I had the same problem a few years ago when I started the first zip code map. Before month one was up, there were over 1000 different robots attacking my server, trying to download the data I had there. I put an end to this behavior by adding a "hit" counter onto the xml server program which would stop any IP that had over so many hits. I set the hit counter high enough so that no human user would have a problem but low enough so that a robot would be blocked within minutes. Overnight the attacks were thwarted. I've since instituted even stronger measures to keep the determined robot from taking data from the servers and even offered a subscription service to the data for those who wanted to purchased "hits." This has been a good thing for everyone as the responsiveness of our servers and the quality of our data is high.
I suggest you institute a similar strategy on your server. Technically what I do is add or update a record in an "IP" table with the number of hits and the time of the last hit. If the number of hits exceeds the threshold, the program denies access to the data. Also, with a cron job, any record that hasn't been "hit" in a certain time is deleted, thus resetting the counter for that IP. Those that hit limit just have to wait the time period (two hours in this case) before being allowed access again. The page itself tells the user if they've exceeded the hit limit but doesn't deny them using the rest of the mapping stuff, so it doesn't violate any sort of terms for the Google portion of the map. -John Coryat http://maps.huge.info http://www.usnaviguide.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Maps API" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
