free.sonic-news.com is set up to allow only 50MB per day. That's plenty for
text, and a brief look at some small binaries. But you shouldn't be trying
to download DVD's with it. Since it doesn't require login, some users think
they are pretty smart to sit by their computer, resetting their modem every
5 minutes to get a new IP address, and a fresh 50MB block.
What kind of person has nothing better to do than sit by their computer,
unplugging and plugging in their modem? And to save what? Maybe a dollar
per day?? What's their time worth per hour anyway?
Every time a connection is closed, a log entry is made of the IP address and
bytes downloaded. Another log entry is made of the IP address when they
connect.
So it is trivial to write a script that monitors the most simultaneous users
in one IP block, and notices when a new IP address from the same block
connects quickly after closing, repeatedly, in a manner statistically
significant from the maximum simultaneous connections (especially where the
maximum is ONE).
Do they think I'm not smart enough to write a script that catches this and
throttles the entire IP block where that person is operating?
