Internet Archive "Wayback Machine" Hacked

 

For users of the Internet Archive, also called the "Wayback Machine," Thursday October 10 was an unpleasant surprise when users discovered the site was offline.  What happened was the website was hacked. When people logged on, instead of the normal page, they saw this message:

Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and is constantly on the verge of suffering a catastrophic security breach? It just happened. See 31 million of you on HIBP!

 

Bleeping Computer would say, "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."

 

The nature of the hack seems to be in dispute. Some are calling it a Directed Denial of Service attack. Others are calling it a data breach that "stole a user authentication database containing 31 million unique records."

 

Forbes quoted a cybersecurity expert as saying, "“Hacking the past is usually technically impossible but this data breach is the closest we may ever come to it. ... The stolen dataset includes personal information but at least the stolen passwords are encrypted."

 

Forbes would also say "While the identity behind the data breach exposing 31 million users remains unclear, the pro-Palestinian hacktivist group Black Meta has claimed responsibility for the DDoS attacks that took down The Internet Archive." 

Sources: Forbes, Bleeping Computer.com, Cyber News  

Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life Newspaper's Website Offline

Since Second Life Newspaper closed it's doors, the website and it's archived stories, at least the Main and People sections, remained up as a record of people places and events in Second Life's middle years. At least it did until now. Checking the website this week, only the front page remained. The rest of the newsletter was down.

After three and a half years, almost as long as it was active, the old newspaper had finally vanished from the scene.

But all is not completely lost. Using the Internet Archive website (https://archive.org/web/), also known as the "Wayback Machine," one can still get a look at copies of the pages (link). It seems only the Main and People Sections still work, though. Other sections such as Red Light and M.A.C.E. are still gone.

Second Life Newspaper officially began as a blog in November 2007 by JamesT Juno, and within a year had emerged as Second Life's top newspaper with several sections. Dana Vanmoer was the editor for most of it's history. Real life difficulties would eventually force James and Dana to leave Second Life and close Second Life Newspaper. Most of the staff would form Second Life Newser, which continues to write to this day.

Bixyl Shuftan