One would argue that by sticking something online / making something available to the public, you implicitly give permission to all and sundry to access the information.

Hate to play devils advocate, but if your "charged by the meg" and you don't have alerts setup over certain thresholds, if you get a bill that slams you, it's your own fault.

robots.txt is (AFAIK) always been "optional", if you don't want someone to access something, filters and restrictions are available to you.

Posturing, and blowing wind isn't going to change anything, chock it up to a lesson. If you got hammered with a nasty bill, reconsider your hosting options.

Russell Sharpe wrote: 
"252 Accessing computer system without authorisation"(1) Every one is liable
to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years who intentionally accesses,
directly or indirectly, any computer system without authorisation, knowing
that he or she is not authorised to access that computer system, or being
reckless as to whether or not he or she is authorised to access that
computer system.

"(2) To avoid doubt, subsection (1) does not apply if a person who is
authorised to access a computer system accesses that computer system for a
purpose other than the one for which that person was given access.

"(3) To avoid doubt, subsection (1) does not apply if access to a computer
system is gained by a law enforcement agency-

"(a) under the execution of an interception warrantor search warrant; or

"(b) under the authority of any Act or rule of the common law.

That is it.. Did any get any request for authourisation??? Natlib is not a
law enforcement agency...
But under "(b) under the authority of any Act or rule of the common law.

That's what we need to look for.. Anyone???


Russell Sharpe

-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Lyall [mailto:simon@darkmere.gen.nz] 
Sent: Monday, 27 October 2008 21:25
To: nznog
Subject: Re: [nznog] NLNZHarvester2008

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Russell Sharpe wrote:
  
I would be curious who has actually tracked this traffic (themselves 
or via upstream ISP) and come up with a cost to their organisation?
Are they invoicing natlib? if not.. why not?

If I were to do this sort of trolling.. personally, I would resolve 
addresses to ip's and sort out what is local NZ IP's and off shore and 
troll from the appropriate source... as much as I feel the ignorance 
of robots.txt is against the goodwill and security of the big bad 
world :\
    

If you were serious about trolling you would of course be looking at
sections 250 (2) and 252 (1) of the Crimes Act [1] and trying to work out if
certain people at the library are liable for imprisonment for a term "not
exceeding 2 years" or "not exceeding 7 years".

This email does not constitute legal advice :)

[1] - http://www.legislation.govt.nz/

--
Simon Lyall  |  Very Busy  |  Web: http://www.darkmere.gen.nz/ "To stay
awake all night adds a day to your life" - Stilgar | eMT.

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[ my own personal opinion, and quite probably not that of my employers ]