Talk:Leecher (computing)

Untitled
This article is wrong in so many levels. Dubious and original research. One could argue that the whole concept of leeching has no merit. Admittably, the article seems to take a neutral point of view to leeching. I see that word 'anti-leeching' has been mentioned in this talk page. One could deduce that it is only fair to create an article for that and describe anti-leeching operations from a NPOV. Now, which is worse, actually "leeching" or a webmaster doing something to prevent leeching? It gets interesting at this point, and now we arrive at the actual talking point. This article has no merit in any broader sense and it indeed is, original research. It's like literary criticism but applied to concepts taken from the realm of "Internet culture". I don't know. This article and many articles like this are just plain wrong and not many people understand it. --- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.128.222.156 (talk) 10:35, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The Prevention section of this article currently says:

Bandwidth leeching can be prevented by running an anti-leeching script on the website's server. It can automatically ban IPs that leech, or can redirect them to faulty files.

But, as far as I know, the leeched-from site never sees the IP address of the leeching site because it is the individual users' web browsers that end up fetching the image (or other resource) not the leeching site itself, so the IP addresses fetching the image will not be related to the leeching site at all and thus cannot be used as a reliable indicator of when to block or redirect the image.

The only mechanism I'm aware of is that most web browsers will state the name of the original leeching page in the "Referer" (sic) header when fetching the image. This "Referer" information could be used by a script on the leeched-from site to block such leeching. This isn't 100% reliable because the "Referer" header is sent at the discretion of the browser and could be disabled, but it's probably as good as you can do in the circumstances.

Furthermore, where bandwidth is a scarce resource, such as a heavily loaded web server, running a script to filter out bogus image requests will place additional load on the server that it may not be able to handle. A better approach would be to use the built-in configuration of the web server. For instance, there is a good discussion of how to configure Apache here: []

I suggest that the above-quoted part of the article be reworded to say something like:

Bandwidth leeching can be detected and prevented on the leeched-from website's server by checking that the HTTP Referer header is not from another website. A leeched image can either be refused immediately, or replaced by an image that would cause embarrassment to the leeching site. Other leeched resources such as Java applets or Flash presentations could similarly be refused immediately, replaced with warnings, or even malware, etc.

The moral for leechers: Don't built your site form parts you do not control.

61.7.166.87 05:37, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Open Source
Why does the article say, "This term does not apply to Open Source projects?" It says so shortly after it says, "Mainly, leeching is taking without giving." It looks like it's saying that Open Source projects take without giving, but that they are exempt from being called leeches for some technical reason.

Maybe the author meant to say that people who redistribute Open Source IP are not leeches; but that wouldn't make much sense either. If you take credit for somebody else's work, or if you get paid for somebody else's work, how does it matter if the author gives it away for free?

It's a different story if you add value to an open source work, and then ask to be paid for the value that you added, while acknowledging the source from which you derived your work. That's what companies like Red Hat do. That's not leeching.

I like the part where the article says that leeches take without giving. That should be enough said. 192.55.12.36 (talk) 16:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Bittorrent "prevention" section
The "prevention" section of the bittorrent portion of this article currently says While editing the ipfilter.dat currently remains the only way to weed out leechers, a more advanced method should be developed "Should be developed" sounds like an opinion, not encyclopedic information, and in my opinion this should be changed. I think the entire "prevention" part of the bittorrent section should be removed since it contains no real information, but I don't want to do that yet in case someone disagrees. Rfschmid (talk) 01:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's delete this article
Otherwise we might as well have Leech (home economics) (not repaying the cup of borrowed flour). I have been in the computer industry more than 25 years and I am not aware of "leech" being recognised computer jargon. There are myriad uses of the word "leech" in a figurative context. This WP:OR should be deleted forthwith. Paul Beardsell (talk) 00:48, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's definitely an established term. See the Google news and books coverage for searches on "file sharing leech" for example. The page needs sourcing and cleanup, certainly, but we don't delete articles because of that. Jfire (talk) 17:49, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The slang term "leech" as used here has a long-running history in the warez/phreaking scene of the 1980s and 1990s, where it originated. It should therefore be called "Leech (k3wl warez skr1pt k1dd13 slang)" and not "Leech (computing)." 71.72.235.91 (talk) 18:43, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That is a fundamental misunderstanding of how language works. The juxtaposition of two words or phrases which each independently have a defined meaning and which, in juxtaposition, do not change their meaning or where, in juxtapostion, the entire phrase does not take on a new meaning does not create anything worthy of documentation. And certainly does not require an article in any encyclopedia. We know what "file sharing" is and we know what a "leech" is (both in biology and in human behaviour). A computing leech or a file-sharing leech or bandwidth leach is a leech of each of those things. Nothing more. This article is plain old WP synthesis and needs to be deleted. Paul Beardsell (talk) 19:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Compare "computer bug". Here the meaning of the phrase cannot be determined from the two constituent words. Bug (computing) requires an article. Leech (computing) does not. Paul Beardsell (talk) 19:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's no misunderstanding, and it's not synthesis. I use the terms together to locate the relevant sources. Examples:, , , . Those that are found cover the concept of leeching from file sharing services specifically and as an independent concept, and reveal that when used in the context of computing, "leech" or "leeching" most certainly does take on an independent meaning which can be discussed in an encyclopedic manner. For example, one aspect that is unique to computing is the development of specific leech resistance technologies in protocols such as Bittorrent. Jfire (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The specific anti-leech technology I use against pickpockets is to remove my wallet from my back pocket. Thiefs are leeches no matter what they steal. Your point is? Paul Beardsell (talk) 08:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

"The name derives from the leech, an animal which sucks blood and then tries to leave unnoticed." How do we know that leeches try to leave unnoticed?

Anti leeching techniques
Quote: ''These clients are quite common because the tendency to open source has made it relatively easy for modders to change the source code of most file sharing clients accordingly. This has led to the development of a multitude of technologies to ban such misbehaving clients.''

Can anyone please point me towards specifications of these and related features? The official bittorrent specification does not include any details on anti leech techniques. I also did not find much using Google. :-/ Help appreciated. --Robert Nitsch (talk) 01:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Do we need the information on Pokemon?
While I can see how the information regarding Pokemon relates to this, I don't see what it adds to the article. Any thoughts? SGPolter (talk) 18:15, 31 October 2016 (UTC)