Note that association's site is made from this free template [1] with minimal editing (can see it using diff). The web hosting account at name.com (prices starting from $5/year) was registered around Jan 12, 2025 [2]. The page also contains commented out section with a part of French mobile phone number and words "Emergency Standard" (the template contained fictional number here):
<!-- <div class="contact-item">
<a rel="nofollow" href="tel:06221319" class="item-link">
<i class="fas fa-2x fa-phone-square mr-4"></i>
<span class="mb-0">Emergency Standard</span>
</a>
</div> -->
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20250112153727/https://webabused...
How can you even sue without any legal identity? This website and an organisation does not happen to have any. Might as well be some shell company in the Carribeans with no legal standing in France. It's not even good enough for public prosecution, as the tip would then go through French services.
This law is completely backwards, and worse than a SLAPP. If you cannot respond to a report in any way, it should be null.
A few weeks ago I noticed DNS4EU couldn’t resolve archive.is and assumed it was just a configuration mistake. I emailed them about it, and after a couple of days or weeks (not really sure) the domain started resolving again. Given AdGuard’s recent report about suspicious pressure on DNS providers to block Archive.today, I’m starting to wonder if DNS4EU’s temporary block was actually related to the same campaign
The wording in that follow-up email is so emotive it reads more like a Tweet than formal contact from a federal organisation.
That in itself is quite shocking really.
Its interesting that being unable to find a legal route to dig up dirt on archive.is, they're going the route of CSAM allegations.
I first heard of this technique on a discussion on Lowendtalk from a hoster discussing how pressure campaigns were orchestrated.
The host used to host VMs for a customer that was not well liked but otherwise within the bounds of free speech in the US (I guess something on the order of KF/SaSu/SF), so a given user would upload CSAM on the forum, then report the same CSAM to the hoster. They used to use the same IP address for their entire operation. When the host and the customer compared notes, they'd find about these details.
Honestly at the time I thought the story was bunk, in the age of residential proxies and VPNs and whatnot, surely whoever did this wouldn't just upload said CSAM from their own IP, but one possible explanation would be that the forum probably just blocked datacenter IPs wholesale and the person orchestrating the campaign wasn't willing to risk the legal fallout of uploading CSAM out of some regular citizen's infected device.
In this case, I assume law enforcement just sets up a website with said CSAM, gets archive.is to crawl it, and then pressurize DNS providers about it.
The Ministry of Truth simply doesn't want unaccounted and uncontrolled snapshots of history. Too much hassle steering the narrative regarding any surfacing truth-now-meant-to-be-lies and vice versa into fake news territory, discrediting by association, cranking up troll farms.. Much easier to make this inconvenience disappear with the due cooperation from the controlled outlets of information.
Then they will come after our local storage, and making it prohibitively expensive is the least malign way they can come up with.
So they're pressuring a DNS resolver to block a specific website? That seems like an incredibly slippery slope.
What stops them from forcing Chrome to block the website, or LetsEncrypt to not issue any more certificates for the domain, or Microsoft and Apple to add them to their firewalls? Hell, can they go after the infrastructure software developers and say, force nginx to add a check and refuse to serve the domain?
Then what happens when a fake report is sent to an open source project without budget for lawyers?
I still can't wrap my head around why a DNS provider is required to block websites, especially one that is not associated with ISP or used as default on any device. Oversimplifying this, it's a glorified hash map, so whoever wants to take down the illegal content should just deal with the website owner?
It's wild how much stuff nowadays is people/bad actors just doing things and expecting nobody to call them out. Like, the whole patent troll "industry" is just abusing the law, hoping people don't stop them.
Maybe folks should start calling eachother out?
The wording and tone of the emails sent to Adguard reads just like phishing emails with a hint of political SMS spam. Glad to see the people behind there thinking critically and acting rationally despite such language.
It has been said that the main reason for the attack on Archive is because Israel needs to cover up their crimes. There is too much evidence in the open.
It's the equivalent of burning a library down because books have records of the truth.
Adguard deserves the highest praise for publicizing this attack on them.
Super odd to pressure an ad-blocking DNS provider to use their service to 'block' archive.today. Adguard just provides block lists that allow users to easily block ad services.
If adguard starts blocking certain domains users actually want to access, users will simply switch off of adguard. No one uses adguard as a resolver by default, they switch to adguard to block ads. This seems like it'd be a pretty ineffective way of blocking sites users actually want to access.
This just shows that LCEN, DMCA, etc are poorly crafted laws. They ineffectually stop the abuse they claim to end (like copyright infringement). But it does allow large organizations a cudgel to protect their own IP.
> a private company shouldn’t have to decide what counts as “illegal” content under threat of legal action.
Immediately reminded me of patio11's amazing write up[1] of debanking, featuring banks being deputized as law enforcement for financial crimes (which is completely non controversial), and even used as a convenient tool to regulate other industries that the white house didn't like (kinda controversial).
[1]: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...
The amount of forces seemingly actively trying to kill the internet of old is disconcerting.
Chat control, DNS as arbiter of whats allowed, walled gardens etc.
The FBI investigation might be a coincidence. Unsurprisingly, archive.today is attacked with CSAM uploads+reports all the time, you can find occasional mentions of this in their blog from 3 and 9 years ago, and I bet there was a ton of this in between.
If the US and UK block websites like archive.today, scihub, and libgen/anna's archive, then how do we think we win the information war against countries that don't give a bleep about copyright?
Well, that was stellar work. It's a little sad that such threats could work with a smaller less resourced company. Still, adguard dns got on to my radar because of this.
Finally someone does some digging
Friendly reminder that archive box exists to let you self host your own archive service.
https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox
I dream of a day where archivebox becomes a fleet of homelabs all over the world making it drastically harder to block them all.
I used the site several times to archive some page or send it to someone who cannot access the site directly. I never archived anything illegal and never stumbled upon illegal things there. So I don't know why they want to arrest the owner.
Also the site is pretty advanced, it can handle complicated sites and even social networks.
> But because it can also be used to bypass paywalls
How? Does the site pay for subscription for every newspaper?
> Unfortunately, we couldn’t dig any deeper about who exactly is behind WAAD.
That's a red flag. Why would an NGO doing work for the public hide its founder(s) and information about itself? Using NGOs to suggest/promote/lobby certain decisions is a well known trick in authoritarian countries to pretend the idea is coming from "the people", not from the government. I hope nobody falls for such tricks today.
Furthermore, they seem to have no way to donate them money. That's even the redder flag.
Also France doesn't have a good reputation in relation to the observing rule of law. For example, they arrested Russian agent^w enterpreneur Durov, owner of Telegram, claiming they have lot of evidence against him involved in drug trafficking, fraud and money laundering [1], but a year later let him free (supposedly after he did what they wanted). France also bars popular unwanted candidates from elections. Both these cases strongly resemble what Russia does.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel...
I speculate, and the conspiracy theorist in me believes, something of a compromising nature has been archived and they want that data inaccessible, but at the same time, pointing out what they want hidden would shine a light on it.
It is even more interesting the US government is coming after archive.today at the same time, or maybe that is just a coincidence, and this is just a tech-savvy philanderer trying to hide something from his wife.
Archive.is doesn't work on all sites to bypass the paywall. Media companies that are truly concerned about this should modify their paywall configuration.
A common thing among many European countries is they have draconian anti free speech laws that seem outrageous to an American.
> While the exact nature of the FBI investigation hasn’t been confirmed, it is speculated it can be related to copyright or CSAM (child sexual abuse material) dissemination issues. Altogether, the situation suggests growing pressure on whoever runs Archive.is, and on intermediaries that help make its service accessible.
Oh, so a chatbot wrote this article. Glad it tipped its hand early enough I didn't waste that much time.
Wouldn’t the people making the complaint also be subject to prosecution for accessing illegal materials?
Kudos
I wonder if ignoring the email and forcing a more official action would have been the better move here, in retrospect? Perhaps I am ignorant on the legal responsibilities of your services, just seems like something more formal than an email would have at least served more as "official notice"
Another day, another attempt at destroying the archives.. Welp
Kudos to adguard dns for [planing to] filing a counter-claim against potential abuse of power.
Oh look, more American overreach. This is obviously some FBI pawn doing as told.
I bet its mirrors of their own honeypot websites they submitted themself to remove records of websites they rather have memory-holed.
One more reason for browsers to save all pages one visits.
Different question, but what are realistic use cases of archive.today that could be interesting for average person?
archive.is is frequently used to bypass paywalls, I wonder if this is motivated by that somehow
Anti-child porn activists really are a unique new breed of fascist authoritarians. This is only the latest in a long line of outrageous and comical threatening letters where the recipient’s apparent reticence to comply with a takedown request is deemed to be, by the activists, active knowing involvement and participation, which is obviously outrageous but these dickheads bank on the fact that actual child porn elicits such strong community reactions.
See also: trying to strongarm Apple into running local scans on everybody’s devices and telling Apple not to listen to its customers.
lol, "American Law Firm"
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In the twitter screenshot they provide (in french) the association's description specifically says that it is a single person.
> Ancien militaire et enquêteur spécialisé en #cybersécurité, responsable des enquêtes et de la section opérationnelle. #pedocriminel #CSAM #OSINT
Someone that used to be in the military, being a cybersecurity investigator (from what I understand in the description)
Also they responded here : https://nitter.net/webabuseasso/status/1989707132267057607#m
https://webabusedefense.com/presse/Communiquer_presse_Aff-Ad...
Full contents of the twitter post below :
AdGuard / Archive:today Case — Official PRESS RELEASE by WAAD PDFwebabusedefense.com/presse/C…
Here are the facts ⬇
1⃣ WAAD is a legally registered association. All evidence comes from certified bailiff reports (Qualijuris). 350+ CSAM URLs on Archive:today. Impossible to falsify.
2⃣ AdGuard acknowledged the CSAM. In their own emails:
• Archive:today removed the content • AdGuard blocked ALL Archive:today domains Then… they publicly denied everything. Clear contradiction.
3⃣ Our actions strictly follow the law. French Penal Code Art. 227-23 forbids “offering / making available / distributing” CSAM. The LCEN also covers technical intermediaries (including DNS resolvers).
4⃣ AdGuard published our data (doxxing) Address, emails, directors’ names, confidential exchanges.
Since then, WAAD has received death threats. Art. 226-4-1 (doxxing) = up to 3 years prison / €45,000.
5⃣ Authorities validated the seriousness of the file. CERT-EU , Swiss CERT , other national CERTs + Google received and are analysing the evidence. Google already removed the reported content.
6⃣ Some CSAM URLs are still online. Despite AdGuard’s public statements claiming full removal, our checks confirm several URLs remain accessible.
7⃣ A sudden unexplained reversal. After having:
acknowledged the CSAM blocked Archive:today thanked WAAD provided technical guidance
AdGuard published a public article (13/11) denying the facts and exposing WAAD’s identifying data. This double narrative puts minors at risk. Child protection cannot become a PR strategy.
WAAD will continue to report, document and cooperate with authorities — without bowing to doxxing, defamation or intimidation. The fight against CSAM is not negotiable. Never.
Warning: WAAD reserves the right to initiate legal action, including filing formal complaints, against any individual or entity that:
• knowingly spreads false accusations about our organization, • or promotes, relays, excuses, or minimizes child sexual abuse material or those who host it.
Child protection comes before any form of disinformation or harassment.
I don't know anything about Adguard, but good on the team for doing the extra digging instead of just going along with the claim. Even better that they're sharing what they've found with everyone else.