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Grad Student Project Uses Wikis To Stash Data, Miffs Admins
Anonymous writes "Two graduate students at the Ivy League's Brown University built a P2P system to use abandoned wiki sites to store data. The students were stealing bandwidth from open MediaWiki sites to send data between users as an alternative to BitTorrent. There was immediate backlash as site operators quickly complained to the University. The project appears to be shutdown, but many of the pages still remain on the web. The project homepage was also taken down and the students posted an apology this afternoon." The same submitter links to two different forum discussions on the project.
>The fact that some "admin" abandoned a site, with open privileges to post on it, does not constitute theft.
The fact that some "home owner" forgot to lock the door to their house does not constitute trespassing!
>I manage servers and write code for a living, and while I'd put a stop to such practices on any site I managed, the use of the term "theft" is laughable.
I own a house and live in a house for a living, and while I'd put a stop to such practices on any property I owned, the use of the term "trespassing" is laughable.
Oh yeah not theft or trespassing at all...
I can't wait to see what the cops would say to that!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"