India blocks archive.org. No reason given.

[Desmond]

This is beyond pathetic. Only hypocrisy or cowardice would provoke such an action.

While the HTTPS version of the website remains unblocked, it is currently not known why the blocking order was passed.

New Delhi: India has cut off access to the Internet Archive, a San-Francisco-based website that hosts the popular Wayback Machine service. Its a twenty-year old digital archive of the world’s publicly accessible web pages.

Users who tried reaching the archiving service last night encountered an error message: “Your requested URL has been blocked as per directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India” – a notice that has been used in the past when high courts across India ordered the blocking of a particular webpage.

The Wayback Machine has over the last decade become a useful tool to get around media and government censorship as it allows users to view archived or deleted web pages. Authoritarian countries often seek to remove contentious online content or rapidly change existing webpages, which is when internet users turn to the Wayback Machine for help.

In 2015, the Russian government blocked the Wayback Machine in an effort to reportedly curtail access to a single saved webpage that criticised the government.

Questions galore

Currently, access to the most basic version of the Wayback Machine – the URL ‘*archive.org’ – appears to be blocked. As Medianama and others have pointed out, this block appears to applicable across a range of Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecom circles, including Airtel, MTNL and Reliance.

However, access to the HTTPS (a more secure) version of the website does not appear to have been blocked yet.

In India, URL and webpage blocks have become alarmingly commonplace over the last decade. High courts across the country – usually prompted by allegations of defamation or copyright infringement – pass sprawling orders under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act to block content by disabling access for Indian users through an ISP.

The Department of Telecommunications, acting on behalf of other government agencies and the courts, has also issued orders to ISPs to block access to specific webpages and online content.

It is unclear, at the time of publishing this article, as to why an order to block access to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine was passed. Or, indeed, whether it was meant to block a specific webpage within the service but has mistakenly been applied to the archiving service as a whole.

Sources:
Access to Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine Blocked
India blocks Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine - Mumbai Mirror -
Update: Internet Archive contacted Indian govt regarding the block, but got no response - MediaNama

 

[billubakra]

Jaroor "bharashtachar" kiya hoga is website ne.

 

[Desmond]

Pretty sure 99% of India does not even know what archive.org is.

 

[Hazib Ajam]

Seriously? I thought only Pakistan govt blocks stuff. Matlab Indians and Pakistanis are the same :/ - though arhive.org is unblocked in Pakistan

 

[Hrishi]

I don't think this was blocked deliberately, must have been a mistake.
From the looks of it, the block seems to be based on content inspection, so that's why SSL is still a pass through since SSL interception by ISP is illegal, afaik.

I remember some time back, archive dot org was flagged as false positive in one of the security engines I use, because some of its sub domains were being identified as malware/malicious. Could it be this?
Just so you know, this website hosts a hell lot of content.... So you never know what could be found.... Where on it. If it's not legal, it may very well be blocked.


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[TigerKing]

I use it alot.. one of the useful feature..

Internet Archive: Wayback Machine

You can see some of the great collection of shut down websites..

 

[Desmond]

archive dot org has released an official statement here: Statement and Questions Regarding an Indian Court’s Order to Block archive.org | Internet Archive Blogs

Looks like the block was ordered by Madras High Court.

After multiple attempts to contact the relevant authorities in the Indian government regarding the recent blocking of archive.org in that country, the Internet Archive received a response early this morning indicating that two court orders (here and here) were the source of the block. The orders identify a list of thousands of websites to be blocked for allegedly making available two separate films, “Lipstick Under my Burkha” and “Jab Harry Met Sejal”. Both orders come from the same judge of the High Court of Madras (civil jurisdiction). According to many reports, Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine is blocked, but https is not.

Even beyond the fundamental and major problems with preemptively blocking a site for users’ submissions and content of which it is unaware, there are serious issues with these orders. We would like to know the following:

1. Is the Court aware of and did it consider the fact that the Internet Archive has a well-established and standard procedure for rights holders to submit take down requests and processes them expeditiously? We find several instances of take down requests submitted for one of the plaintiffs, Red Chillies Entertainments, throughout the past year, each of which were processed and responded to promptly.

2. After a preliminary review, we find no instance of our having been contacted by anyone at all about these films. Is there a specific claim that someone posted these films to archive.org? If so, we’d be eager to address it directly with the claimant.

3. Archive.org is included along with thousands of other websites in a list (entitled “Non-Compliant Sites”) to block for allegedly making available the two films of concern. The only URL the list identifies pertaining to us is “*archive.org”. There are no specific URLs for alleged locations of films on the site, only the full domain. Was there any attempt to exercise any level of review or specificity beyond “archive.org”?

All in all, this is a very worrying development and is part of a harmful pattern of governments increasingly taking web content (and in many cases entire sites) offline in unpredictable and excessive ways. We have seen reports from scholars and academics that this block has disrupted their work. We hope full access to archive.org will be restored quickly.

UPDATE: the Indian news site MediaNama has analysis of the court orders and their legality here. That article also notes that the periods that the orders set for the blocks have both expired (the later one was to last through August 8). It’s unclear if it’s been lifted or is the process of being lifted. We hope so and have inquired with the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

MediaNama says that the orders were from Bollywood studios - Internet Archive was blocked because of court orders obtained by Bollywood studios - MediaNama

 

[thatsashok]

I dont care though. Never heard nor used

 

[Hrishi]

Nobody cares about anybody in this world

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[Desmond]

I dont care though. Never heard nor used

You cared enough to reply here.

 

[thatsashok]

I believe India Govt is digging the attention it gets by blocking website

 

[Vyom]

I am able to open archive.org without proxy on my PC.

 

[SaiyanGoku]

I am able to open archive.org without proxy on my PC.

Same here, though it defaults to the https site.

 

[Desmond]

I think the archive dot org team has set up their servers to forward http requests to the https site by default. It's working for me as well.