FBI tries to unmask owner of archive.is

Jurisdiction, gag orders, and Canadian angle

• Subpoena’s “do not disclose” language is read by some as a nonbinding request absent a formal U.S. gag order; others warn that disclosure could later be framed as “interfering with an investigation.”
• Since Tucows is Canadian, several argue the FBI has no direct power and should go through Canadian channels; others note cross‑border cooperation and potential personal risk if staff later travel to the U.S.

What’s being investigated? CSAM vs. copyright vs. politics

• Many assume it’s about paywall circumvention and “felony contempt of business model,” i.e., protecting publishers’ revenues.
• Others point to the citation of statutes involving child sexual exploitation and an agent’s history in that area; some provide concrete examples where archive.today stored sexualized images of minors until pressured by German child‑protection authorities.
• A few warn that CSAM is sometimes used as a pretext to get powerful investigative tools and subpoenas. Motive is widely acknowledged as unclear.

Value and ethics of archive.today

• Strong support: viewed as essential for preserving history, checking later deletions or “memory‑holing,” avoiding hostile UX/paywalls, and enabling access for those who can’t or won’t subscribe. Many say HN would be far less useful without it.
• Critics argue it undermines already‑struggling journalism, “punches down” economically, and normalizes piracy; some refuse to use it for that reason.
• Debate over whether there should be a “human right to knowledge” and whether that justifies circumventing paywalls.

Trust, anonymity, and risk

• Concern that a single anonymous operator (possibly in Russia, possibly elsewhere) controls a huge reference corpus, with no transparency or governance; risk of quiet content manipulation is noted.
• Others ask for evidence of falsification and prefer to judge by behavior.
• Security‑minded commenters worry archive mirrors are ideal watering‑hole targets; others say archive.today has earned some trust but could always be compromised.

Technical and operational details

• Archive.today reportedly uses full Chromium instances, heuristics, paid/subscribed accounts on some sites, Tor exits when blocked, and aggressive anti‑bot measures (including reCAPTCHA).
• This raises privacy concerns: Google/Cloudflare can correlate traffic; archive.today itself can log detailed request histories.
• Attempts to get bulk dumps or P2P mirrors are desired but mostly absent, leaving the archive fragile and centralized.