Re: Library Inter-Library Loan Service

On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, Elizabeth E. Kirk <eliz.kirk[_at_]jhu.edu> wrote:
>
> There is no such thing as a "private URL" unless you are operating an
> intranet. You have described an orphaned URL -- one that may not be
> attached to another page, yet is still publicly accessible to anyone
> looking hard enough. Or, more likely, to anyTHING. The bots and
> spiders employed by Internet search engines will certainly find this
> page. And any number of individuals knowing this URL may view/download
> the article (virtual infinite copies?).

This is getting a bit far from copyright, but it should be noted that security through obscurity IS in fact a form of security. A password-protected resource is also security through obscurity -- you can't get access to it unless you know the secret. An orphan URL is not really very different, except perhaps in degree and in the conventions that discourage us from sharing passwords but don't discourage us from sharing bookmarks.

Apropos of the particular issue of spiders, note that a spider won't find a page unless there are links to it from pages that the spider has already searched. Presumably, the ILL service doesn't have such links, so it's not true that they will "certainly find this page." Especially not when one observes that the best current search engines index only about 15% of the web (see the article in _Nature_, July 8, 1999).

In fact, the particular ILL service may very well have obscurity measures that are stronger than just an orphan URL. I believe our library does the same thing, but in addition password-protects the private web pages using http basic authentication. That way we have to tell the patron not just the URL but also a username/password, but it amounts to exactly the same thing.

Back to copyright, a question for this list: would attempting to guess a password or intentionally orphaned URL constitute circumvention of a "technological protection measure" for the purposes of the DMCA? I believe it would, in which case "any individual" could be facing very severe penalties next year when that provision of the DMCA kicks in.

JQ Johnson                      office: 115F Knight Library
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