[Eril-l] Sci-Hub users asking us to restore their access!

[Melissa Belvadi]

We've recently gotten a spate of emails sent to our ezproxy admin address
from various users around the world, all basically complaining that we've
somehow blocked their use of Sci-Hub (!) and asking us to restore their
access.  One of them even sent a screenshot so we know what they're seeing
is the "deny.htm" file in ezproxy.

They are all very polite and seem to think they are entitled to access, as
if they have no idea what they are doing is illegal, or that the address
they are writing to is for an institution that is unwittingly involved as a
result of being hacked.

Here's an example of one such email (leaving off the signature part - they
are all very open as to who they are):

I’m a French OT student, actually doing litterature researches for my
studies. I’m using scihub to get some articles that I need to reed for that
work. Today my access has been blocked.

I would be very grateful to you if you could open my access.

And another:

My access to sci-hub has been temporarily denied, due to excessive
downloads. I am sorry but I am actually writing my thesis and need to read
that many articles.

I would be really grateful if you could give my access back. I cannot
afford paying for all those articles online. My thesis is due for early
November. You guys are my only option.


We've been able to use our ezproxy logs to trace back the most recent
activity to a particular student's compromised account, and dealt with that
one that we could find.

If I understand what's happening, Sci-Hub has collected a huge number of
compromised usernames/passwords from many institutions and tries them
(right through our proxy server) when the article someone requests from
them is not already in their archive. If so, it's probably rare that this
illegal use will even trigger an "excessive use" denial and consequently
any chance of us even knowing this is going on.

Has anyone else gotten emails like this?

If so:
How do you handle it, aside from trying to find the breached account? Do
you try to explain to the "user" that what they're doing is illegal?
Are you further lowering your max downloads for major publisher sites to
try to stop it?

-- 
Melissa Belvadi
Collections Librarian
University of Prince Edward Island
mbelvadi at upei.ca 902-566-0581
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