On 21/10/08 10:16, Murray Fox wrote:
I think you're choosing to miss the point(s) :-) This is the National Library of NEW ZEALAND, ripping sites over international links, with blatant disregard for those sites wishes with regard to robots, and with no direct communication to the site owner / maintainer. The practical upshot of this is that real people running sites in NZ face increased international bandwidth bills this month thanks to the actions of the National Library [1]
Obviously the content is public, and anyone can access it. No one is complaining that their site is being accessed. I'm personally aggrieved that:
a) This wasn't kept within the country and performed over national connectivity (for both ideological and financial reasons)
b) A heads up to the site wasn't sent ahead of time
If you really don't want it disseminated on the net then don't publish it.
Facetious comment, not the point.
Or is the problem that "big brother" is watching you? (:-)
I actually have no issue at all with this initiative, only the manner in which it has been executed.
[1] - One thing to remember is that this IS the National Library; an organisation I would have expected to have acted more responsibly.
At the risk of "me too"ing, I find it somewhat amusing that the National Library, as one of the peers at WIX before peering was cool, would arrange for this content to be mirrored by machines that are not only not reachable via the relevant IXPs, but are located at the other end of international transit links. Presumably this mirrored content is going to be hosted by the National Library (domestically) at some point, which will result in all that data being hauled back across the Pacific? As a reasonably large provider of NZ-based hosting services, we've certainly noticed NatLib's mirroring activity as a non-negligible increase on our international bandwidth utilisation over the last few weeks. Yes, there are a million and one things that'll have an impact on your bandwidth consumption. However, I echo Murray's frustration that a New Zealand organisation either wouldn't think about this, or have completely ignored it. -Mike