Re: Fwd: Advice on breach

[Ana Arias Terry <ana.terry@informedstrategies.com>]

Given the subject, and advice requested, I asked my spouse to offer his 
thoughts.  William has been involved in the Internet world for the last 15 
years and is a software design & development consultant.

Here's what he says:

>This is really an issue of web etiquette and licensing.
>
>It is possible that the user did nothing formally wrong. Web etiquette
>(a part of Netiquette) specifies that software designed to retrieve web
>pages should respect any robot rules specified by the webserver (there
>is a technical protocol for this). If the webserver doesn't specify any
>rules then it is open to interpretation of general web etiquette about
>not over taxing a webserver. But that is very hard to define as
>webservers come in an incredible breadth of capability (mostly based on
>the power of the computer or computers it's run on). IOW, part of the
>responsibility lies with the vendor to define robot rules. Misuse can
>only be defined if those rules are ignored.
>
>The other piece of this question is regarding any policy that governs
>the user account. If there is none or this type of situation isn't
>addressed in it, then it's inappropriate to hold the user culpable on
>this count (there's still the responsibility mentioned above).
>
>Then there is the cross between the two above which is a where the
>vendor doesn't use robot rules, but defines appropriate use via its
>license and the institution must incorporate this into its policy
>governing user accounts.
>
>The only assurance that you can provide is to define a policy for user
>accounts that includes the adherence to robot rules and any vendor
>licensing rules when employing automated download tools.
>
>As for technical means, doing it on the vendor's end is already a tall
>task, though doable. Doing it on an institution's end entails too many
>variables to make it feasible or accurate.
>
>I don't know any protocol reqarding contacting the vendor about this,
>but I'd say either whomever is the standard vendor contact or whomever
>the vendor contacted would work.
>
>William Dan Terry
>william.terry@knotworks.com
>Knotworks
>
>___________W__i__l__l__i__a__m_____D__a__n_____T__e__r__r__y___________
>How do we acquire wisdom along with all these shiny things? -David Brin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Ana Arias Terry  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vice President                          ~       Informed Strategies
ana.terry@informedstrategies.com      ~     970-472-5985
www.informedstrategies.com ~      Fax: 970-490-5982
633 S. College Ave., Suite F ~  Fort Collins, CO 80524  USA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~