What was found

Researchers and the blog owner observed a `setInterval` loop that issues `fetch()` requests to a blog’s search endpoint with randomized query strings, preventing caching and keeping requests constant. The code sample (below) was visible in the CAPTCHA page and reproduced in the original report.

setInterval(function() {
fetch("https://gyrovague.com/?s=" + Math.random().toString(36).substring(2, 3 + Math.random() * 8), {
referrerPolicy: "no-referrer",
mode: "no-cors"
});
}, 300);

Plain English: while the CAPTCHA tab stays open, browsers visiting that page repeatedly make requests to the target blog — about three times per second — which over time can overwhelm small or under-provisioned sites.

Why this matters

This behavior can unintentionally (or intentionally) turn ordinary users into traffic generators — effectively weaponizing visitor browsers and producing sustained load that looks like a distributed denial-of-service attack.

Mitigation steps for site owners

• Implement rate limiting on search and other high-cost endpoints (return 429 when thresholds are exceeded).
• Use CDN or WAF rules to throttle abnormal patterns and block abusive referrers.
• Serve cached lightweight results for obviously random search queries.
• Collect request headers, timestamps, and user agent samples to support abuse reports.

Read the full report

For complete screenshots, timeline, and the author’s account, see the original investigation: https://gyrovague.com/2026/02/01/archive-today-is-directing-a-ddos-attack-against-my-blog/

Suggested slug: /archive-today-ddos-attack-against-blog

Suggested labels: archive.today, DDoS, web-archives, infosec