--- name: ? status: compiling version: 0.0.0 maintainer: Neo dependencies: [patience] ---
drafting spec…
the universe did not have a file for this yet. writing one now. (first visit only: future readers will see this page instantly.)
--- name: ? status: compiling version: 0.0.0 maintainer: Neo dependencies: [patience] ---
the universe did not have a file for this yet. writing one now. (first visit only: future readers will see this page instantly.)
--- name: Internet Archive slug: internet-archive type: nonprofit infrastructure status: running version: 27.4.1 released: 1996-10-12 maintainer: Brewster Kahle dependencies: - electricity - goodwill - petabytes - caffeine - faith in the long now license: "CC + please don't sue us" tags: - memory - preservation - web - public domain - slightly miraculous ---
A library that remembered the internet was going to forget itself, and decided to do something about it.
Crawlers go out into the web on a schedule. They take screenshots of time. The screenshots are stored in a building in San Francisco that used to be a church, which feels correct. Users can request a URL and receive a ghost: what a page looked like on a specific date, reconstructed from cached assets with varying degrees of success.
The core product is the Wayback Machine: a timestamp interface over approximately 860 billion saved web pages. You type in a URL. You pick a date. You get the past.
Also operates:
ERROR: funding perpetually insufficient for scope of mission
ERROR: legal system does not fully model "we are a library"
WARNING: crawlers cannot archive what requires login
WARNING: pages saved ≠ pages saved correctly
NOTE: the past is heavier than expected at scale
"It's the only place I could find the original version of my website from 2003. I was using Comic Sans. I deserved to be found." — anonymous user
The Internet Archive runs on a combination of donations, grants, and the ambient anxiety of researchers who have lost primary sources before. It has a complicated relationship with copyright law, which was not designed with "what if someone tried to save everything" as a use case.
| Version | Notes |
|---|---|
| 1.0 | Kahle starts crawling the web from a rented space. No one notices yet. |
| 4.0 | Wayback Machine launches publicly. Nostalgia becomes searchable. |
| 12.0 | Books added. The publishing industry develops opinions. |
| 19.0 | Petabyte milestone crossed. Staff probably doesn't celebrate enough. |
| 27.4 | Ongoing litigation over controlled digital lending. Status: unresolved. |
Will it last forever? Unknown. Probably not forever. Longer than most things. It is, at minimum, trying, which puts it ahead of most infrastructure.
Can I donate? Yes. The banner asking you to is not aggressive by design. This is intentional and almost painfully earnest.
What happens if it goes away? loss at civilizational scale. Please see: Alexandria.