Tag Archives: Internet Archive

Internet Archive Hacked, Data Breach Impacts 31 Million Users

Internet Archive,

Internet Archive’s “The Wayback Machine” has suffered a data breach after a threat actor compromised the website and stole a user authentication database containing 31 million unique records, BleepingComputer reported.

News of the breach began circulating Wednesday afternoon after visitors to archive.org began seeing a JavaScript alert created by the hacker, stating that the Internet Archive was breached.

“Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and is constantly on the verge of a catastrophic security breach? It just happened. See 31 million of you on HIBP!,” reads a JavaScript alert shown on the compromised archive.org site.

The text “HIBP” refers to the Have I Been Pwned data breach notification service created by Troy Hunt, with whom threat actors commonly share stolen data to be added to the service.

Hunt told BleepingComputer that the threat actor shared the Internet Archive’s authentication database nine days ago and it is a 6.4GB SQL file named “ia_users.sql.” The database contains authentication information for registered members, including their email addresses, screen names, password change timestamps, Bcrypt-hashed passwords, and other internet data.

The Verge reported: When visiting The Internet Archive (www.archive.org) on Wednesday afternoon, The Verge was greeted with a pop-up claiming the site had been hacked. Just after 9PM ET, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle confirmed the breach and said the website had been defaced with the notification via a JavaScript library.

According to The Verge, a tweet from HIBP said 54 percent of the accounts were already in its database from previous breaches. In posts on his account, Hunt gave further details on the timeline, including contacting the Internet Archive about the breach on October 6th and moving forward with the disclosure process today, when the site was defaced and DDoS’s at the same time they were loading the data into HIBP to begin notifying affected users.

TechCrunch reported: Have I Been Pwned (HIPB), a data breach notification site, later confirmed the breach, saying that 31 million unique email addresses and usernames were stolen; so did Brewster Kahle, the self-described digital librarian who founded the Internet Archive in 1996.

Indeed, after what may or may not be a related distributed denial-of-service attack, on the service (a hacktivist group claimed responsibility for one but not the other) Kahle on Wednesday night suggested there could be more to come. The organization has “fended off” the DDoS attack “for now,” scrubbed its systems, and upgraded its security, he wrote on X. “Will share more as we know it.”

In my opinion, their is no good reason to collect user data from the Internet Archive, no matter what. The hacker is either having a laugh at being able to steal other people’s data, or simply wants attention. 

Google Will Now Link To The Internet Archive To Add More Context

google,

Rolling out starting today, Google Search results will now directly link to The Internet Archive to add historical context for the links in your results, 9TO5 Google reported.

Google Search makes it easy to find information, but occasionally you need a historical context for a page that may have been recently updated. That was previously possible to a certain extent through cached pages in Search, but that functionality was removed earlier this year.

Starting today, thought, Google Search will make it possible to see a whole lot more historical context for a link. 

Google has partnered with The Internet Archive, a non-profit research library that, in part, stores and preserves massive portions of the web to be easily referenced later. This is done through the “Wayback Machine” which can show a website or specific page as it existed on a previous date.

Internet Archive posted: New Feature Alert: Access Archived Webpages Directly Through Google Search

In a significant step forward for digital preservation, Google Search is now making it easier than ever to access the past. Starting today, users everywhere can view archived versions of webpages directly through Google Search, with a simple link to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

How It Works

To access this new feature, conduct a search on Google as usual. Next to each search result, you’ll find three dots — clicking on these will bring up the “About this Result” panel. Within this panel, select “More About This Page” to reveal a link to the Wayback Machine page for that website.

Through this direct link, you’ll be able to view previous versions of a webpage via the Wayback Machine, offering a snapshot of how it appeared at different points in time.

The collaboration with Google underscores the importance of web archiving and expands the reach of the Wayback Machine, making it even easier for users to access and explore archived content. However, the link to archived webpages will not be available in instances where the rights holder has opted out of having their site archived or if the webpage violates content policies.

Gizmodo reported: What was once dead now lives again through the power of the Internet Archive. Seven months after killing the ability to see old versions of websites through Google, the search engine has partnered with the archive and is directly linking to its cached versions of websites on the Wayback Machine.

Websites change over time. The information on a URL constantly evolves. News stories are changed, blogs are stealth edited, and sometimes stuff just stops working. For more than 20 years, Google offered a way for users to view into the past and see stripped-down and archived versions of old sites.

In my opinion, it is good that the Internet Archive, in connection with Google, is going to continue allowing people to access older content from the Wayback Machine. 

Internet Archive Loses Its Appeal Of A Major Copyright Case

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive has lost a major legal battle — in a decision that could have significant impact on the future of internet history.

Today, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against that long-running digital archive, upholding an earlier ruling in Hatchette v. Internet Archive that found that one of the Internet Archive’s book digitization projects violated copyright law, Wired reported.

Notably, the appeals court’s ruling rejects the Internet Archives’s argument that its lending practices were shielded by the fair use doctrine, which permits for copyright infringement in certain circumstances, calling it “unpersuasive.”

In March 2020, the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, launched a program called the National Emergency Library, or NEL. Library closures caused by the pandemic had left students, researchers, and readers unable to access millions of books, and the Internet Archive has said it was responding to calls from regular people and other librarians to help those at home get access to the books they needed.

The NEL was the subject of backlash soon after its launch, which some authors arguing it was tantamount to piracy. In response, the Internet Archive wishing two months scuttled its emergency approach and reinstated the lending caps. But the damage was done. In June 2020, major publishing houses, including Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley filed the lawsuit.

Reuters reported a U.S. appeals court sided with four major book publishers that accused the nonprofit Internet Archive of illegally scanning copyrighted works and lending them to the public online for free and without permission.

The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan agreed with Hatchette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House that the archive’s “large scale” copying and distribution of entire books did not amount to “fair use.”

Publishers accused the nonprofit of infringing copyrights in 127 books from authors like Malcolm Gladwell, C.S. Lewis, Toni Morrison, J.D. Salinger, and Elie Wiesel, by making the books freely available through its Free Digital Library.

But in a 59-page decision on Wednesday, Circuit Court Judge Beth Robinson said the archive merely supplanted the original books rather than transform them into “something new.”

She said making books available for free harmed publishers and would “undoubtedly negatively impact the public,” by taking away the incentive for many consumers and libraries to pay for books and for many authors to produce new works.

Gizmodo reported: For years, the IA scanned physical copies of library books and allowed people to check out digital versions through its Open Library project. It did so on a one-to-one basis.

Meaning that checking out a digital copy would pull it from the “shelf” until someone returned it. In 2020, and the pandemic shut down libraries across the planet, it expanded its effort with the National Emergency Library program. Under the NEL, books were rented indefinitely. 

The publishing world didn’t react well to the NEL and the IA shut down the program two months after it launched. Then the publishers, including Hatchette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley sued. The court ruled in favor of the publishers in 2023 and the IA appealed.

In my opinion, this does not sound good for the Internet Archive. It is unclear to me why these huge publishers are so upset about the Internet Archive functioning like a regular library. 

 

 

Internet Archive Forced To Remove 500,000 Books

Law

As a result of book publishers successfully suing the Internet Archive (IA) last year, the free online library that strives to keep growing online access to books recently shrank by about 500,000 titles, ArsTechnica reported.

IA reported in a blog post this month that publishers abruptly forcing these takedowns triggered a “devastating loss” for readers who depend on IA to access books that are otherwise impossible or difficult to access.

After publishers won an injunction stopping IA’s digital lending, which “limits what we can do with our digitized books,” IA’s help page said, the open library started shrinking. While “removed books are still available to patrons with print disabilities,” everyone else has been cut off, causing many books in IA’s collection to show up as “Borrow Unavailable.”

Internet Archive posted on their website “Let Readers Read”. It was written by Chris Freeland, a librarian at the Internet Archive.

“… The lawsuit against our library — Hachette v. Internet Archive – is fast approaching the oral argument stage of its appeal in on June 28. I’ve been reflecting on our ongoing, four-year experience with this litigation and on the outcome we’re hoping for. Our position is straightforward; we just want to let our library patrons borrow and read the books we own, like any other library.

We purchase and acquire books — yes, physical, paper books – and make them available for one person at a time to check out and read online. This work is important for readers and authors alike, as many younger and low-income readers can only read if books are free to borrow, and many authors’ books will only be discovered or preserved through the work of librarians. We use industry-standard technology to prevent our books from being downloaded and redistributed — the same technology used by corporate publishers.

But the publishers suing our library say we shouldn’t be allowed to lend the books we own. They have forced us to remove more than half a million books from our library, and that’s why we are appealing.

…In appealing the district court’s decision, our goal is simply to let these readers continue on their journey. We envision a world in which Wikipedia’s can verify facts by following citations to information contained only in our printed history; where libraries can serve their communities with collections financed through public investment; and above all, where library patrons are free to read without fear of corporate or government surveillance…

TechDirt reported: If you found out that 500,000 books had been removed from your local public library, at the demands of big publishers who refused to let them buy and lend new copies, and were further suing the library for damages, wouldn’t you think that would be a major news story? Wouldn’t you think many people would be up in arms about it?

…And yet, for all the benefits of such a system in enabling more people to be able to access information, without changing the basic economies of how libraries have always worked, the big publishers all sued the Internet Archive. The publishers won the first round of that lawsuit. And while the court (somewhat surprisingly) did not order the immediate closure of the Open Library, it did require the Internet Archive to remove any books upon request from publishers (though only if the publishers made those books available as eBooks elsewhere.)

In my opinion, making the Internet Archive remove 500,000 books will cause a lot of harm to the Internet Archive itself, and also the readers who have been relying upon it, due to lack of a nearby library. It certainly feels like the publishers are getting greedy.

Internet Archive Files Appeal In Copyright Infringement Case

Legal,

As expected, the Internet Archive this week has submitted its appeal in Hatchette v. Internet Archive, the closely-watched copyright case involving the scanning and digital lending of library books, Publishers Weekly reported.

In a brief notice filed with the court, IA lawyers are seeking review by the Second Circuit court of appeals in New York of the “August 11, 2023 Judgement and Permanent Injunction; the March 24, 2023 Opinion and Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgement and Denying Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgement; and from any and all orders, rulings, findings and/or conclusions adverse to Defendant Internet Archive.”

According to Publishers Weekly, the notice of appeal comes right at the 30-day deadline – a month to the day after judge John G. Koeltl approved and entered a negotiated consent judgement in the case which declared the IA’s scanning and lending program to be copyright infringement, as well as a permanent injunction that, among its provisions, bars the IA from lending unauthorized scans of the plaintiffs’ in-copyright, commercially available books that are available in digital editions.

The copyright infringement lawsuit was first filed on June 1, 2020, in the Southern District of New York by Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley, and organized by the Association of American Publishers.

The Internet Archive posted on its blog: “Internet Archive Files Appeal in Publishers’ Lawsuit Against Libraries”. From the blog (posted on September 11, 2023):

“Today, the Internet Archive has submitted its appeal in Hatchette v. Internet Archive. As we stated when the decision was handed down in March, we believe the lower court made errors in facts and law, so we are fighting on in the face of great challenges. We know this won’t be easy, but it’s a necessary fight if we want library collections to survive the digital age.”

Statement from Brewster Kahle, Founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive:

“Libraries are under attack like never before. The core values and library functions of preservation and access, equal opportunity, and universal education are being threatened by book bans, budget cuts, onerous licensing schemes, and now by this harmful lawsuit. We are counting on the appellate judges to support libraries and our longstanding widespread library practices in the digital age. Now is the time to stand up for libraries.”

The Verge reported that the appeal from the IA follows a settlement that saw the Archive limit access to some of its scanned books as well as a second suit filed by music publishers over the Archive’s digitization of vintage records.

According to The Verge, the March ruling found that the internet Archive’s scanning and lending of books didn’t fall under the protections of fair use law, and an August settlement required it to remove public access to commercially available books that remained under copyright.

In addition to affecting the Archive, the ruling cast doubt on a legal theory called “controlled digital lending” that would allow other libraries to offer access to digitized books they physically own – rather than relying on frequently expensive and limited lending systems like OverDrive.

In my opinion, it sounds like the publishers are out to get the Internet Archive. This makes me sad. There are currently plenty of people who suddenly favor book bans – even from physical libraries. I don’t like the direction this is going in.

Music Labels Sue Internet Archive Over Digitized Record Collection

Music,

Rolling Stone reported that Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Capitol, and other record labels filed a copyright lawsuit on Friday against the Internet Archive, founder Brewster Kahle, and others over the organization’s “Great 78 Project,” accusing them of behaving as an “illegal record store.”

According to Rolling Stone, the suit lists 2,749 pre-1972 musical works available via Internet Archive by late artists, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, and Bing Crosby, among others.

The nonprofit Internet Archive began in 1996 and claims its mission is to “provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.” It purports to be a digital library that provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public, Rolling Stone reported. Its “Great 78 Project” follows suit; the community project dedicates itself to “the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records”.

The Plaintiffs – UGM Recordings, Capitol Records, Concord Bicycle Assets, CMGI Recorded Music Assets, Sony Music, and Arista Music – who own in full or in part the copyrights to some of the music in the collection claim the works were illegally distributed to to those visiting Internet Archive “millions of times,” Rolling Stone reported.

The suit seeks statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each protected sound recording infringement, which could exceed more than $412 million, along with attorneys’ fees as well as injunctive and further relief determined by the court.

The Great 78 Project is a community project for the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records. From about 1898 to the 1950s, an estimated 3 million sides (~3 minute recordings) have been made on 78rpm discs. While the commercial viable recordings will have been restored or remastered into LP’s or CD, there is still research value in the artifacts and usage evidence in the often rare 78rpm discs and recordings.

Already, over 20 collections have been selected by the Internet Archive for physical and digital preservation and access. Started by many volunteer collectors, these new collections have been selected, digitized and preserved by the Internet Archive, George Blood LP, and the Archive of Contemporary Music.

Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and other record labels on Friday sued the nonprofit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over its streaming collection of digitized music from vintage records, Reuters reported.

They named 2,749 sound-recording copyrights that the Archive allegedly infringed. The labels said their damages in the case could be as high as $412 million.

Representatives for the Internet Archive did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint. The San Francisco-based Archive digitally archives websites, books, audio recordings and other materials. It compares itself to a library and says its mission is to “provide universal access to all knowledge.”

According to Reuters, The Internet Archive is already facing another federal lawsuit in Manhattan from leading publishers who said its digital-book lending program launched in the pandemic violates their copyrights. A judge ruled for the publishers in March, in a decision that the Archive plans to appeal.

The lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”

Personally, I’m not convinced that having the music on “authorized streaming services” is a valid response. There have been plenty of times when content has been removed from “authorized streaming services”, including podcasts and music, without warning.