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> While I have sympathy for what the scrapers are trying to do in many cases, it bothers me that this doesn't seem to address what happens when badly-behaved sc
by KennyBlanken 5y ago
> While I have sympathy for what the scrapers are trying to do in many cases, it bothers me that this doesn't seem to address what happens when badly-behaved scrapers cause, in effect, a DOS on the site.
Like when Aaron Swartz spent months hammering JSTOR causing it to become so slow it was almost unusuable, and despite knowing that he was causing widespread problems (including the eventual banning of MIT's entire IP range) actually worked to add additional laptops and improve his scraping speed...all the while going out of his way to subvert MIT's netops group trying to figure out where he was on the network.
JSTOR, by the way, is a non-profit that provides aggregate access to their cataloged archive of journals, for schools and libraries to access journals they would otherwise never be able to afford. In many cases, free access.
- uncletammy 5y agoThe effect on Jstore's revenue would have been negligible. I'm surprised to see someone so cold and unfeeling about Aaron Swartz. Especially considering the massive injustice with regards to application of the law and sentencing. > Federal prosecutors, led by Carmen Ortiz, later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release.