[WikiEN-l] on complaining to ISPs

[Martin Harper]

> Have, in the past, complaints to ISPs (about stuff like this, not death 
> threats, copyvios, or kiddieporn) been effective?

I'm not aware of them being used in the past. However, I'm told that most of the IPs 
being used at the moment are actually open proxies.

> I figure what the vandalbot is doing is perfectly legal, isn't spam,
> and probably doesn't rise to the level of DOS 

(IANAL) It isn't legal, because it's unauthorised use of a computer system, which is 
typically against anti-hacking legislation in most countries, including the USA. Anti-
hacking legislation has been successfully used against people who have "hacked" by 
guessing URLs, so defacing a wiki should be cut and dry. It also falls into the category 
of a DOS, I reckon, though of course that's subjective.

No doubt JamesDay or Alex756 wll be able to explain why I'm wrong on the legal issue.

-Martin