FBI Subpoenas Registrar for Details on Anonymous Archiving Site Owner

The FBI has subpoenaed popular Canadian domain registrar Tucows, demanding information about the owner of archive[dot]today, a popular archiving site used to bypass paywalls and avoid sending traffic to original publishers. The subpoena states it relates to a federal criminal investigation but provides no details about the alleged crime.

Archive.today posted the document on X the same day. The site, also known as archive.is and archive.ph, started in the early 2010s and rose to prominence during GamerGate when users took snapshots of articles to avoid sending traffic to websites. It now has hundreds of millions of saved pages. The FBI requested the customer name, address, billing information, telephone connection records, payment methods, internet connectivity session times, and device identifiers.

Very little is known about who operates the site. A 2013 analysis by Gyrovague suggested it is 'a one-person labor of love, operated by a Russian of considerable talent and access to Europe.' A 2013 FAQ states the site is privately funded. A 2021 blog post said 'it is doomed to die at any moment.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.