secluded/content/posts/removing-your-site-from-the-wayback-machine-keybase.md

---
title: Removing your site from the Wayback Machine (Keybase)
subtitle: A quick and easy guide
author: Amolith
description: Quick guide on removing and excluding your content from Archive.org's Wayback Machine with Keybase
cover: /assets/pngs/archive.png
date: 2019-06-03T12:08:00-0400
draft: false
categories:
  - Technology
tags:
  - Archive.org
  - Privacy
  - Sysadmin
toc: true
---

## Preface
There may be a myriad of reasons you want to do this, from removing
sensitive information to regaining a measure of control over your
content. Whatever your purpose, below should be a quick and easy way to
achieve it.

## For domains you own
The easiest way to verify you own a domain is to put a text file in an
easily accessible location and email
[info@archive.org](mailto:info@archive.org) asking for removal and link
to it. Mine is at
[removal-request.txt.](https://nixnet.services/removal-request.txt) It
would be better if you didn't copy mine word-for-word and wrote your own
instead though :wink:

If that's all you intend to do, this should be sufficient and there's no
need to read any further. If you want to exclude your *profiles* as well
(for example, all your GitHub repos, Twitter, Mastodon, etc.) read on.

## For domains you  *don't*  own
There are a few things I used that worked in harmony to verify my other
accounts. [Keybase](https://keybase.io/) was the most useful for this
purpose. It is a proprietary service but I deem the level of proof it
facilitates worth compromising for.

The other tool I used was [GPG.](https://gnupg.org/) For the sake of
keeping it simple, *this* guide will just deal with GPG from within
Keybase. I ***really*** recommend actually learning to use GPG on its
own; it's wonderful for protecting your privacy and verifying your
identity in a multitude of situations. The next post will be on using
GPG *outside* of Keybase for this so [stay tuned.](/posts/index.xml)

### Generating your key
After creating your Keybase account, click "add a PGP key", "I need a
public key", then enter the requisite information. You should use
whatever name is associated with the account you'll be emailing
Archive.org from as well as that address. Wait a bit while it generates
the key...

### Verifying some accounts
This is where you verify whatever accounts you want removed. Just click
the option and go through the steps! Aside from personal websites,
Twitter, GitHub, Reddit, etc., you can also prove accounts on a lot of
other services (including Mastodon). More are being added every day so
check back if there's something specific you want to address.

Once this is done, you'll be ready to contact Archive.org about getting
your stuff removed.

### Signing some messages
In the top right of Keybase, you'll see a pencil. Click it and you'll be
taken to a page with a text box. This is where you'll type your email
and the text file for your website proof. For the text file, copy the
signed message and paste it into your text editor, save, and put it at
the root of your website. For example, mine is at
[removal-request.txt.](https://nixnet.services/removal-request.txt) It
would be better if you didn't copy mine word for word and wrote your own
:wink: For the email, you'll do the same thing but paste the signed message
into your email client, whether that's Thunderbird, ProtonMail,
Tutanota, etc. The text file only needs to contain the request for the
(sub)domain removal. The email needs to contain the request for
everything along with links to the text file, you Keybase account, and
whatever you want removed.

Before sending it, you should also go back to your profile, click your
key, and copy everything in the text box that starts with `-----BEGIN
PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----`. Paste that into another text file but save
it with the `.asc` extension. For example, `key.asc`. Attach this to the
email, send it to [info@archive.org,](mailto:info@archive.org) wait a
couple days, and you're done!