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Robo-chattel? New Legal Challenge to 'Bots
milomilo writes "Extending on the eBay vs. Bidder's Edge case, the NY Times reports (free registration required) that a Manhattan judge has granted a preliminary injunction against Verio from using 'bots to harvest up-for-renewal prospects from Register.com's WHOIS. The theory's that bots use up a piece of the target system's resources, denying its use to the owner. (Question: would search engines be different, presumably because they also confer a benefit on the target by making it findable?)"
YHBT. YHL. hand.
"The theory's that bots use up a piece of the target system's resources, denying its use to the owner"
How about not placing a machine on a free, publicly accessible network if you`re not up for letting people use it? Its not like its being DOS`d or anything, is it?
so If an article linking my site gets posted to Slashdot and my website/isp is flooded and pukes, can I sue VA??? This is a very very dangerous precident.
"...your future, make it a reality, all you have to do is fight for me"
I.E. you nonmaliciously (meaning, it isn't a DOS, you're actually getting information) ask for large gobs of information off of some site, the way these bots did.. or the way a spambot might.. they call this "denying services", but still, it's a simple the questioner requests, the answerer replies. If it's "unauthorized use".. well, how can you talk about unauthorized use on a public server? How can these things, authorization and to who, be implied on a public internet? Should it be the job of the requester to not go where they clearly shouldn't be, or the job of the requestee to keep them out?
Or look at it in terms of a port scan. I request things from each of these ports, thus figuring out which are open (and thus vulnerable to attack). I've seen people try to procecute this based on "unauthorized usage of machine".. well hold up, who said you had to authorize something? This person is just sending pings to ports, on a machine that by its presence on the internet you have implied responds to traffic. Why on earth would you need "permission" prior to using a system? If so, how would that permission be obtained? .. but of course none of this changes the fact that the port scan is almost always part of a malicious cracking attack.
Or, let's say-- hypothetically-- there was a single-line javascript that, if accessed from a windows NT machine, would cause the kernel to be overwritten by 0s. If you put that up on a web page, would that be "hacking"? You didn't break the machine yourself; you politely ask the machine to break itself, and it complies. Is that your fault?
But then, when you get down to it, all forms of "cracking" could be seen as requests. I request you process this block of information that just happens to cause a buffer overflow... you didn't have to process it, now did you? That last bit doesnt' really sound reasonable.. you have to draw a line somewhere, you have to note somewhere that it's no longer a request but an attack. Somewhere, for the sake of sanity, you have to draw the line, and how do you do that? Intent? How do you prove intent in court? What's the difference between the slashdot effect and a DDOS, at an abstract level?
But still how the hell can you say it's illegal to ask for something because the questioned might give you an answer even though they don't want to...? That's where the law is heading, where it's been heading for awhile, and that's completely absurd.
There is no right answer here, is there?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Seem like these ruling are being made based on a necessary fact of life about publicly accessible network communications. 'Using resources'? of course, they made the resources publicly accessible, so we could use them. Now they want to sue, in order to restrict use to only the people they want.
Question: would search engines be different, presumably because they also confer a benefit on the target by making it findable?)"
The standard search engines, such as google, altavista, etc, know and obey robots.txt, which is the same as Register.com's policy of not allowing spambots search through their site. If, after a robots.txt file is in place and the search engine continues to index it, I would say there's a good legal case there.Now, more interestingly is tools that 'mirror' web sites; they still are using a resource that you've made publicably available, except doing it over a timeframe that is much shorter than a human can do it, which usually means more resources used up at the server end. These bots tend not to follow robots.txt rules, and are only defeatable by User-Agent blocking. If the above ruling stands, does it apply here?
Take it a step further: Ebay has taken action to stop meta-Ebay sites that index their site and make it easier than ebay's search engines to find things or to search multiple auction websites. Even though the information that is up is publically available from ebay, and IIRC, they still won, mostly because the information is still ebay's property and they didn't like it on other sites.
Which all leads to an interesting question: when you click on a link, does that start a clock in which you have temporary copyright ability to download the information to your local computer, and after some time, that ability 'expires'? If so, sites that index or mirror without further authorization could find themselves in trouble...
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Supermarkets will be more than happy to kick you out if all you do is go in and write down prices of things, so just because the info is there, and you're open to the public, doesn't necessarily mean it can be used any which way. (Not that I agree with that.)
Moreover, the issue isn't you walking into a store just to look around with no intention of buying, it's as if you had 30 thousand you's go into the store, clogging every square foot, just looking with no intention of buying.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
This one is ok: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/technology/12CYB ERLAW.html
AMSTERDAM - TEASERS
TEASERS
(EX-CHooters)
Damrak 36
1012LK Amsterdam
T. 0031-20-4287508
FIRE WARM UP PARTY in the Teaser's to 22.04.00 of 13.00 - 16,00 o'clock
The Teasers of sport bar, typical American bar, was always the meeting place of the NFL Europe fan (particularly with the Scots) for their Party's.
Special flag are the waitresses, who are inferior to our Pyro's hardly. And if one has then times birthday, then the waitresses let themselves also which "nice" be broken in (not truely, Living putting)! Who would not loving have exchanged with you gladly!
Freely after the slogan: Man, those are thick, man!
By the way: The Teasers was called in former times Hooters , like the American branches. The name did not change, but in the concept to anything. It continues as in the Hooters. It was probably probable more a license problem. The Disco is inferior also during the day no Discothek. A D.J. with a violent sound system and Lightshow brought still each Partymuffel in tendency. The meal is very good in addition, not cheap. The Damrak connects the Dam Square with the main station. The bar can be attained by both workstations within 5 minutes. Beside the Teasers an excellent typically Dutch Frittenbude with megaportions of Pommes and thousands saucen is direct.
I always see people posting comments in which they try to justify their port scanning and whatever else they may do, as "white hat cracking". It is also common to use as example an unsecured house. Well, let me say, that if You were to walk down the sidewalk in front of my house and look in the window, so be it. that is fair use. If you choose to stand on the sidewalk and stare for the long term, then I will likely turn on the sprinklers. If you bring a chair, I will both turn on the sprinklers and call the police. Now lets assume you leave the sidewalk and come up for a closer look through my window. If I catch you doing so, I will beat the crap out of you and call an ambulance to come get your remains. If you decide to check my doors to see if they are unlocked, I will, without hesitation, put a bullet through your skull. My machine is online for my convenience, not yours. You have NO right to access any portion of my machine to satisfy your own curiosity. If i catch you doing so, and can determine who you are. You will get a visit from either me or the police. You should hope it is the police.
What really ticks me off is that "The Old Media", through which many people still get their news, has latched on to Slashdot as "The New Media", meaning that Slashdot will be reflecting on my own efforts, and the efforts of anybody else trying to run a 'new media' style website. This is why I post this; Slashdot's flub-ups are personal and affect us all. The flub-ups affect people running new media sites (by tarnishing the reputation in the eyes of the Old Media press who doesn't care to dig past their original generalizations), they tarnish the reputation of Open Source (as they have been labelled the spokesperson of the Open Source movement by the same collection of media entities), and they tarnish the reputation of VA Linux. (Hey, anybody at VA listening? This is not good return on your investment!)
Slashdot editors, wake up! You are not invincible. You can be replaced, and in Internet time, too. Please get some ethics, before you convince thousands or millions that the New Media doesn't have any!
I have a column on this very issue (linking as "trespass to chattels") in the current issue of Web Techniques . One of things I discuss there, in the context of streamlinking, is that a better solution to these issues generally is for developers to use links generated on the fly or session-specific permissions if they want to block linking.
This may not be a solution for Register.com, as it has to follow standard protocols for the implementation of Whois, but we shouldn't let this Register.com precedent carry over to other scenarios. For standard linking problems, the better solution is to use code to prevent linking, not court orders.
-- BretYou thought that all Slashdot readers were "grown up enough"? Blimey. You can't be a regular.
:-)
I'd also suggest that, proof-reading links aside, it's your own fault for reading Slashdot at a client's site. No wonder your boss isn't giving you any billable hours if you spent them reading and posting to a news site.
I loaf around at work by reading Slashdot though, so I'm hardly holier-than-though.
Even better analogy: you give your client list to your secretary, your competitor asks your secretary for it, and s/he hands it over willingly. There's no legal issue here; you just need to set up your web server to not return certain results if you don't want them to be public, or at least don't return them to certain people.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
It's what I don't understand. I see this kind of incomplete story, or even poor articles, hit the homepage. But when I try to post something a bit usefull my stories are rejected.
For example my last one was yesterday, about the first genetically modified monkey borned in the US. 2 links where given, one to the BBC and one to CNN.
If this is how Slashdot works today, it's sad
It certainly seems to me that putting a computer online as an internet server is to make its space a public place, much as a walk-in retail store has an area where people can look at the products the store offers. An argument such as "bots use up a piece of the target system's resources, denying its use to the owner" is analogous to saying that a customer can't walk into the store because it denies the owner walking space. Why are they online? Maybe they should get back off.
There are a million ways around the injunction. (see example above) I think from a moral stand point the judge is correct. Unfortunately being morally correct doesn't mean a damn thing.
SPAM uses extra CPU cycles, in some cases spam causes users to go over quota (is that a DOS attack against my users?) Is SPAM outlawed, is anyone REALLY doing anything about it?
NO
Do i think that this ruling will change the unsrupulous? No. Hopefuly Verio will show us that it is a "good guy" and go about it's business the right way.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
I can agree with that, but you can still place data in the public with certain restrictions (on the web at least). For example, I can place an article or a picture online that belongs to me and require that it not be redistributed or otherwise used beyond viewing on my site. Similarly, some WHOIS services restrict any commercial use of their service -- and they can or may have done that at Register.com, which would presumably disallow this action.
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seumas.com
'from the what'll-they-think-of-next dept' ? I already wonder what he was thinking when posting the article...
Btw, think about the 'hooters' admin that have its site slashdotted right now...
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
I bet Hooters ISP is freaking out trying to figure out what all this traffic is, and why its going to hamsterdamn's Hooters.....wonder if a Hooters has ever been /.ed. And of course we all know what Hemos browses at the office when he is supposed to be working :>
"...your future, make it a reality, all you have to do is fight for me"
Yes, sure. But think about this.
If there were more serious stories, the ratio between serious and dumb replies would be higher. I've often seen that some stories only get 10-20 posts, not more. And they don't even appear on my Slashdot homepage. I've to use "older stuff" to see them.
But what application of the net does not consume resources on a machine other than you're own? Someone needs to tell this judge to shut down the net. It's EVIL.
respecting robots.txt is entirely optional. there is nothing at all stopping search engines/spiders/whatever from completely ignoring it.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I miss the days when CT and Hemos regularly patrolled their site, and would fix problems rather quickly. One can only assume that now they spend their days surfing for Hooters sites :-)
/robots.txt file. If a web site wants to be indexed, they put permissive rules in robots.txt. Verio is spidering for their own commercial gain, and ignoring a number of posted policies against it. That is apparently what the judge has ruled on, violating an explicit request not to harvest. What is funny is that register.com doesn't have a robots.txt file, so does that give people permission to spider the site?
/., but I'd also believe that Hemos just pasted the wrong link into the story from one of dozens of open browser windows, and didn't really double check before posting. Haven't we all done that at some point :-)
ObOnTopic post:
Question: would search engines be different, presumably because they also confer a benefit on the target by making it findable?
The difference between what Verio is doing and search engines is one of implied permission.
Web sites either grant or deny permission to search engines based on the
the AC
Maybe this was just a simple hack of
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
"Secondly, robot.txt is often a server level setup file. If you get some
free space with the likes of AOL/Freeserve/Geocities you have no control
over the indexing of your site. Additionally, some (albeit poor) ISPs
don't offer configuration of this file."
If you can't control your ISP's robots.txt, in the header of each page
put:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NONE">
I have 70MB of pages on my ISP and robots were costing me a bundle
till I put this in. Now all major robots ignore it and only a few
oddball wiseguys occasionally download the entire site (even though I
offer them a compressed version of the entire site at my ftp site)
This is good in the sense that another company should not peruse a site to gather contact information for marketing purposes. I've always thought these kinds of practices were dishonest to say the least. I think this kind of behavior should be curtailed.
On the other side of the coin. This is bad, because of this:
"If I don't like your linking to my site, or searching my site, even though it is open to the public, and I say, 'Stop,' you have to stop . . . whether you are actually hurting me or not."
Crawlers and Links shouldn't be penalized. It's a way of finding useful information (as opposed to finding new business... ...A way of getting contact information of people who probably don't want to be contacted, anyway.)
I also understand the reasoning behind the robots.txt file. If the information being gathered by a crawler will be outdated (in the case of eBay auctions) then it's a good way to selectively remove portions of your site for searching, because it's not appropriate.
---
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout
Obviously not Hemos:)
...moderate this story down as -1, Troll?
It seems to me that it all boils down to, If your visiting the store and think your going to buy, go into the door. Otherwise just walk to the next store.
/. every 1 hr. what would i do? I'd ask the offending parties to please reduce the amount of hit's. if that doen't work then I'd block them. if they go around my moves then I will have to think they are out to do my some sort of harm ( hey bandwidth is expensive) to me and my system, and I'm forced to take legal action. I could take the law into my own hands ( doss attack ) but that would make me legally wrong.
And if your someone whom writes down the prices, it's ok, as long as you do it politely and do not get in the way of my customers.
Just think about it. If I had a site that get
Best case I think is that we set up a robot tos page . this page will charge the bot indexing company a certain rate for reading the web site. That robot tos page will be mentioned in robots.txt as a non-indexable page. Therefor if a rouge robot get's into the system I have an acountable party to bill for abuse of my system.
any further ideas ?
I also think i could catch alot of spammers this way
michael
if you see me, smile and say hello.
... if they can't check the link, will they even read the article?
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
i was in a meeting then lunch, so i missed the hooters link, but the fact that slashdot changed it like nothing happened without an update is wrong and scary! i mean, this reminds me so much of "1984" where the history is rewritten as time goes by.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
The link is now correct, but no acknowledgement of their monumental error.
At least admit you fucked up, instead of pulling the old switchero and pretending you actually read this stuff first...
The point of the issue as I see it (contradictions and argumentation more than welcome!) is that the information regarding which domain names are up for grabs should be public knowledge, otherwise it becomes restricted data that can only be used by Register.Com for marketing purposes, creating a form of "lock in" effect which enables them to aggressively market their own customers whilst preventing others from doing so in as targeted a way. Is this anti-competitive?
The argument about the cost to the company of the use of their server, and these numbers hovering around 2%, are irrelevant - if they want to remove the load, all they have to do is provide a table with the expiry dates of the registrations, which is the information people like verio want.
Should this information be private? Are these registration companies entitled to use their status to hoard this information and therefore erode the competitiveness of the market they inhabit.
I don't know the answer to these questions, but it pisses me off that the judge in question has dodged the issue.
Salocin.com
For instance, I don't let image-surfing software suck up my bandwidth looking for copyright violations or whatever. The images I have are either original to me, or part of a snapshot archive of newsgroup regulars and events, and there's positively no benefit to me in return for bandwidth hogging.
Now, the bulk of the graphics are in particular directories that are blocked in robots.txt, but you ought also be able to say "no *.jpg" or "no *.cgi" or whatever. Or "no image indexing bots," or whatever.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
It's worth noting that search engines honor the robots.txt protocol, so any web site can easily opt out of being indexed. There isn't anything like that in WHOIS. If I remember right, ebay lists its auction items as off-limits for bots in robots.txt. I see that as the strongest distinction between search engines and the cases mentioned here.
- Russ
You might want to fix that "http://www.rheinfire.de/pamster.htm" link in the article. "HOOTERS"
Go see ramdac
Requests from particular hosts can be blocked by setting Apache configuration files. So if one host really takes more resources of other host, than this one wants, it is up to him to restrict or farther deliver those resources. Restricting can also easily be done by firewall rules or even simple scripts which block the IP address if it behaves too paranoid. It is up to webmaster/system operator to make decisions about that and NO complainings should be done.
Who would go to Hooters in Amsterdam? "Well, I can go smoke the best weed on Earth, go see a live lesbian sex show, boink two prostitutes at once....or I can go see chicks in small shorts and eat chicken wings." And who is the dorky guy in the corner of the bottom picture? Hemos?
-B
Does this mean that we're going to need to sign a license agreement before initiating a TCP/IP connection with a machine we don't own?
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
For those of you not afraid of goatse.cx, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/technology/12CYB ERLAW.html
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
Load-sharing boxes for server farms ought to have this feature. And it should go into Apache.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/technology/12CYB ERLAW.html
I did notice, however, that the required registration at the "New York Times" was not free...
information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The link in the story has obviously been corrected (it pointed to http://www.rheinfire.de/pamster.htm), so you might find this an interesting read:
From an interview by german computer and technology magazine c't with Rob Malda (aka CmdrTaco) (translation of translation follows):
c't: Haben Sie ein Problem damit, etwas zu korrigieren?
Malda: Das hängt von der Geschichte ab. Wenn ich einen Absatz geschrieben habe, der einen Fehler enthält und es Hunderte von Kommentaren über diesen Fehler gibt, würde eine Fehlerbereinigung diese Kommentare sinnlos machen. Die Nutzer-Kommentare sind wirklich wichtig. Wenn man sie nicht liest, ist es so, als würde man sich nur den Anfang eines New-York-Times-Artikels anschauen, aber nicht auf Seite 8 umblättern, um ihn weiterzulesen.
Translation:
c't: Do you think that correcting things is problematic?
Malda: That depends on the story. When I have written a paragraph with an error and there are hundreds of comments about this error, correcting it would make all these comments inane. User comments are really important. Not reading them is like glancing at the beginning of a New York Times article and then not turning the pages over to page 8 to read the rest of it.
...that we will get a 'terms of usage' front page for every web server you connect to? That is the only way that you could say that someone can legally restrict how you use their systems' resources.
'Cause a Bot doesn't use up any more bandwidth or system time than I do when I keep hitting 'refresh' to see something update, or bids change.
They can't accuse the bot of doing anything wrong without accusing every user of the page. Unless they have a terms of use page first.
-Steve
My intelligence insults itself.
then they should be BLOCKED by search engines. They can either accept that the internet is designed to be searched, or eist off in thier own dark little hole.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Or at least you can tell them you don't want them to index certain directories...
It could potentially give more business to Register.com, especially if they prominently link near the results of a search. Just about the same as a search engine (except more resources taken up.)
If this was not Register.com's WHOIS service that was being used, then I would consider it a little more like a company that makes photocopiers looking in a public phonebook for big businesses, calling them up and saying "Hey, we'd like to do business with you and we'll beat whatever your current photocopier service is charging you".
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seumas.com
Oh my god! The Hooters girls were bots all along? I feel so dirty!
(And yes, the Hooters girls do use up resources on the target system, if you get my drift)
--
So the argument is that if I getting information off of your non-password protected, completely open web-server and use that information, that is fine. However, if I write a program for a business to find the information, it is wrong but it may not be illegal because the program uses to much resources. Now, if I write a program that intentionally tries to max out your site (e.g. Yahoo) performance it is wrong and considered hacking and the FBI will try to put me in jail.
What is the difference? Intent; having enough lawyers.
The (costly) answer might be to write software that determines the load a user places on a server and block that IP for X time if the load is deemed excessive. Eventually, you could get to the point where you could make the bot look like the load created by a user, then what do you do if that replicate that bot over 1000 IP addresses. The (real) answer: if you offer anything for free, you have to depend on the user to not take advantage of that free service. After all if people acted like businesses there would never be any change in the leave a penny/take a penny cups.
Corporations are inherently evil since their only goal is to make money. The only salvation is to hope that good people run them.
"Everybody must be allowed to access web resources" is a statement from the POV of the accessors. Consider that statement from the point of view of the server managers: "We must allow everybody to access our resources in any way they choose."
Do you really want to make that statement? If you put up a public resource, must you allow people to abuse it if they wish? Or can you take actions to stop such abuse, esp. as it nearly always does real, if not always a lot of, damage. In the case of Bidder's Edge vs. eBay, eBay was suffering real slow-down of service, which affects its bottom line. Must eBay allow it?
Perhaps the real danger is not so much the rulings per se, but the legal doctrines being used to make them: "Under the reasoning in the Register.com case, "you don't have to prove harm or show any evidence of harm," he said. "Harm will be presumed." He said that he fears the Register.com case will "spread like Kudzu" through the court system."
At any rate, just recognize that things are somewhat more complicated then they may seem at first. It's tempting to oversimplify in either direction, but the truth is probably complicated.
Oh no, baby... are you trying to tell me that all along you've been fembots? But that's just not groovy, baby!
(Translation: Click the link, Hemos. Or even just hold your mouse over it to see where it goes.)
--
As my subject says, I was called this week regarding the recent registration of a domain through dotster (whose records can also be seen through the register.com WHOIS search).
So Mr. Verio calls me up, asking me about my hosting and design needs, and is actually not so bad for a salesman. He sends me some info from their website and agrees to follow up on Monday with me if I'm interested about using their services.
Now that I've read this article, I don't know what to think/do yet. It looks like Verio provides a level of service which would be pretty affordable for my domain needs, but I also don't want to perpetuate bad business practices by giving them my business. I'll have to prepare some thoughts on how he got my name and information and grill the poor guy next time he calls.
This is 1.11% of the "total load", meaning 1.11% of the CPU usage, not 1.11% of the CPU. Nothing here argues that the machines were fully loaded. Had they been, then yes, eBay was prevented from using that load. But it's doubtful that eBay had a 100% load all of the time, so it's doubtful they were using those resources.
-no broken link
The simple fact is that every single interaction between any two computer systems requires resources in the way of memory, processor time, network bandwidth and sometimes disk access. Now the judge seems to indicate that if you go over my service as it was designed, and retrieve information, and then use that information in a way I don't like, I can forbid you from using my service.
That's completely unrealistic. Unless the searching routine is basically stomping the server by requesting as fast as possible, there is no real damage being done that isn't done by a regular cyber-squatter wannabe trolling the database in this case. If there is an issue with the DoS sort of effect, ask the other party to back off, or alter the server software to restrict the rates at which requests are accepted from certain IP addresses or blocks. Better yet, negotiate a new service where the database query is run locally by the whois provider, bundled up, and distributed for fee to anyone interested.
The thing is, it is public information. This sort of legal adjustment of the reality is foolhardy in the extreme. If I take a quote from an article on a news site, citing the reference properly, and use it as a portion of a work that results in something the originating news site doesn't like, can they forbid me from using the site now?
The ramifications are a lot further reaching than just bots. It's all a matter of degree.
We need a Hemos Quality Seal. After all, there is already the Taco Quality Seal
Best Slashdot Co
Namely, if this cases wins and is upheld, then look next for a lawsuit seeking to shut down the SEC 'FraudCrawler' and any other government owned or contracted law enforcement crawlers that come along after it.
Here's why.
If Register.com wins, then the courts will have recognized bandwidth as an asset on an equal legal footing to money or physical property. Once bandwidth has gained this legal stature, then suddenly the fourth admendment of the constitution kicks in:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures , shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Because unauthorized consumtion of bandwidth would then be legally equivalent to a seizure, the government would have to obtain and serve a search warrant on the owner of any server that they wish to examine the contents of!
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
I wonder. The last time Slashdot got trolled like this, someone talked about setting up a redirector page and then pulling it in favor of a different page. Did this happen here?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
You Mean http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/technology/ 12CYBERLAW.html?
(No reg version)
You do know that Verio *is* Network Solutions and Register.com is their competitor, right?
The link to the bot story is here. No free registration is required :)
Although, the other page was a Hoot!
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
My $.02
--
"owing to Verio's robot. In her opinion, Judge Jones said that the harm estimate was 'thoroughly undercut' by Vario in pretrial discovery,"
Did this bug the living shit out of anyone else? Is there one company, or two? None of my friends who work for Verio have mentioned a sister company called Vario. And it would have been funnier if they had spelled it Varyo.
Actually, I think the Rhein Fire had a better editor.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
The ruling itself is good, but it seems like there needs to be a better logic behind future rulings. What happens when a company is affected as Register was but cannot show an appreciable system burden, or at least one that a judge will accept? Using trespassing as part of the arguement makes some sense, as a website or database could be construed as a property, though I wonder whether trespass laws are written to sufficently to cover virtual property? There comes a point when trying to use analogies for the Interent becomes futile. The Internet isn't necessarily like anything else. The Internet is its own thing. Its time we had policymakers that understand that and deal with it appropriately. http://unholyrouter.com
There is no guarantee that the content has been read or understood.
The WHOIS database states that running bots through it violates their user agreement. Doing so with webpages, however, is encouraged by most sites, and can be blocked with a robots.txt file at any time.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Not that I'm suggesting anything, but if this restriction is a bad thing (TM) for for freedom, how about us non-US citizens start taking an interest in WHOIS spidering.
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
well actually I've gotten about 3 pieces of junk mail from the site since I registered at Register.com about 1 year ago.
I know its from that source because my name is spelled strangly and they send it to me at the semi-fictious enity that is the "company" my web site is registered to.
I know a lot of people here are very anti-regulation, but I think it would be great if case law established that web robots must obey the Robots Exclusion Standard. Since it's a widely-known standard, I think it can be fairly argued that robots that choose to disregard /robots.txt are in danger of tresspassing to chattels. Using the standard also would allow bots to fulfill their helpful role, while providing a clear distinction between what is and what is not acceptable.
/robots.txt
Sure, one might argue that people might be unaware of the standard, but that is seldom an excuse. I may be unaware of fire/electrical codes, but I'll still get in trouble if I don't adhere to them, because I'm putting others at risk and thereby imposing a cost upon society (fire trucks and insurance don't come free). Web crawlers that index data in violation of the Robots Exclusion Standard impose a cost on companies and society just as well, in the end requiring people to by bigger pipes, faster servers, and so on (thereby using more power, dumping more old computer components into landfills and more chipmaking chemicals into the environment).
My point is that web crawler operators live in a society, just like everyone else, and they too must be held accountable for the consequences of their actions, particularly when they willfully disregard the requests of web site operators as expressed in
This is amusing. Now we get to see who actually clicked the link, and who posted blindly without bothering to read the article.
-Todd
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"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
My bad - not Hemos'. Flame him if you want for not checking every link in every story - with the volume of submissions what they are I can't say's I blame any of the good folks at /.
(Why the bad link? A friend had just ICQd me that he was headed to Amsterdam for a P2P conf. and wanted the name of the place all the 'football' fans go to. Cut and pasted crosswise. I suppose he'll be wondering why he should go to a 'bot lawsuit in the City of Sin... ;-)
And for those of you who got their panties in a bunch about the 'unacceptable' or declining quality of /. (ACs, anyone?) - so quit reading it already and run your own. MHO - pretty damn fine job of turning a homebrew blog into a major news source - whynchYOU try it!?
Windows in a public building are obviously meant to be looked through. However, if you stood long enough, gazing through the windows of a local store, they could have you removed if there are "no loitering" laws. Even though you are using the sidewalk for standing and the windows for looking, as they were meant to be.
Similarly, if you worked at one store and went to your competitor's, pen and paper in hand, and strolled the aisles noting their prices (so your store can meet/beat them), you might be asked to leave. Despite the fact that you are just writing down prices that are clearly there to be read.
Finally, various retailers, esp. car dealers, place "No wholesaler or retailer" restrictions on their best sales, even though their products are meant to be bought and other retailers may want to do just that.
It seems to me that analogous laws already exist. Just because something is available in the public realm it doesn't follow that anyone can avail themselves of it to any extent; at least not under current U.S. laws.
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
http://channel.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/technology/1 2CYBERLAW.html
Although here is this interesting bit from the middle of the article:
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
FCLymond writes Extending on the Scores vs. Hooter's case, the Nightlife News reports (cover charge required, under 21 not allowed) that a Manhattan nightclub owner named "Tony the Deuce" has forbidden "his girls" from using 'butts to harvest up-for-some-action prospects from audience members. The theory's that inviting a customer upstairs for some "private action" infringes on the owners right to charge $10 for a bottle of Bud on the main floor. (Question: Would lap dances also be objectionable, because the recipient is unable to get up and saunter over to the bar while receiving one?)
There needs to be a line somewhere. Where that line should be drawn? I'm not sure (that's why I find this discussion so interesting), but I have little faith in the US government to get it right.
I'm sick of companies suing because of links to their sites, or who views them. They make their information publicly available, and when they do so, they cannot go back and say "wait, we don't want so-and-so viewing it." If you don't want bots to be able to view things, require a login. Otherwise, f**k off and stop clogging the legal system with petty copyright infringement cases. The Supreme Court is going to hear a medical marijuana case, that's news. This is bullsh*t. When material is public, the only copyright infringement possible is claiming or implying personal authorship of someone else's work.
"Question: would search engines be different, presumably because they also confer a benefit on the target by making it findable?)"
This ruling is obviously rediculous; who hosts a website that can't handle 1 extra connection?
But just to play devil's advocate, search engines are slightly different, since you can always specify in Robots.txt which robots, (none even) can access your site, and what they can access (effectively controlling their time on your site).
I would like to see a law against robots which do not adhere to robots.txt though...
Oh wait, this is the internet and it shouldn't be online if it's not meant to be accessed... sorry, I forget sometimes...
Ace
For more than one reason... partly because of the reason stated in the post (they confer a benefit to the person searched). And partly because most bots, and all the big ones that matter, obey the robots.txt file and metatags that give control to the site owner about what may and may not be indexed.
Robots that do not obey control measures (if they even have standardized measures to follow) are rude and obtrusive. And since the robot in question's purpose is to steal business from the site being scoured, I can fully understand the injunction.
Raven
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
It is somewhat similar to why a single person dubbing a cd to tape but I can't copy a ton of cds and resell them. I can browse for prices as a shopper but I can't suck all their prices off their web site to always make my prices 5% lower. I am really worried about this direction of cyber law. As technology gives the average joe the ability to do everything on a large the scale, the "mass" part of the legality test is broken. Hence, the Metallica Naptster battle. Although the people are not profiting from it, the number of the copies ditributed pushes the courts to Metallica's side. I worry about the quite nontechnical courts ruling on matters of technology that will effect the US for years to come. I don't mind corporations squabbling in court, as is the case with register and verio. I do believe that access to a site by a specific entity should be throttled so as to not starve off the regular consumer. I do believe that breaking those limits should be considered illegal. What I don't want to see is the corporate world coming after the regular consumer who is not making money off the situation. The fact is, if music was sold for a modest profit and music companies were pickier about who they try to turn into super stars they could make a lot of money while charging much less money. Technology is forcing the music industry to improve its product and provide real value for the consumer. I see the likes of Napster and the free music sharing phenom. to just be another example of how competition provides better value to the consumers, as it is suppossed to. This form of competition should not be stiffled just because it may cut into the profits of current companies. The law should not be meant to protect the status quo but protect the regular citizens.
-- soldack
Search engines are different for one big reason. Any website can opt out by use of the robots.txt file. Just cuz no one knows about it or uses it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. register.com can't opt out of verio's robot.
** Martin
Can we get the judge to make people who write aimbots for FPS (Quake, HL, et al) games personally liable for wasting the time of everyone else who's playing?
anacron
trolling for a troll