Is it illegal to crash someones browser?

**louie54** · 02-29-2012 07:23 AM

I have someone spamming a feature on my site, but I wouldn't feel full-filled by simply banning his IP. I have a script ready to crash his browser if he visits my site again, but I don't want to get in trouble.

Don't do it right? Common sense?

**khh** · 02-29-2012 11:11 AM

Who could punish you for having a bug on your site? Hardly your fault.

So just do it. Common sense.

**Marvo** · 02-29-2012 09:49 PM

Doubt it.

**Supernova** · 02-29-2012 10:13 PM

I'm not a lawyer, and not as well-versed in computer-related laws as I'd like to be, but I can't imagine there actually being a law about what you're trying to do.

**DrunkenArse** · 02-29-2012 10:52 PM

Frankly, I would go beyond crashing his browser.

What browser is he using?

**louie54** · 03-01-2012 03:33 AM

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Frankly, I would go beyond crashing his browser.

What browser is he using?

I like the way you think. But I looked up the IP and it turns out that it was Google-bot. Each night on my confession board website, it would flag all the news posts since its last visit. Flagging a post before would hide it until I approved, but I since changed it to 5 posts before hiding.

I'm not sure what to do about it, since it's Google. So far I just blocked the IP.

Do you have anything that would help for future spammers?

**khh** · 03-01-2012 01:34 PM

Originally Posted by louie54

I like the way you think. But I looked up the IP and it turns out that it was Google-bot. Each night on my confession board website, it would flag all the news posts since its last visit. Flagging a post before would hide it until I approved, but I since changed it to 5 posts before hiding.

I'm not sure what to do about it, since it's Google. So far I just blocked the IP.

Uh, if you want your site to ever get big, you should let google index it. Just use the robots.txt file to make it stop flagging messages.

**louie54** · 03-01-2012 09:29 PM

You're right, I went ahead and unblocked it, now I have to make it stop flagging posts.

**DrunkenArse** · 03-01-2012 09:32 PM

You can stop it from flagging posts by placing the URL of the flagging script as blocked in your robots.txt file. If you're using GET then you might have to put it in as a prefix.

Alternatively, you could just use the "rel='nofollow'" attribute on the links. Last I checked, google respects this but other search engines might not.