Talk:Bandwidth theft

The very title of this article is not NPOV. It should be changed, though I can't think of a more appropriate title. -- User:216.113.195.40, 2 Aug 2005

Would anyone object to a POV tag on the article? Describing a hyperlink as 'stealing' is probably a subject which should be treated more carefully than this. Ojw 14:38, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Totally agree, and I've placed the tag. Using the narrow legal term "theft" to refer to most of these actions is just plain sloppy. Some of what this article discusses (in the "unauthorized connection" section, and possibly spam) can be counted under various "theft of services" statutes. However, the characterization of linking as "theft" is simply wishful thinking on the part of people who don't like the rules of the Web game. Linking is legal; people who don't like it wish it were illegal, and so call it by the name of a crime in order to confuse the issue. On the other hand, some of what this article calls "theft" -- e.g. malware -- is illegal under completely different laws, e.g. computer-crime laws, and calling it "theft" is just sloppiness that confuses the issue.

All in all, I suspect this article should simply be deleted. The issue of objectionable linking is dealt with better at deep linking, and we already have other articles about spam, malware, and so forth. --FOo 02:23, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Well the malware is in many cases performing theft of services (e.g. using someones bandwidth without authorisation to send spam).

As for deleting this page i think thats a bad idea though possiblly some content should be moved in our out but this is a common term that people should be informed about. Plugwash 15:15, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm curious, can you provide any evidence of anyone charged with theft of services for creating or releasing viruses or malware? As far as I can tell, in the U.S. people who release viruses are usually charged under the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, which does not mention "theft" of any sort. See, e.g. David J. Loundy's E-Law papers. And spammers are charged under CAN-SPAM, which likewise does not mention "theft".

Aside from the NPOV issue, I'm concerned that this article is likely to mislead our readers into thinking that "bandwidth theft" is either (a) a term of art in law, which it is not, since there is no statute or case law using that term; or (b) a technical term in computing encompassing the various actions described here, which it is not, since technically those actions have nothing particularly in common.

Basically, I think that whoever wrote this was more or less coming up with it out of their own personal opinions, rather than with reference to any particular facts. There isn't any meaningful category of actions called "bandwidth theft" in either law or technology. In short, the subject of this article is neither existent, nor a coherent or notable fiction or opinion. Where it isn't violating NPOV, it's violating NOR.

Moreover, I don't see any way that it can really be remedied in place. The title has to go, since it's an imaginary and misleading category. The content dealing with deep linking is redundant with our article on that subject. The content dealing with spam and malware, where it isn't simply erroneous, is redundant with our articles on those topics, which deal with the legal issues much more accurately. That's why I think it should be deleted. --FOo 17:41, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I didn't create the article, but I put some real effort into making it less wrong. But it's still wrong. I wouldn't weep over it's deletion. I got to this via a crappy entry for hotlinking, which I redirected to inline linking.

redirected

redirected to Inline linking as per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bandwidth theft

Please edit the link so it does not take away bandwidth by linking directly to the image on the server

Please edit the link in the below Finland Wikipedia article so it does not take away the bandwidth by linking directly to the image on the server. Wikipedia should not allow bandwidth "theft". Please write this in your rules so that editors do not link to the images on someone else's website or server directly.

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara

I tried to edit the underlying link at the Vitteet (Reference) # 51 (Text: Banknote.... sivut.... haettu ... 2007) but was unable to because of the language barrier and I don't under stand how it works (double barrier).

/CU107.JPG should be replaced with /cu107.htm

Please confirm. Thank you.

Tomaud (talk) 17:44, 8 January 2023 (UTC)