Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!convex!killer!tness7!bellcore!faline!thumper!karn From: karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Another problem with usage charges Message-ID: <1068@thumper.bellcore.com> Date: 3 May 88 23:10:20 GMT References: <8805030046.AA28508@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc Lines: 25 Summary: abuse of refund procedures The discussion of refunding aborted FTPs reminds me of a common trick among the Cornell RJE terminal operations staff back during my undergrad hacking days. The system (IBM OS/360, batch oriented) charged for each line actually printed. However, since line printers jam from time to time, the RJE operator could command the system to restart a print job from the beginning, canceling the charges for the copy already printed. But it became common practice among those operators whose funny-money accounts were running low to add several pages of unneeded garbage to their job output. When the useful stuff had all been printed, they would restart the job and then kill it, thus costing them NOTHING for the output they did print. Clearly any FTP refund scheme would invite exactly the same sort of abuse. On the other hand, I would like to repeat a quote I saw on the net almost 10 years ago. I wish I could remember who said it. It seems relevant to the subject at hand: "There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but sometimes it costs more to collect money than to give away food". Phil