Re: Defenses against bad robots

John D. Pritchard (jdp@cs.columbia.edu)
Mon, 20 May 1996 13:49:27 -0400


> > It seems to me that the global Internet should have a method
> > where a runaway server can be cutoff from the Internet, that is
> > to say, if their system admin doesn't respond to repeated
> > requests in a reasonable time to stop their runaway server. Is

> What is really needed is a logical, well-designed information
> infrastructure for the global Internet and for the Web
> specifically. Until this happens, we can code around problems
> until our fingers fall off and none of it will mean squat.

lists like this one, usenet, perform these purposes. look at how usenet
administers lists -- admins voluntarily subscribe to some control in order
to save their spools. that's very restrictive, but publishing a BADBOT
list in machine readable form could provide a lookup table for you to go to
at points in your server code where you're beginning to suspect a badbot.

-john