m160.cs.uwaterloo.ca

block?

[santapaws]

Im getting hammered by m160.cs.uwaterloo.ca which shows as
(compatible; http; +http://web.idrc.ca/challenge/ev-136691-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html; [e-mail])"

it seems to follow robots but i cant find much information on this and whether it needs blocking or not. From what that link says they are taking your content and supplying to the end user without any credit back to you. They even talk about braille so clearly its an offline thing.

[Staffa]

I haven't seen them on my sites yet but if I do they will get blocked.
There are millions of web sites out there to scrape for their research where the webmaster either doesn't know or doesn't care being scraped.

[wilderness]

one of the worst similar abusers (which never provided a valid explanation for their intended use of data) for the longest while was "almaden.ibm"

[lucy24]

Based on their link, they're a legitimate entity (in the sense of "they really exist and really do or intend to do what they say"). I'd write them and ask what they're up to. If they don't respond in a satisfactory way-- or don't respond at all-- that's the time to block them forthwith. And encourage everyone else to do the same.


:: Memo to Self: lock out recent robot whose owners never answered query about why they're consistently coming from an IP other than the one their page says they use ::