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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!uwm.edu!lll-winken!aunro!aupair.cs.athabascau.ca!lyndon
From: lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,can.uucp,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: BITFTP grief!
Message-ID: <1705@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
Date: 15 May 91 19:54:08 GMT
References: <1991May15.042146.29800@iguana.uucp> <81678@bu.edu>
Followup-To: comp.mail.misc
Distribution: na
Organization: Athabasca University
Lines: 84

[ Sorry, but NN trashed the original group list. I didn't think
  ont.general was a very good place to post to from Alberta, so
  I faked it ... ]

tower@buitc.bu.edu (Leonard (Len) H. Tower Jr.) writes:

>You might talk to the folks who run the BITFTP gateway, and see if
>they could slow down the rate at which they mail a large request.

What we should really do is pressure the BITFTP sites to only honour
requests from machines that are in the BITNET RSCS node tables. This
would restrict the traffic to the NJE leased lines, which are usage 
insensitive as far as charging goes. This doesn't solve the problem
of BITFTP requests plugging up the RSCS queues at the BITNET hub sites,
but that's not what we're discussing :-)  

There are enough machines out there providing anonymous UUCP access 
to software archives that use of BITFTP from UUCP sites is no longer
justifiable. If you want the software, you can bloody well pay your own
phone line charges to pick it up. Maybe you didn't want that software so 
badly after all ...

As an example of making the user pay, about a year ago I decided to
stop carrying the comp.binaries groups here at AU. There were a number
of reasons for doing this: potential viruses and cost in modem time and
disk space being two of them. When we informed the user community of
the change there was no end of howling and bitching from the PC users
who were used to getting all this "free software" from the net. We
pointed out that it was not "free," as the university was paying
line charges (both leased lines and LD dialup) to transfer these
files, most of which were of little or no use to the operation of
the university. In essence, we said that if they *really* *wanted*
the software, they could dial up any number of BBS's (from home on
their dime) and pick it up that way. After a few weeks the complaints
stopped coming in. From what I've heard (or not heard), not providing
the binary groups has not resulted in the end of the world as these
people know it, so I assume that they either don't need the code that
badly, or they have made alternate arrangements. Yes, a few of them
starting poking the various mail archive servers, however the traffic
flow was not substantial (very few people even knew about them), and
has trickled off to almost nothing. My conclusion is that they got
tired of having to take a proactive stance to get the stuff and lost
interest in it when we stopped handing it to them on a platter.

What you describe is an unfortunate side effect of running a large
mail relay site. I've run a few of them in my time and I've dealt
with this problem before. I find the best way to deal with it is
to make it very clear to the system administrators of any site you
provide e-mail connectivity to just what sort of traffic you are
willing to forward. Let them know that any violation of those guidelines
could (and probably will) result in the termination of their feed.
Place the responsibility upon them to police their own user community.
In nearly every case, they will do so. If you see things happening
that you don't like, contact the system administrator at the site 
that's responsible, and let them know what's happening right away!
It is very important to keep the lines of communication open. If the
person at the other end feels like they are being dumped on arbitrarily,
they will be much less sympathetic towards *your* problem. (And it *is*
your problem - you set yourself up in the business of providing
e-mail service in the first place.)

The bottom line is, be fair to others - they probably don't know
they screwed up. Respect the other site administrators - they
probably don't like these things any more than you do, and will
do their best to deal with it as soon as they are made aware of the
problem. Don't change the rules in the middle of the game - make it
*very* *clear* at the *outset* what sorts of traffic and volumes you
are willing to accept, and make the continued provision of the feed
contingent on their following those guidelines.

How you deal with abuses is up to you. I prefer a solution that
doesn't penalize users who did not contribute to the problem. However
you accomplish that is going to be very site dependent. I wish you
luck ...

[ BTW - most of our problems went away when we got onto the Internet.
  I now run all my non-local UUCP connections over TCP. Keep pushing
  for that ONET link :-) ]

-- 
    Lyndon Nerenberg  VE6BBM / Computing Services / Athabasca University
           atha!cs.athabascau.ca!lyndon || lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca
                    Packet: ve6bbm@ve6bbm.ab.can.noam
      The only thing open about OSF is their mouth.  --Chuck Musciano