Stroll into the Truax campus any day of the week, and you will spot President Dr. Jack Daniels, III, moving around. He frequently talks with…
When one thinks of the word “archive,” the mental imagery of long rows and tall stacks of books shelves with thousands of printed and paper-bound treasures comes to mind. But what if I told you that there exists a “digital” version of this concept and that it has existed since 1996 — for the last 28 years — on the web for all to use for free?
It’s called the “Internet Archive,” and chances are you might have already come across it if you’ve ever used ‘The Wayback Machine” or Archive.org. In this piece, I will delve into the history of the Internet Archive, its recent hacking and defacing of its site and the eventual recovery.
What is the Internet Archive?
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library that was founded to preserve and provide “universal access” to cultural and historical content. It was founded in 1996 – a whole 28 years ago — by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and since then, the archive has grown to become one of the largest digital libraries in the world, hosting over 70 million individual items of vast historical and cultural significance. Its vast collections include e-books, audiobooks, movies, music, audio recordings, websites, software and video games, making it an incredible treasure trove for education, research, cultural and historical exploration.
Through some of its most popular — and public-facing — initiatives like the Wayback Machine, which archives websites and web pages, and Open Library, which lends e-books, the Internet Archive has been instrumental in giving access to content and material. With over 1 billion+ monthly visitors and partnerships with libraries, museums and archives worldwide, the organization plays an incredibly outsized role when we consider how little it’s known.
The 2024 Hacking and Defacing
May 2024 marked the Internet Archive’s first attack since its 1996 founding; a series of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) strikes left the platform wading through days of intermittent outages — courtesy of SN_BLACKMETA, a hacker group, who seemed to be studying from the British Library’s 2023 cyberattack playbook.
Oct. 9, 2024, brought the knockout punch: visitors to archive.org encountered a defaced JavaScript message: “Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and is constantly on the verge of suffering a catastrophic security breach? It just happened.” The breach sent 31 million user accounts — complete with email addresses and encrypted passwords — straight into the dark web, forcing the Internet Archive to shut down its entire operation.
The recovery process unfolded with deliberate caution and fine cyber-engineering. By October 13, the Wayback Machine returned to read-only mode, though archiving capabilities remained offline. Despite subsequent breaches targeting Zendesk (a support platform) and API tokens, the Archive persisted in its restoration efforts.
The succeeding week brought reassurance from founder Brewster Kahle — the vast cache of archival material remained safe, though the site’s return to full service would require patience.
By Oct. 23, core services like the Wayback Machine, Archive-It and Open Library had resumed operations; some features, however, remained in painful digital limbo as the team engineered to fortify their defenses.
The breach placed the Internet Archive in unwanted company — it joined a growing list of cultural institutions targeted by cybercriminals — the Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library and Calgary Public Library had all faced similar attacks. Operating on what Kahle described as a “shoestring budget,” the Archive found itself trying to balance universal access with robust security; it’s a paradox familiar to many digital libraries trying to preserve knowledge while protecting it from those who’d exploit its accessibility.
The Way Forward
As readers of The Clarion, the most direct action you can take in preserving the legacy of the Internet Archive is to make a tax-deductible donation to the organization.
Also, learning about its work and its importance in the history of the formation and growth of the internet is another way to contribute positively to the organization’s efforts.
The incidents targeting the Internet Archive also served as a wake-up call to many other non-profits who might have otherwise put cybersecurity on the backburner, the wakeup call being — no matter what your organization does or how it’s structured, there are hacker groups out there constantly waiting to attack you.
The best defense is, therefore, fortifying oneself digitally.
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