Bug#37319: apt: Apt doesn't work with ftp.cdrom.com, it gives protocol corruption messages

[njs@uclink4.berkeley.edu]

Package: apt
Version: 0.3.4

It seems that if I use the line

deb ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/debian potato main contrib non-free

to use the mirror at ftp.cdrom.com, then fetches from said site fail
with Protocol corruption messages all the time.  The problem is somewhat
intermittent, but happens well over half the time.  Sometimes it comes
at the beginning of the download of a file, sometimes at that end.
Perhaps you could take a look at this server and see what about it makes
apt-get's ftp client choke on a site that works fine with other ftp
clients?

ROOT: WyrmWeyr:/home/njs# apt-get update
Hit http://www.debian.org unstable/main Packages                               
Ign http://www.debian.org unstable/main Release                                
Err http://master.debian.org xfree86-3331/ Packages                            
  404 Not Found
Ign http://master.debian.org xfree86-3331/ Release   
Hit http://non-us.debian.org stable/non-US Packages  
Ign http://non-us.debian.org stable/non-US Release
Hit ftp://ftp.cdrom.com potato/main Packages
Get:1 ftp://ftp.cdrom.com potato/main Release [95b]
Err ftp://ftp.cdrom.com potato/main Release
  Protocol corruption
Get:2 ftp://ftp.cdrom.com potato/contrib Packages
Get:3 ftp://ftp.cdrom.com potato/contrib Release                               
Get:4 ftp://ftp.cdrom.com potato/non-free Packages
<snip>
ROOT: WyrmWeyr:/home/njs# apt-get -y upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
1 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 60.5kb of archives. After unpacking 1024b will be used.
Get:1 ftp://ftp.cdrom.com potato/main alien 6.36 [60.5kb]
Err ftp://ftp.cdrom.com potato/main alien 6.36                                 
  Protocol corruption
Failed to fetch ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/debian/dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/admin/alien_6.36.deb
  Protocol corruption
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe try with --fix-missing?
ROOT: WyrmWeyr:/home/njs# 

In this case, it actually downloaded most of alien before failing.
This appears to be common, for it to get part way through a file, then
die.  Running apt-get again with the same command line seems to pick up
where the failed one left off, but there's no guarentee that the second
attempt won't fail as well.

-- System Information
Debian Release: potato
Kernel Version: Linux WyrmWeyr 2.2.4 #17 Wed Mar 24 13:44:58 PST 1999 i586 unknown

Versions of the packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6           2.1.1-2        GNU C Library: Shared libraries and timezone
ii  libstdc++2.9    2.91.61-1      The GNU stdc++ library (egcs version)