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Anna's Archive loses .org domain after surprise suspension

Anna's Archive loses .org domain after surprise suspension

CTOSian

Comments (297)

  • hliyan
    Is this an abuse of the ServerHold status? Was this the same mechanism used to delist a Gaza video archive recently?> This status code is set by your domain's Registry Operator. Your domain is not activated in the DNS.> If you provided delegation information (name servers), this status may indicate an issue with your domain that needs resolution. If so, you should contact your registrar to request more information. If your domain does not have any issues, but you need it to resolve in the DNS, you must first contact your registrar in order to provide the necessary delegation information.https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/epp-status-codes-2014-...
  • dmm
    > We recommend checking our Wikipedia page for the latest domains.I wonder how wikipedia feels being used as DNS?EDIT: Apparently this is a well known practice. Some interesting discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40008383
  • mastermedo
    I still remember the hiatus around the pirate bay . org going down back in the day. They updated the landing page on the alternative domains to include a hydra above the pirate ship where above each hydra head there was a domain name[1]. I thought that was a great comeback by the maintainers.[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-pirate-bay-has-a-new-log...
  • goku12
    Well! Not really a surprise, is it? We knew that DNS censorship was coming sooner or later. The real surprise is that it lasted so long. X509 (TLS) PKI is also probably being abused right now. We know how differently the administration sees services like these that are actually beneficial to humanity. Choosing to rely on services like DNS and PKI exclusively for the function they provide is a very bad idea going forward for us normies.We should have considered these centralized and corporate driven core infrastructure components as interim measures while more independent alternatives were being developed. We have a few different alternatives right now. Can't we just choose one and switch over? (something not based on blockchains.) Something like GNU Name System, may be?PS: They will probably block the IP if Server hold/DNS block is not useful anymore. That's a different problem though.
  • reorder9695
    I always wonder why sites like Anna's Archive (and a lot of torrent tracker sites) don't provide .onion addresses. I imagine a significant proportion of their traffic comes from the Tor network, and onion addresses don't have this same weakness that regular DNS addresses have as they're just the key. I can't imagine if they have the servers already up and running, running an .onion address is that much more work considering the resilience it would add and it's existence may even encourage users to access through Tor if they promote it as the primary address.
  • luckys
    https://annas-archive.li/ works and there's a few alternatives listed at the bottom of the page
  • turblety
    Seems like great publicity for Anna's Archive. I've heard an increasing amount about Anna's Archive over the last 12 months. It has popped up a lot. I wonder if they've seen their traffic spike a lot.
  • sanskritical
    I recommend Anna's Archive get a Nostr account. Once they finally have a solid court order to seize domains, generally the rate at which they get seized accelerates greatly. Nostr is the only decentralized manner (no, Mastodon/fediverse is dependent on domain names, which are getting seized by courts in relation to this -- it is not decentralized at all when it comes down to it) that people can reliably use to have a latest content feed distributed."Check Wikipedia to evade the court order" just encourages legal action against Wikipedia. Even linking to copyright violations is, under current court precedent, able to bring civil liability upon third parties. It is draconian and our framers would have considered it a clear First Amendment violation, but unfortunately the current jurisprudence says that is the law.
  • delis-thumbs-7e
  • KingOfCoders
    I remember swapping lists of IP addresses of FTP servers ~1990 when there was no DNS/Domains in Germany working on the internet.
  • amatecha
    This happened a couple days ago, not "a few hours ago". I was surprised torrentfreak hadn't posted about it at the time -- maybe took them a while to notice? I tried to hit the site on Jan 2nd, 10:40pm pacific timezone, and the domain was inaccessible then.
  • toomuchtodo
    They could also potentially write their latest address to the Ethereum blockchain instead, assuming there is a client that could scan and resolve. This would be bulletproof.Nation-state hackers deliver malware from "bulletproof" blockchains - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45860258 - November 2025
  • pkal
    Some sites like Anna's Archive have .onion site for the Tor network, and others do not. Is there a considerable downside (DDOS?) to providing access to their site by those means?
  • WadeGrimridge
    they should've released the spotify dump anonymously
  • lr1970
    <sarcasm> I thought that Anthropic and OpenAI created precedents that legitimize libgen and Anna archive. They pillaged all the books and scientific papers from those archives and got away with it. Why not the rest of us? </sarcasm>
  • hashstring
    We love you Anna!
  • KomoD
    alternative tlds you can visit: .se .li .pm .in
  • donohoe
    There is nothing stopping anyone here from registering a new shiny .org domain (or any tld) and pointing it to Anna’s Archives name servers.
  • dangus
    Surprise to who exactly? Anna’s Archive has been one of the most blatant piracy outlets to come around since the days of Napster.
  • jacquesm
    If anything this is a very strong argument for a completely decentralized domain name system.The DNS is much too fragile in light of all of the recent developments.
  • jszymborski
    They really ought to get an .onion site up.
  • 1970-01-01
    I don't understand the premise. .ORG was never a safe-haven TLD in terms of abuse protection. Juicy apple falls from tree, story at 11?
  • xandrius
    And that's why helping torrenting and seeding the content of AA is vital: they can take down a domain name but not block everyone who seeds.I said this before but if you've got some spare GB/TB on a computer/server, consider "donating" it for culture preservation purposes:https://annas-archive.se/torre nts
  • anthk
    They could always use Yggdrasil.
  • ur-whale
    Funny how HN is usually ripe with folks crawling out of the woodwork to defend IP ownership as a fundamentally important principle, both on moral and economic grounds.Yet, as of 08:37:36 MST Monday, 5 January 2026 there isn't a single comment on this thread complaining about Anna's IP theft.Don't get me wrong, that makes me VERY happy, I am a firm believer that the very notion of IP ownership needs to die a horrible death, something that AI may very well make happen in short order, yay.But still, I can't help but wonder why the "this is IP theft" crowd is completely silent when it comes to the like of pirate bay and Anna.
  • m00dy
    so every .org domain is now subject to US law system ?
  • cramcgrab
    Don’t copy that floppy!
  • Ycros
    yeah no shit, this is what happens when you agitate the major music record labels - it's going to get worse
  • T3RMINATED
    [dead]
  • arowthway
    Excuse my FUD, but are they really non-profit as described in FAQ? I find it a little hard to believe given how aggressive they are at marketing the paid version.
  • oybng
    knowledge for me but not for thee
  • jimmydoe
    It might be a sincere effort in the beginning, but at this point, Anna is merely AI company’s foot soldier.