I have no problems with the noble leech which serves an important purpose in medicine, used instead of sutures to close some wounds with far less scarring and, along with its cousin the maggot, destroying infected tissue in a wound thus preventing gangrene.

There is another type of animal we refer to as a leech which is of far less value. This type of leech joins a P2P network such as Limewire and raids user files to download without reciprocating by allowing other users to download from "it!"

This parasitic behaviour not only irritates the host but the cumulative effect of this practice by the (my guess) 90% of Limewire users who DON'T SHARE - is destroying the newtwork itself. To call this type of individual a "Leech" is an insult to the legitimate one.

My settings in Limewire are supposed to block users who don't share yet as we speak there are about 30 users trying to download who are not sharing and have chat switched off (so I can't even tell them how disgusted I am). I think the software should be changed to toughen our ability to automatically. In order for Limewire and other P2P networks to survive, users should be able to completely block those who don't share if they want to. I hate having to do this manually but there IS a principle involved here.

Even better would be a pop-up to those leeches saying (for example) "Your request to download from this user has been denied until such time as you fulfill your obligation to this P2P network by sharing files similar to this one."

I would be interested in your feedback/comments on this.

Davkar