Editing Wayback Machine (section)

==Censorship and other threats==
Archive.org is [[Internet censorship in China|blocked in China]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Conger |first1=Kate |title=Backing up the history of the internet in Canada to save it from Trump |date=December 8, 2016 |url=https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/08/backing-up-the-history-of-the-internet-in-canada-to-save-it-from-trump/ |work=TechCrunch |access-date=May 14, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161227100714/https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/08/backing-up-the-history-of-the-internet-in-canada-to-save-it-from-trump/ |archive-date=December 27, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Where to find what's disappeared online, and a whole lot more: the Internet Archive |date=February 23, 2017 |url=https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-02-23/where-find-whats-disappeared-online-and-whole-lot-more-internet-archive |publisher=Public Radio International |access-date=May 14, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170328092846/https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-02-23/where-find-whats-disappeared-online-and-whole-lot-more-internet-archive |archive-date=March 28, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=October 22, 2023 |title=Online Censorship In China |url=https://en.greatfire.org/archive.org |access-date=October 22, 2023 |website=[[GreatFire]]}}</ref> The Internet Archive was [[Internet censorship in Russia|blocked in its entirety in Russia]] in 2015–16, ostensibly for hosting a Jihad outreach video.<ref name="Nelson"/><ref>{{cite web |last1=Chirgwin |first1=Richard |title=There's no Wayback in Russia: Putin blocks Archive.org |date=September 1, 2015 |website=[[The Register]] |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/01/russias_putin_blocks_archiveorg/ |access-date=May 14, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161007165431/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/01/russias_putin_blocks_archiveorg |archive-date=October 7, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Russia won't go Wayback, blocks the Internet Archive |url=https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/russia-censors-wayback-machines-485-billion-archived-web-pages/ |publisher=Digital Trends |access-date=May 14, 2017 |date=June 26, 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417125727/http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/russia-censors-wayback-machines-485-billion-archived-web-pages/ |archive-date=April 17, 2016}}</ref> Since 2016, the website has been back, available in its entirety, although in 2016 Russian commercial lobbyists were suing the Internet Archive to ban it on copyright grounds.<ref>{{Cite web|title=В России разблокирован крупнейший интернет-архив|url=https://rg.ru/2016/04/18/v-rossii-razblokirovan-krupnejshij-internet-arhiv.html|access-date=October 18, 2020|website=Российская газета|date=April 18, 2016 |language=ru|archive-date=April 5, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190405031631/https://rg.ru/2016/04/18/v-rossii-razblokirovan-krupnejshij-internet-arhiv.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In March 2015, it was published that security researchers became aware of the threat posed by the service's unintentional [[Drive-by download|hosting of malicious binaries]] from archived sites.<ref>{{cite web |author=The VirusTotal Team |date=March 25, 2015 |title=207.241.226.190 IP address information |url=https://www.virustotal.com/en/ip-address/207.241.226.190/information/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714232311/https://www.virustotal.com/en/ip-address/207.241.226.190/information/ |archive-date=July 14, 2014 |access-date=March 25, 2015 |website=virustotal.com |publisher=[[VirusTotal]] |quote=2015-03-25: Latest URLs hosted in this IP address detected by at least one URL scanner or malicious URL dataset. ... 2/62 2015-03-25 16:14:12 [complete URL redacted]/Renegotiating_TLS.pdf ... 1/62 2015-03-25 04:46:34 [complete URL redacted]/CBLightSetup.exe |location=Dublin, Ireland}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=March 25, 2015 |title=Safe Browsing Diagnostic page for archive.org |url=https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=archive.org |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150406101743/http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=archive.org |archive-date=April 6, 2015 |access-date=March 25, 2015 |website=google.com/safebrowsing |quote=2015-03-25: Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 138 time(s) over the past 90 days. ... What happened when Google visited this site? ... Of the 42410 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 450 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2015-03-25, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2015-03-25. ... Malicious software includes 169 trojan(s), 126 virus, 43 backdoor(s). |location=Mountain View, CA, US}}</ref>

[[Alison Macrina]], director of the [[Library Freedom Project]], notes that "while librarians deeply value individual privacy, we also strongly oppose censorship".<ref name="Nelson"/>

There is at least one case in which an article was removed from the archive shortly after it had been removed from its original website. A ''[[The Daily Beast|Daily Beast]]'' reporter had written an article that outed several gay Olympian athletes in 2016 after the reporter had made a fake profile posing as a gay man on a dating app. ''The Daily Beast'' removed the article after it was met with widespread furor; not long after, the Internet Archive soon did as well, but emphatically stated that they did so for no other reason than to protect the safety of the outed athletes.<ref name="Nelson"/>

Other threats include natural disasters,<ref>{{cite web |title=Help Us Keep the Archive Free, Accessible, and Reader Private {{!}} Internet Archive Blogs |date=November 29, 2016 |url=https://blog.archive.org/2016/11/29/help-us-keep-the-archive-free-accessible-and-private/ |access-date=May 14, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170521080543/http://blog.archive.org/2016/11/29/help-us-keep-the-archive-free-accessible-and-private/ |archive-date=May 21, 2017}}</ref> destruction (both remote and physical),<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.engadget.com/2013-11-07-wayback-machine-internet-archive-fire.html |title=Wayback Machine web archive survives destructive fire but needs help to recover |last=Sakr |first=Sharif |date=November 7, 2013 |access-date=April 3, 2022 |archive-date=November 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109025136/https://www.engadget.com/2013-11-07-wayback-machine-internet-archive-fire.html}}</ref> manipulation of the archive's contents, problematic copyright laws,<ref>{{cite web |title=Internet Archive: Proposed Changes To DMCA Would Make Us "Censor The Web" |url=https://consumerist.com/2016/06/07/internet-archive-proposed-changes-to-dmca-would-make-us-censor-the-web/ |publisher=Consumerist |access-date=May 14, 2017 |date=June 7, 2016 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161111161239/https://consumerist.com/2016/06/07/internet-archive-proposed-changes-to-dmca-would-make-us-censor-the-web/ |archive-date=November 11, 2016}}</ref> and surveillance of the site's users.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Herb |first1=Ulrich |title=Die Trump-Angst grassiert |date=December 6, 2016 |trans-title=The Trump fear is rampant |url=https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Trump-Angst-grassiert-3549579.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161207164413/https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Trump-Angst-grassiert-3549579.html |archive-date=December 7, 2016 |access-date=May 14, 2017 |publisher=heise online |language=de |quote=Die Betreiber des Archives fürchten neben Zensur und Manipulation der digitalen Aufzeichnungen demnach auch die Überwachung der Archive-Nutzer. [The operators of the archive fear not only censorship and manipulation of the digital recordings, but also the surveillance of the archive users].}}</ref>

Alexander Rose, executive director of the [[Long Now Foundation]], suspects that in the long term of multiple generations "next to nothing" will survive in a useful way, stating, "If we have continuity in our technological civilization, I suspect a lot of the bare data will remain findable and searchable. But I suspect almost nothing of the format in which it was delivered will be recognizable" because sites "with deep back-ends of content-management systems like Drupal and Ruby and Django" are harder to archive.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=LaFrance |first1=Adrienne |title=The Internet's Dark Ages |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/raiders-of-the-lost-web/409210/ |journal=The Atlantic |date=October 14, 2015 |access-date=May 14, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170507173716/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/raiders-of-the-lost-web/409210/ |archive-date=May 7, 2017}}</ref>

In 2016, in an article reflecting on the preservation of human knowledge, ''[[The Atlantic]]'' has commented that the Internet Archive, which describes itself to be built for the long-term,<ref>{{cite web|title=The Entire Internet Will Be Archived In Canada to Protect It From Trump |url=https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-entire-internet-will-be-archived-in-canada-to-protect-it-from-trump |publisher=Motherboard |access-date=May 14, 2017 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516221604/https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-entire-internet-will-be-archived-in-canada-to-protect-it-from-trump |archive-date=May 16, 2017 |date=November 29, 2016 }}</ref> "is working furiously to capture data before it disappears without any long-term infrastructure to speak of."<ref>{{cite web|last1=LaFrance |first1=Adrienne |title=The Human Fear of Total Knowledge |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/knowledge-compendia/485507/ |website=The Atlantic |access-date=May 14, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202040113/http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/knowledge-compendia/485507/ |archive-date=December 2, 2016 |date=June 3, 2016 }}</ref>

{{wikinews|Data breach and DDOS attacks bring down Wayback Machine}}
In September 2024, the Internet Archive suffered a data breach that exposed 31 million records containing personal information, including email addresses and [[Cryptographic hash function|hashed]] passwords.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shaikh |first=Roshan |date=October 10, 2024 |title=Internet Archive hacked and 31 million user accounts leaked — hacking group 'SN_Blackmeta' claims responsibility |url=https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/internet-archive-hacked-and-31-million-user-accounts-leaked-hacking-group-sn-blackmeta-claims-responsibility |access-date=December 30, 2024 |website=[[Tom's Hardware]]}}</ref> On October 9, 2024, the site went down due to a [[distributed denial-of-service attack]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/10/archive-org-a-repository-storing-the-entire-history-of-the-internet-has-been-hacked/|title=Archive.org, a repository of the history of the Internet, has a data breach|last=Goodin|first=Dan|date=October 9, 2024|work=[[Ars Technica]]|archive-url=https://archive.today/20241010115326/https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/10/archive-org-a-repository-storing-the-entire-history-of-the-internet-has-been-hacked/|archive-date=October 10, 2024|url-status=live|access-date=October 10, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Warren |first=Tom |title=The Internet Archive is back as a read-only service after cyberattacks |website=[[The Verge]] |date=October 14, 2024 |url=https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/14/24269741/internet-archive-online-read-only-data-breach-outage |access-date=October 14, 2024}}</ref> On October 14, the site returned online, but it remained in read-only mode until November 4, during which time "Save Page Now" was disabled, replaced with a "Temporarily Unavailable" banner.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://web.archive.org/|title=Wayback Machine Homepage|date=October 24, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241024041605/https://web.archive.org/ |archive-date=October 24, 2024 }}</ref>