Hmm... ping -f, spray, they already exist. While they are occassionally used maliciously, surely they aren't evidence of the death of the net.... I feel that the irresponsible users will be taken care of by natural forces of nature. We can't 'not build' bad tools, someone else will. We can 'build' good tools, and make them the tools of choice for the majority. -alan ps build/not build implies all attributable influence towards the development of said tools..... ......... Dick St.Peters is rumored to have said: ] ] Paul Ferguson writes: ] > >How would you feel if Pointcast slowly backed off and increased the time ] > >period between updates, but at the touch of a key or movement of the mouse ] > >it would go back to the "knob" setting? Obviously a low volume data feed ] > >like Pointcast may not be that big a load on the net but the heuristics ] > >(which do involve human factors) could probably be applied to a lot of ] > >other things like video feeds that will be bigger bandwidth consumers. ] ] > I think this sounds fine, but I don't think you need an RFC to dictate ] > it. This would be a competitive advantage for an application, methinks. ] ] This comment got me wondering, and I don't like where I wound up ... ] ] Would it be a competitive advantage? As far as responsible users go, ] it probably would. ] ] That brings up irresponsible users - users who don't care about their ] impact, and even worse hacker-type users who would deliberately bring ] down the net if they could ... how long before someone figures out how ] to make a server direct a Real Audio stream (or whatever) at someone ] else? The leverage for hackers could be enormous. ] ] -- ] Dick St.Peters, Gatekeeper, Pearly Gateway, Ballston Spa, NY ] stpeters@NetHeaven.com Owner, NetHeaven 518-885-1295/800-910-6671 ] Internet for Albany/Saratoga, Glens Falls, North Creek, & Lake Placid ] First Internet service based in the 518 area code ]