Found via Kevin: the maintainer of Archive.today has been found to be executing a DDoS attack against a specific blog via visitor captchas and altering page snapshots with fabrications.
In January 2026, archive.today added code into its website in order to perform a distributed denial-of-service attack against a blog.[1] This code uses the computers of visitors of the site to repeatedly send requests to the blog, with the goal of overwhelming the blog’s ability to handle legitimate traffic. The code is still present as of 19 February 2026.[2] Some common ad blockers, such as uBlock Origin, are currently stopping these malicious requests. It was later discovered that archive.today tampered with archived websites.
I know a bit since I’m into archiving due to link rot.
Archive.today is similar to the Wayback Machine, except that they’ll host mirrors that the Internet Archive refuses to host (whether due to good or bad reasons).
Patokallio (the guy who’s blog is being DDOS’d) investigated Archive.today’s funding and operator identity in 2023, finding names like “Denis Petrov” and potentially Russian origins. He writes more about this on his blog. The FBI subpoenaed Archive.today’s domain registrar in October 2025 as part of a criminal investigation.
It’s really shitty and shows how much power people really have when they create tools that so many people use.
Yeah it’s really disappointing when you find out that neat little projects like these are run by people who…can we say…just can’t be trusted with power.
I was excited about the fact that Archive.today was an alternative archiving/paywall solution that took some of the load off of Archive.org, but it seems it may bite the dust soon.
Expanding on what Brennan said: you may have seen this site under the address of archive.is, archive.ph, or others. It’s commonly used as an alternative to the Wayback Machine and it’s all over Wikipedia.
oh man, that’s so disappointing. i used archive.today all the time! what a sad way to burn all the money & effort & time they spent on the archive :( i had no idea it was run by like one person, that’s really impressive. or, yknow, Was.
given how nonthreatening the original blog post was it seems like the archivist is really Going Through It and lashing out basically at random? i hope they can shake off the FBI and get through it ok, and the ddos doesn’t do too much damage to patokallio. what a miserable situation all around.
I’ve always found archive.today (and its mirrors such as archive.is and archive.ph) somewhat shady.
unlike the internet archive, archive.today doesnt honor exclusion or removal request (in most cases)
the only way to get something removed is to have a lawyer and file a formal DMCA, which is insane. archive.today can burn for all i care. while web archival is noble and needed, not honoring exclusion requests is unethical
Here’s a link to the blogger that is mentioned in all of the news articles and his take on what is going on: archive.today is directing a DDOS attack against my blog , which I managed to miss while reading the article link in the start of the topic. On the other hand, here is Archive Today’s blog, which reads a lot more unhinged. Definitely a weird personal vendetta.
Oh and here’s the blog post that spurred Archive Today’s attack: archive.today: On the trail of the mysterious guerrilla archivist of the Internet. The worst the blogger calls the webmaster of Archive Today is “sketchy” and does not even come to a conclusion of who they are, just suspecting that they are Russian. He even ends the post with “I for one will be buying Denis/Masha/whoever a well deserved cup of coffee”, indicating financial support of Archive Today and linking to it so others can support. Meanwhile Archive Today calls him a Nazi troll and rambles about his family reputation.