[Air-L] The Spiders will find you (was wayback machine waspublic/private)

[Conor Schaefer]

Thanks, Charlie. I don't mean to thread hijack, but you reminded me of 
this interesting tidbit I came across the other day:

Google News Blog: Perspectives about the news from people in the news
http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/perspectives-about-news-from-people-in.html

Not exactly a watershed moment, perhaps, but intriguing nonetheless.

Conor

Charlie Balch wrote:
> In the context of my message below, these two articles in today's news
> jumped out. No need to read the articles, the headlines give you the idea.
> FYI: I use iGoogle to aggregate a number of news feeds -- these headlines
> are what some popular news agencies thought was important enough to make
> their top three.
>
> Pedophile Blogger Arrested Near UCLA Day Care Facility
> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293173,00.html 
>
> Dutch bloggers due in court over filming under skirts
> http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6202451.html
>
> The articles bring up the interesting question about the exposure of third
> parties in blogs. I still believe that researchers of blogs do not require
> informed consent from the bloggers but what about the persons discussed in
> the blogs? I suspect that this tertiary exposure is a problem in any
> research.
>
> Charlie Balch
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Charlie Balch
> Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 9:33 AM
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] The Spiders will find you (was wayback machine
> waspublic/private)
>
> Interesting point about what is accessible on the Internet. I'd not judge
> the number of possibilities by the use of IP addresses. It is common
> practice to have many websites attached to one IP address and many IP
> addresses are used to connect to the internet but do not provide web
> content. Even when web content is available at an address, a complete path
> is necessary to get to the content. I've often placed content that I'd
> prefer the world not see using a web address that has no referring links and
> would not easily be guessed.
>
> Search engines follow links that they find on pages. The big engines don't
> follow random possible content locations. Yes, there are programs that would
> allow a researcher (cracker) to explore all link possibilities on a site.
> Such an attempt without permission would be unethical. On the other hand, if
> you've announced your content to the world, the world has a right to explore
> your content.
>
> I believe that we would all agree that information that a poster has made
> some effort to make private through the use of a password or even simple
> obscurity requires informed consent before a researcher should be allowed to
> us it. On the other hand, publicly presented information should be fair
> game. This does bring up an interesting question though. At what point can a
> researcher use hidden information? Historians routinely use the content of
> diaries and letters that the authors would probably prefer never become
> public.
>
> The net is providing a fifth estate. Current USA laws are moving towards
> giving bloggers the same protections and responsibilities that are enjoyed
> by commercial reporters. Publicly posted that is clearly intended to be read
> is fair game and should not require review any more than using a reference
> from a journal or popular magazine.
>
> Charlie Balch
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:  elw at stderr.org
> Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 8:10 AM
>
>
>
>   
>> A web crawler will find you, that's the point. There are a finite 
>> number of IP addresses, 4,294,967,296 (232) , these are what get 
>> resolved from a URL.
>>     
>
> Web crawlers don't typically have much luck crawling by IP address.
>
> Name-based virtual hosting @ the level of the web server tends to make it
> less than adequate.
>
> Best practice for virtualhosting is to make a hit directly to an IP address
> (rather than a name) return... nothing.
>
> --e
> _
>
>
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