The official Anna’s Archive Reddit account, AnnaArchivist, has responded to an r/Annas_Archive post linking the same Torrent Freak article:
Thanks! We’re not making any public statements about this lawsuit but rest assured we’re fine.
Would you be able to share where you learned that Anna’s Archive is based in Kazakhstan?
As to how Anna’s Archive accomplished their data scraping, this is what OCLC is claiming (see page 62-63):
These attacks were accomplished with bots (automated software applications) that “scraped” and harvested data from WorldCat.org and other WorldCat®-based research sites and that called or pinged the server directly. These bots were initially masked to appear as legitimate search engine bots from Bing or Google.
To scrape or harvest the data on WorldCat.org, the bots searched WorldCat.org results, running a script based on OCN for individual JavaScript Object Notation, or “JSON,” records. As a result, WorldCat® data including freely accessible and enriched data, such as OCNs, were scraped from individual results on WorldCat.org.
The bots also harvested data from WorldCat.org by pretending to be an internet browser, directly calling or “pinging” OCLC’s servers, and bypassing the search, or user interface, of WorldCat.org. More robust WorldCat® data was harvested directly from OCLC’s servers, including enriched data not available through the WorldCat.org user interface.
Finally, WorldCat® data was harvested from a member’s website incorporating WorldCat® Discovery Services, a subscription-based variation of WorldCat.org that is available only to a member’s patrons. Again, the hacker pinged OCLC’s servers to harvest WorldCat® records directly from the servers. To do this through WorldCat® Discovery Services/FirstSearch, the hacker obtained and used the member’s credentials to authenticate the requests to the server as a member library.
From WorldCat® Discovery Services, hackers harvested 2 million richer WorldCat® records that included data not available in WorldCat.org. This hacking method resulted in the harvesting of some of OCLC’s most proprietary fields of WorldCat® data.
These hacking attacks materially affected OCLC’s production systems and servers, requiring around-the-clock efforts from November 2022 to March 2023 to attempt to limit service outages and maintain the production systems’ performance for customers. To respond to these ongoing attacks, OCLC spent over 1.4 million dollars on its systems’ infrastructure and devoted nearly 10,000 employee hours to the same.
Despite OCLC’s best efforts, OCLC’s customers experienced many significant disruptions in paid services during the aforementioned period as a result of the attacks on WorldCat.org, requiring OCLC to create system workarounds to ensure services functioned.
During this time, customers threatened and likely did cancel their products and services with OCLC due to these disruptions.
Because OCLC had to combat these persistent hacking attacks, OCLC was forced to divert existing personnel and resources from OCLC’s other products and services. As a result, OCLC’s development and improvements to other products and services were delayed and limited.
OCLC has devoted, at various times, ten or more employees to respond to and mitigate the harm from these attacks from October 2022 to present.
Here are the court filings if anyone would like to read them:
https://archive.org/details/gov.uscourts.ohsd.287709/
The following is a link to the docket (which the above link draws from), so people can follow the progress of the lawsuit:
Maybe you’re thinking of Sci-Hub and its founder, Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan?
I could not find a location on Anna’s Archive’s wiki page.