This is the old 'Apple Box' issue: If you have surplus apples and put a box with 'Please take one' by your gate is that different to a box with 'Help yourself on it' Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of der Mouse Sent: 19 March 2007 04:19 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: ftp archives disappearing? Perhaps the person was interested in helping people who actually ahve a need for them, instead of feeding leeches. Bully for you. So now it's the victim's fault? I don't have any easy way to place bandwidth limits on my FTP server. If I get hit with a leech who ends up costing me bandwidth overage charges, do you think I'm going to go spend money to keep it from happening again? No; I'm far more likely to either shut it down entirely or just report the abuser to the provider used (and quite likely ban access from that provider in the interim, with the ban made permanent if they don't consider it abuse). I have trouble thinking any of us who run anon FTP sites are likely to react otherwise. I've had the same discussion, basically, with qmail fans. They too seem to think that it's sane to take the stance "I should be able to grab all I want, and if you don't want me to you should make sure I can't". The concept that computers are used by humans and that politeness is important to humans seems completely lost on them. (And yes, I've had to put automated defenses in place against qmail's commonest form of abuse - connection-bombing receiving mailservers.) Great. Therefore it's OK to abuse those who don't? Look. It's really quite simple: please respect the archive provider's wishes. If you don't know what they are, either ask or be conservative. Anything else risks destroying the resource you are abusing. There is nothing to prove. You are asked to not abuse something provided free. You are arguing "you should make it impossible to abuse". True or false, that does not, repeat DOES NOT, excuse your abusing it, or attempting to. If you can't see the difference between helping people and feeding leeches...*boggle* /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B