The FBI is closing in on the anonymous owner of Archive.today and its popular mirrors like Archive.is, issuing a federal subpoena demanding customer details from domain registrar Tucows. The investigation marks an escalation in federal oversight of web archiving services that millions use to bypass paywalls and preserve content.
The FBI just made its boldest move yet against anonymous web archiving services, targeting the mystery figure behind one of the internet's most controversial preservation tools. Federal agents issued a sweeping subpoena to domain registrar Tucows on October 30th, demanding comprehensive identifying information about whoever operates Archive.today and its network of mirror sites including Archive.is and Archive.ph.
The timing couldn't be more significant. Archive.today has operated in the shadows for over a decade, becoming a go-to tool for bypassing news paywalls and preserving web content before it disappears. Now federal investigators want to know exactly who's been running this digital Swiss Army knife that publishers love to hate.
According to 404 Media's exclusive reporting, the subpoena doesn't mess around. It demands the site owner's name, address, billing information, telephone records, payment data, internet session logs, network addresses, and even details about cloud computing services they've used. The FBI says this relates to "a federal criminal investigation," but won't specify what crime they're investigating.
What makes this particularly intriguing is how little anyone knows about Archive.today's operator. The original domain registration traces back to someone using the name "Denis Petrov" from Prague, Czech Republic - but whether that's a real person or clever pseudonym remains anyone's guess. Previous investigations by digital researchers have hit dead ends trying to unmask this guerrilla archivist of the internet.
The site's been a thorn in publishers' sides since 2012, letting users capture and share snapshots of web pages that would otherwise be locked behind paywalls. It's the digital equivalent of photocopying newspaper articles - except it works instantly and preserves everything from layout to embedded media. Publishers argue it's theft; users say it's preservation.
This federal attention comes just months after the News Media Alliance scored a major victory against 12ft.io, another paywall-circumvention service. The industry group successfully argued that 12ft.io offered "illegal circumvention technology" to access copyrighted content without payment, ultimately forcing the service offline. Now Archive.today faces similar scrutiny from federal law enforcement.
