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Wikipedia is removing all links to internet-archiving service Archive.today from its website amid allegations that the platform engaged in a DDoS attack against a blogger earlier this year.
The online encyclopedia estimates that around 400,000 of its pages currently contain more than 695,000 links to Archive.today, which uses multiple domain names, including archive.today, archive.is, archive.ph and archive.fo, among others.
In an update first spotted by Ars Technica, Wikipedia says that in January 2026, the maintainers of Archive.today inserted malicious code to carry out a distributed denial-of-service attack against a person with whom they had a dispute. Every time Archive.today users encountered a CAPTCHA page, their internet connections were allegedly used to attack the blogger.
The victim, Jani Patokallio, who blogs under the pen name Gyrovague, published an investigation into the operator of the website in 2023. He unearthed several aliases the owner of the archive had used, such as “Denis Petrov” and “Masha Rabinovich," but their true identity was not revealed. Details are scarce, beyond suggestions that they are likely Russian and that the Archive.today brand was trademarked in the Czech Republic in 2013.
The site had been controversial even before the recent allegations. It has reportedly been the subject of an FBI investigation since late 2025, and its services are frequently used to bypass paywalled websites, such as newspapers, for free.
Patokallio, who also conducts deep dives into the world of cryptocurrency and online scams, posted a series of threatening messages he says he received from the webmaster of Archive.today in recent months.
Editors have been directed to replace Archive links with alternative web-archiving services, such as Internet Archive, Ghostarchive or Megalodon, or to replace the original source with one that does not require archiving.
Patokallio told Ars Technica that he's "glad the Wikipedia community has come to a clear consensus," and that he hopes "this inspires the Wikimedia Foundation to look into creating its own archival service."
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I’ve been a PC gamer since you had to install games from multiple CD-ROMs by hand. As a reporter, I’m passionate about the intersection of tech and human lives. I’ve covered everything from crypto scandals to the art world, as well as conspiracy theories, UK politics, and Russia and foreign affairs.
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