<s>
80legs	B-Protocol
is	O
a	O
web	B-Application
crawling	I-Application
service	O
that	O
allows	O
its	O
users	O
to	O
create	O
and	O
run	O
web	O
crawls	O
through	O
its	O
software	B-Architecture
as	I-Architecture
a	I-Architecture
service	I-Architecture
platform	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
80legs	B-Protocol
was	O
created	O
by	O
Computational	O
Crawling	O
,	O
a	O
company	O
in	O
Houston	O
,	O
Texas	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
The	O
company	O
launched	O
the	O
private	O
beta	O
of	O
80legs	B-Protocol
in	O
April	O
2009	O
and	O
publicly	O
launched	O
the	O
service	O
at	O
the	O
DEMOfall	O
09	O
conference	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
At	O
the	O
time	O
of	O
its	O
public	O
launch	O
,	O
80legs	B-Protocol
offered	O
customized	O
web	B-Application
crawling	I-Application
and	O
scraping	O
services	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
80legs	B-Protocol
is	O
built	O
on	O
top	O
of	O
a	O
distributed	O
grid	B-Architecture
computing	I-Architecture
network	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
80legs	B-Protocol
has	O
been	O
criticised	O
by	O
numerous	O
site	O
owners	O
for	O
its	O
technology	O
effectively	O
acting	O
as	O
a	O
Distributed	O
Denial	O
of	O
Service	O
attack	O
and	O
not	O
obeying	O
robots.txt	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
As	O
the	O
average	O
webmaster	O
is	O
not	O
aware	O
of	O
the	O
existence	O
of	O
80legs	B-Protocol
,	O
blocking	O
access	O
to	O
its	O
crawler	O
can	O
only	O
be	O
done	O
when	O
it	O
is	O
already	O
too	O
late	O
,	O
the	O
server	O
DDoSed	O
,	O
and	O
the	O
guilty	O
party	O
detected	O
after	O
a	O
time-consuming	O
in-depth	O
analysis	O
of	O
the	O
logfiles	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
Some	O
rulesets	O
for	O
modsecurity	B-Language
(	O
like	O
the	O
one	O
from	O
Atomicorp	O
)	O
block	O
all	O
access	O
to	O
the	O
webserver	O
from	O
80legs	B-Protocol
in	O
order	O
to	O
prevent	O
a	O
DDOS	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
WebKnight	O
also	O
blocks	O
80legs	B-Protocol
by	O
default	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
The	O
best	O
way	O
found	O
to	O
block	O
80legs	B-Protocol
is	O
by	O
its	O
UserAgent	B-Protocol
,	O
"	O
008	O
"	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
Wrecksite	O
blocks	O
80legs	B-Protocol
by	O
default	O
.	O
</s>
