Are there examples of archive.is falsifying information? I care more about "what you do" than "who you are".

When you don't know who runs archive.is, you can also never know if he sold it to someone else (except if either party publically announces it).

This type of possibility really worries me. Archive.is is much closer to actual history in many ways. If the data there starts getting corrupted or biased, there’s no way to know if what was truly there.

The idea that the permanent record of the internet could hinge on the ethics of one stranger behind a server rack is deeply unsettling.

This happens on .gov websites a lot now, and it is deeply unsettling.

Knowing the current owner of archive.is doesn't help; we need more full, independent Internet mirrors that can be compared against each other.

Archive.is does not archive the page exactly as is.

And when the information on archive.is starts getting corrupted, those links can be adjusted or removed.

Who will catch it, when and how?

I never said there are examples. However, "who you are" matters, even if you don't care. At least when the who is known, we can guage the trustworthiness and what bias exists, because there's always a bias. When who is not known, you don't know what bias to account for. That's not trustworthy and not reliable. And when the site is closed source and you have no idea how it's being run, nor by whom, you don't know "what you do" either.

Does wiki only allow people to vote sources where the owner is known?

"wiki"?

I never concluded that but this actually allows someone, the anonymous here to change the history/info backwards if needed. For russians as an example this would be powerfull tool to manipulate narrative, which is cultural there at this point. Pretty smart and dangerous if it is really operated by them.

Such practices are by no means limited to Russia.

Absolutely. They we're just example which came to my mind first.

Also happens to likely be where the site owner is based

https://gyrovague.com/2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-...

Ignoring the fact that one of this service's primary reason for existing is that corporations and governments are already abusing their ability to retroactively change history.

If this is truly a concern then the answer is to have more than one publicly-accessible independent archive service. Archivebro has never taken any steps towards securing a monopoly on archiving things. The FBI are the only ones doing that.

Also not everybody in Russia is on the FSB payroll. News media always stops investigating as soon as there is credible information that somebody or their server is located in Russia because if they learn too much then it becomes difficult to discredit them as "possibly being linked to the kremlin". If you used any other nationality to imply that somebody is acting in bad faith on behalf of a hostile foreign government without additional evidence those same journos would call you a racist and try to get you canceled.

> We don't know who's running archive.is.

I always assumed it was officially sanctioned by the Israeli government, for some unspecified (but almost certainly nefarious) purpose.

Not sure if your assumption was based on the TLD, but `.is` is Iceland, not Israel (which is `.il`).

Ty to everyone who pointed this out. I have a feeling I've googled it several times, and then promptly forgot. Maybe it will stick this time.

.is is Iceland, not Israel (that's .il).

Why Israel? From the TLD? IS is Iceland. Israel would be IL.

We also know archive.org has removed pages some "important" people didn't like.