I think that archive links should be made to include a cryptographic hash of the file; this can prevent alteration of content (including of the original file that it is copied from) but also can allow alternative sources of the file to be found (or verified to be correct) according to the hash. (If someone is concerned they want their username removed, they could perhaps edit their copy of the file first and then archive it, although they should have someone to trust if it matches the original one or not, if it has been modified in this way (or any other way, e.g. removing some scripts and CSS etc).)

> Why is it obvious why they tampered with old archives? Why did they tamper with old archives?

See section "Blog capture tampered with":

* https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-a...

Also:

> On 20 February 2026, the English Wikipedia banned all links to archive.today, citing the DDoS attack and evidence that archived content was tampered with: Discussion had discovered that instances of Nora's name were replaced with Patokallio's and that "Nora" was likely an appropriated identity—the name belonged to a real person, whose only connection to archive.today had been a prior content takedown request.[18][17][19] The community's decision was made despite concerns over maintaining content verifiability—partly undermined by the discovery of the alterations— while removing and replacing the second-largest archiving service used across the Wikimedia Foundation's projects. The Wikimedia Foundation had stated its readiness to take action regardless of the community verdict.[18][20] Patokallio expressed his satisfaction with the outcome.[3]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today#Attack_on_Gyrova...

> Specifically, AT's maintainers reportedly tweaked snapshots of a third-party blog post that Patokallio referred to in his February 2026 article about the DDoS attack. AT changed the name of a "Nora" person in said post to Jani Patokallio, making it look as if he had written some comments there. Eagle-eyed Wikipedia editors spotted the alterations, which have since then been reverted, but the action made it easy for them reach a final decision.

* https://www.tomshardware.com/software/search-engines/wikiped...

"it's pretty obvious why" here refers to why Wikipedia would reject them as a source.

Looking for the answer to this myself as well. Seems like a bit of conjecture

A DDoS against a blog that iirc was attempting to dox the archive.today maintainer.

The bit about tampering with archived pages is news to me though. Wish the wiki discussion included receipts. Is "two users report they were redirected to tehrantimes.com" what is being referred to when they say archived pages are being tampered with?

Not mine, UBlock has blocked that since day one, thankfully

DDoSing who? Doesn't CORS help here?