iam-py-test :CIAverified:

@Maeve Firstly, I want to apologize for my aggressive and mocking tone in my earlier messages. That was inappropriate. Furthermore, I misread your post as an accusation against me, which it wasn’t, and was unnecessarily defensive. That also was inappropriate of me.

Secondly, no worries about the misreading.

gyrovague is owned by Jani Patokallio. Their bio says they work for Google, though I don’t know if it is up-to-date. Their blog says they live in Australia but their website says “jani patokallio, somewhere in asia”. My best guess is one is outdated and the other isn’t; the blog last posted in February 2025 and never has been very active, so the biography there might be outdated.
When asked why they wrote the blog post, Jani stated:

I was just curious, since it’s quite remarkable how huge archive.today is, how widely it’s used, and how little we know about it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46629573

The article itself never explicitly provides a reasoning, only stating the author used to believe archive.today was owned by the Internet Archive, and claiming they harbor no ill will towards the owner of archive.today. It is somewhat out of place, given the content of the other posts.

Jani Patokallio isn’t the first or only person to look into archive.today, though their article is the most well known, even being cited on Wikipedia.

In any case, while my posts are cited by the OP, I had no role in freddit’s decision and was not aware of it until your post.

@Maeve Again, what evidence do you have? Neither of the links you provided support your claims, and moreover neither are reliable sources (though the existence of ICE’s database has been confirmed by reliable sources).

The owner has admitted they added the code. Are you saying the owner is the CIA? Then why would this be “a CIA op so US propaganda media moguls can paywall content”?

What information of value would the CIA get from an archive? And why add the DDoS code? What value would they have trying to take down - and in doing so drawing attention to - Jani’s blog post? The only explanation would be that they want attention drawn to the post because it is wrong about who owns archive.today, but Jani’s conclusions have been confirmed by several subsequent investigations, none of which have ever shown any connection between archive.today and the US government.

I can’t disprove the CIA is involved, but the most logical explanation - which is supported by the evidence - is that archive.today is run by a single person or small group, and that person is angry about the blog post and wants to get attention. It isn’t a perfect explanation, but there isn’t a better one which is supported by the evidence.
There have been at least four investigations into archive.today ranging from 2020 to 2025 by bloggers, OSINT experts, and professional private investigators; I have reviewed all of them, and none support a connection with the USG.

@Maeve In November, the FBI did subpoena information about archive.today from Tucows, which is based in Canada but incorporated in the US. There has so far been no evidence connecting subpoena to this, despite initial speculation.

In what way is this a CIA op? As in the CIA hacked archive.today, or as in the malicious code didn’t exist in the first place and everyone reporting on its existence is lying?

In the latter case, no. Multiple independent people have confirmed the existence of the malicious code, including Evan Boehs, a member of the uBlock Origin team, an employee for the adblocking company AdGuard, another member of the uBlock Origin team who I think lives in Japan, and multiple people on Y Combinator. And I have independently verified the existence of the malicious code.
The malicious code isn’t 100% consistent with when it appears - I have gotten the CAPTCHA page but no malicious code - but it can be reproduced fairly reliably when accessing the website via Tor.

In emails which I have published on this account, the owner of archive.today has admitted they added the malicious code, and confirmed they added the malicious code in response to the article on gyrovague.com, which they say doxes them.

https://infosec.exchange/@iampytest1/115905846553756281

I contacted the official email on archive.today’s website - the same email is on all of their websites and has been in use for years. The email used to respond is a known alias of the owner, and uses a domain owned by the owner. Sure, I can’t prove I didn’t just fake those emails. If you really think I did, then email the owner yourself and ask them.
But also, why would I fake the emails? What do I stand to gain? Fame? My original post already had gotten plenty of attention. Money? I don’t profit from discrediting archive.today, and anyway I didn’t need those emails to do it. Revenge? I had no grudge against archive.today. Is the CIA hiring unpopular crackpot shitposters now?

More broadly, why would the CIA want to help US media companies fight paywall circumvention? Right now, the US administration is attacking the press, not trying to help it.
And why would the CIA resort to this? Why not just hack archive.today and take it down? Or just find the owner and kill them? People have found their address using OSINT; surely the IC can find them. Why even subpoena information from Tucows if you have already hacked archive.today?
If the CIA and major media organizations were involved in a conspiracy to discredit archive.today, why has no media ever covered this? A single article on NPR or Fox News would get far more coverage than a random post on Hacker News and a few people on Mastodon.

I have been investigating into this case for weeks, and there is zero evidence that the CIA or US is in any way involved in this.

Sure, maybe I’m secretly working for the CIA, and the CIA has engaged in a 5 year long undercover operation to promote adblockers and Python.