Internet Archive being blocked on some Indian ISPs
Many internet service providers are apparently blocking the resource site www.archive.org without any notice. Internet Archive is in charge of running the Wayback Machine- a huge archive of decades-old webpages. It said it is aware of the development and is "eager to understand why it's happening". However, the issue appears to be partial; this writer could access the page via her MNet connection.
The Wayback machine is today a cultural phenomenon
The San Francisco-based non-profit, also popular as the time-warping tool, has been in existence since 1996. Its mission is "universal access to all knowledge". It has stored over 300 billion webpages, many no longer available at their original address.
The government remains mum
Some of the affected ISPs include Airtel, Aircel, MTNL and Act Internet, among others, and that too, partially. Vodafone and Jio don't seem to be affected yet. The government hasn't issued any notification till now. "Multiple attempts to contact the DoT and MeitY have gone unanswered thus far (we first tried to reach out to them about 22 hours ago)," the Internet Archive said.
Could the Aadhaar controversies be a reason?
According to one theory being circulated, the archive was the only way to access documents that had been published by the UIDAI which proved private companies had been allowed to access Aadhaar details of individuals without their permission (the documents have since been taken down). The block might be an attempt to ban users from viewing such sensitive documents.
