He just complained about doctors being uneducated an hour before.
Ffffuck that’s depressing.
I don’t even have kids. I’m actually pretty against having them in general. But education is an existential requirement to a functioning democracy, and even a basic education is so broadening.
The only reason to want people ignorant is if you’re trying to swindle them, which honestly benefits no one in the long run.
Not even democracy per se; it’s a basic requirement for a society that functions at more than a medieval level.
Complains without solutions and distrusts legitimate experts, with a dash of “fuck other people.” So you’re just saying your FIL is a typical Republican.
Donated
Losing the internet archive would be such a huge loss… I really hope they have a backup plan in case things go bad legally.
yeah, it’s definitely going to be one of the most important things to have ever happened in human history, if it does.
Library of Alexandria burning down for the modern era
Given the volume of data involved, I wonder if one of those fancy new distributed data formats could be used.
A blockchain?
Stop it you fucking bastards!
Well Google search method was just leaked… Wonder if this picked that up before they pulled it.
Can you tell me more about this? Or just a link would be amazing.
I’m worried about what this could mean about further SEO enshittification.
Thank you!
Can someone explain why they’re not able to protect against this? Couldn’t they put request limits or monitor for spikes and banning these attempts?
Without knowing how, not really. If it’s a massive multi-device botnet, like Mirai, for example, that’s millions of indvidual devices across millions of addresses, so it isn’t so simple as just blocking a domain. Trying to block all of them might well just block legitimate users.
Request limits also wouldn’t work if it’s millions of devices making a few requests at once, and an overall limit would have a similar locking-out effect as blocking everything. Especially if the DDoS is taking up most/all of that limit.
Just so crazy to me the scale.
Is there any range for how many “a few requests” would be needed to ddos a site like this?
A quick search indicates that they’ve archived ~100PB of data.
Now I’m trying to come up with a way to archive the internet archive in a peer-to-peer/federated fashion while maintaining fidelity as much as possible…
That’s what IPFS is for. It’s ideal for that kind of stuff
Torrent?
ia already serves all their uploads as torrents
There is this, yes.
That wouldn’t distribute the load of storing it though. Anyone on the torrent would need to set aside 100PBs of storage for it, which is clearly never going to happen.
You’d want a federated (or otherwise distributed) storage scheme where thousands of people could each contribute a smaller portion of storage, while also being accessible to any federated client. 100,000 clients each contributing 1TB of storage would be enough to get you one copy of the full data set with no redundancy. Ideally you’d have more than that so that a single node going down doesn’t mean permanent data loss.
That wouldn’t distribute the load of storing it though. Anyone on the torrent would need to set aside 100PBs of storage for it, which is clearly never going to happen.
Torrents are designed for incomplete storage of data. You can store and verify few chunks without any problem.
You’d want a federated (or otherwise distributed) storage scheme where thousands of people could each contribute a smaller portion of storage, while also being accessible to any federated client.
Torrents. You may not have entirety of data, but you can request what you need from swarm. The only limitation is you need to know in which chunk data you need.
Ideally you’d have more than that so that a single node going down doesn’t mean permanent data loss.
True.
True. Until you responded I actually completely forgot that you can selectively download torrents. Would be nice to not have to manually manage that at the user level though.
Some kind of bespoke torrent client that managed it under the hood could probably work without having to invent your own peer-to-peer protocol for it. I wonder how long it would take to compute the torrent hash values for 100PB of data? :D
Not sure you’d be able to find 100k people to host a 1TB server though. Plus, redundancy would be better anyway since it would provide more download avenues in case some node is slow or has gone down.
Yes, it’s a big ask, because it’s a lot of data. Any distributed solution will require either a large number of people or a huge commitment of storage capacity. Both 100,000 people and 1TB per node is a lot to ask for, but that’s basically the minimum viable level for that much data. Ten million people each committing 50GB would be great, and offer sufficient redundancy that you could lose 80% of the nodes before losing data, but that’s not a realistic number to expect to participate.
It’d be a lot more complicated than that, I think, if one wanted to effectively be able to address it like a file system, as well as holistically verify the integrity of the data and preventing unintentional and unwanted tampering
as well as holistically verify the integrity of the data and preventing unintentional and unwanted tampering
Torrents. Their hashes are derived from hashes of chunks. Just verify chunks.
if one wanted to effectively be able to address it like a file system
Sick. TIL!
Block chain
Can DDOS attacks actually erase/corrupt stored data though? There’s no way they’re running all of this on a single server, with hundreds of PB’s worth of storage, right?
No. It affects availability. Not integrity or confidentiality.
DDOS attacks block connection to the servers, they don’t actually harm the data itself. You could probably overload a server to the point of it shutting down, which might affect data in transit, but data at rest usually wouldn’t be harmed in any way; unless through some freak accident a server crash would render a drive unusable. But even then, servers are usually fully redundant, and have RAID systems in place that mirror the data, so kind of a dual redundancy. Plus actual backups on top of that; though with that amount of data they might have a priority system in place and not everything is fully backed up.
From what I’ve learned, it is possible to create a vulnerability within the system of a ddos attack would overload and cause a reset or fault. At that point, it’s possible to inject code and initiate a breach or takeover.
I can’t find the documentation on it so… Take it with a grain of salt. I thought I learned about it in college. Unsure.
i honestly really hope this shit gets taken care of so internet archive can still keep going
