The Internet Archive, a vast digital library known for its Wayback Machine, has been officially named a U.S. federal depository library. The designation, made by U.S. Senator Alex Padilla in a letter to the Government Publishing Office (GPO), solidifies the Archive’s role in preserving and providing public access to crucial government information. This new status will allow online users free access to archived materials including congressional bills, federal laws, regulations, and presidential documents, integrating them into the Archive’s extensive digital collection.
In his letter, Senator Padilla praised the Internet Archive for its existing efforts to make global government publications available through its “Democracy’s Library” collection.
He stated that making the Archive a federal depository library will directly support the GPO’s mission to digitize and disseminate federal documents more broadly. “I believe that the library will be able to meet the public service goals of the Federal Depository Library Program for some time to come,” Padilla wrote, expressing his confidence in the organization’s capabilities.
Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, expressed his excitement about the new role, highlighting the potential for deeper integration of official materials into the wider internet ecosystem. He noted that this designation would help connect digital learners with primary government sources by embedding them into platforms like Wikipedia, thereby strengthening public knowledge.
The appointment also follows a major milestone for the Archive, which recently announced it had successfully archived its one-trillionth web page.
However, this prestigious designation arrives on the heels of a challenging period for the organization’s security. In late 2024, the Internet Archive suffered multiple breaches, beginning with a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack by a group named SN_BlackMeta. More seriously, a separate incident involved the theft of data belonging to 31 million users after a threat actor gained access to its authentication database through an exposed token.
The security issues continued when the organization’s Zendesk email support platform was also compromised weeks later. The subsequent breach was attributed to a failure to properly rotate authentication tokens that had been stolen in the initial attack. As the Internet Archive steps into its official role as a steward of federal documents, it faces the dual challenge of expanding public access while fortifying its digital infrastructure to protect its data and maintain the public’s trust.
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