While the Internet Archive is still recovering from a massive breach, let‘s examine why the Wayback Machine, the home of the website museum, was caught in the crossfire of alleged political hacktivism.
Internet Archive, the non-profit digital library, was thoroughly hacked earlier this week. Its website was defaced, and tens of millions of its users' details were exposed. Hours after the initial attack, the nonprofit was continuously plowed with one DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack after another.
After briefly coming back to life on Thursday, the website was shut down again. Even in the wee hours of October 11th, it was still down, with its founder, Brewster Kahle, updating users that all services had been stopped to allow internal systems to be upgraded. At the time of writing, it’s unclear how long the service’s downtime will continue.
But why did all of this happen? Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, was launched in 1996, a decade more optimistic than the one we’re living in now. Back when internet-dwellers still envisioned the online as a democratic venue for knowledge-sharing.
Meanwhile, the Internet Archive’s spin-off, the Wayback Machine, has been preserving hundreds of billions of web pages, some of which can no longer be accessed in any other way. This makes the service a sort of digital museum of humanity’s evolution online.
Update: @internetarchive’s data has not been corrupted. Services are currently stopped to upgrade internal systems.
undefined Brewster Kahle (@brewster_kahle) October 10, 2024
We are working to restore services as quickly and safely as possible.
Sorry for this disruption.
So, did attackers try to steal user data? Or maybe they were attempting to steal the digital version of the “Library of Alexandria”? Well, no. As attacks’ perpetrators or perpetrator, SN_Blackmeta put it, “they are under attack because the archive belongs to the USA […],” and the USA is to be blamed for “genocide that is being carried out by the terrorist state of Israel.”
Attempts to point out that Internet Archive is a nonprofit, supported by user donations and literally book scanning services, did little to convince attackers to reevaluate.
“Everyone calls this organization “non-profit,” but if its roots are truly in the United States, as we believe, then every “free” service they offer bleeds millions of lives. Foreign nations are not carrying their values beyond their borders,” SN_Blackmeta responded in comments on Telegram.
While it’s becoming increasingly difficult to follow the logic of various hacktivist groups, to the point where seemingly every DDoS attack has to have a political motive behind it, shutting down an online library to protest American power sticks out.
For one, just look at who's been vigorously battling the Internet Archive. In 2020 four publishing houses with combined revenue of $16 billion – Hachette Book Group, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Wiley – sued Internet Archive over its digital lending practices.
The outrage to this action by SN_Blackmeta has been noticeable on both Telegram and X. It is interesting that this isn't the first time they have targeted the Internet Archive.
undefined CyberKnow (@Cyberknow20) October 10, 2024
SN_Blackmeta has at least some links to Anonymous Sudan, even if only faint - which is why they have… https://t.co/PNfbcnJJ8y
Meanwhile, last year, music industry behemoths Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Concord sued Internet Archive for $621 million in damages for copyright infringement. At least in some sense, SN_Blackmeta’s supposed hacktivism serves multinational mega-corporations, virtually synonymous with US power, more than it does people oppressed by it.
However, as SN_Blackmeta probably knows very well, nothing attracts more attention than seemingly senseless attacks. As the threat intelligence researcher CyberKnow has eloquently put it: “This is about information manipulation and reputation building way more than it ever was about conducting the attack.”
Whatever SN_Blackmeta might say about the motives behind the attack, in reality, it is attention-seeking. Disrupting real American power institutions is far more difficult than hijacking a JavaScript of a decades-old nonprofit. If disrupting anything was even the point in the first place.
“Unfortunately, the posts without context and the outrage will fuel their (SN_Blackmeta) credibility within their community and help them rebuild after a period of inactivity. Any press is good press when your business model is attention,” CyberKnow wrote.
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