This might not be about copyright. I generally avoid these mirror sites because they seem like the perfect opportunity for watering hole attacks. The challenge with a normal watering hole attack is that you have to control the site in question either by hacking or infiltrating it. Imagine however if you were able to act as a middle man to the most popular websites in the world, and people would voluntarily post links to your site all over the internet, including very valuable audiences (like HN). You would have free rein to selectively inject malware to just readers at targeted IP blocks, minimizing chances of detection because most users would never be served malware. The possibilities are endless, government espionage, corporate espionage, activists, political opponents.
To be clear I have no reason to believe specific instances of these sites are malicious, but I would be shocked if black hats weren't trying to get into this space in general.
For sure, you shouldn't just trust whatever random mirroring site pops up (in fact, you probably should trust almost none of them), but archive.is has established themselves pretty credibly IMHO. At some point it could turn, but I don't think we should kill them now just in case they turn at some point.
The fact that the FBI is involved, and given the insane amount of IP protection racket stuff going on, I think it's pretty highly likely this is all about copyright. I think the powerful interests care more about copyright than they do about most other things.
Maybe, but the subpoena doesn't shed light on what they are being investigated for. It is only demanding information.
The FBI could be investigating them for archive.today, they could be investigated because of that apparent botnet, they could be investigating them because some billionaire media mogul friend of the current POTUS is outraged at the loss of revenue. To the best of my knowledge, the reasons aren't public.
Still, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be asking questions or expressing concern over this.
