Re: User connected for long periods ... any ideas?

You're probably right Byron, nothing at all to worry about.

But the client is a consumer rights organisation.  We're conducting an 
anti-spam campaign at the moment, attracting quite a bit of publicity and 
having some success with the politicians in getting a bill before parliament 
to penalise spammers and their isps if they don't toe the line. We had a 
poll running on what consumers thought the law should be  on spam 
(http://www.choice.com.au/calculators/sp1.cfm if you want to have a look) 
and we had a sudden burst of voting on Thursday which we put down to a 
spammer.   While the campaign is running, we have to watch the activity 
closely to make sure we're not brought down by a malicious user of some  
spammer.   While the campaign is running, we have to watch the activity 
closely to make sure we're not brought down by a malicious user of some 
kind.   And in any case, consumer rights organisations get enemies as a 
matter of course.  And usually the enemies are the more well-heeled 
corporations.

So we dont want to leave anything to chance.

I managed to find the support dept of this guy's isp.  He confirmed that the 
ip address is a cable user.  So the guy, who pays for his internet use by 
the click is busily racking up charges perhaps without even knowing what's 
happening.  I guess when he gets his cable bill at the end of the month, 
he'll know sure enough when he sees the bill is $5000 or whatever.

Thanks for your interest anyway.

Cheers,
Mike Kear
AFP Web Development
Windsor, NSW, Australia
http://www.afp.zip.com.au


>From: "fgi" <carlson(at)fgi.net>
>To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
>Subject: Re: User connected for long periods ... any ideas?
>Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 08:20:29 -0600
>
>I agree with the last part of this message it is probaly that a company has
>this set as there web page on a server run computer so that anytime a
>terminal opens you get a hit to your page and there are probally several
>different terminals with users having the same address that when they open 
>a
>browser you get a hit.
>
>---Bryon
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Jay Strickland <Jay_Strickland(at)pobox.com>
>To: 'Mike Kear' <choicemag(at)hotmail.com>; <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2000 5:37 PM
>Subject: RE: User connected for long periods ... any ideas?
>
>
> > Mike,
> >
> > Another two possible explanations for you.  One of my clients uses
> > data from a third party website with is updated "roughly" every
> > two weeks.  When I say roughly I mean it b/c the website can
> > be off by a +/- a week and a half in their updates.  Fortunately
> > for me they don't change the page other than when they do the
> > updates.
> >
> > In order to keep from having to check the site every day I
> > simply put together an expect script that runs in cron every
> > morning and checks the last-modified date on the file.  You could
> > determine if this was happening by looking at the times and
> > trying to determine a pattern.
> >
> > Yet another option.....they have your site set as their homepage
> > and therefore every time they open a browser you get a hit
> > with them looking at your homepage.  Probably more likely
> > than the above.......
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Jay
> >
> > --
> > Jay Strickland Jay_Strickland(at)pobox.com
> > What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with
>diligence.
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Mike Kear [SMTP:choicemag(at)hotmail.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2000 11:31 PM
> > To: darrell(at)webctr.com; hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
> > Subject: Re: User connected for long periods ... any ideas?
> >
> >
> > No, and that's the puzzle.  The client's a consumer rights organisation.
>We
> > have some polls that could be used by the consumer rights advocates for
> > their campaigns,  we have some petitions we're asking users to sign, but
> > this user is hitting the front page all the time, not the polls or the
> > activists pages.  And not the shop either.
> >
> > I's doing us no harm that I can see, and I'm content for him to keep on 
>at
> > it.  The only impact is on bandwidth, and that's really minor - we have
> > heaps of capacity before we start to be affected on performance,  but I
> > guess what I'm asking everyone is ... can you think of a malicious 
>reason
> > why this person might be doing this?   do you think I should be worried?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mike Kear
> > AFP Web Development,
> > Windsor, NSW, Australia
> > http://www.afp.zip.com.au
> >
> >
> > >From: "Darrell King" <darrell(at)webctr.com>
> > >To: "HWG Techniques" <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
> > >Subject: Re: User connected for long periods ... any ideas?
> > >Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 05:44:46 -0500
> > >
> > >  had allot of friends in the old (BBS) days that used to run a script 
>to
> > >stay logged into role-playing games.  The script would issue repeating
> > >commands to their characters in the games, allowing the characters to
> > >advance in the game while the person was at work all day or whatever.
> > >
> > >Seems like it would be too expensive a strategy from an international
> > >perspective, but if you have something else on your site/system that
> > >rewards
> > >constant user interaction...??
> > >
> > >D
> > >
> > >----- Original Message -----
> > >From: Mike Kear <choicemag(at)hotmail.com>
> > >
> > >It's Media House Live Stats v5.0
> > >
> > >And right now, the package says this about that particular user:
> > >
> > ><ip address>  NET: <name of his host computer>  RDNS: n/a
> > >Origin:   Sao Tome    Time:   641 min   Hits / Kb:    412 / 6298.53Kb
> > >
> > >
> > >So, for now he's been attached in a session for 641minutes, he's hit 
>the
> > >page 412 times, and downloaded 6.2MB.
> > >
> > >A "session" expires after fifteen minutes of inactivity, meaning no 
>hits
> > >have been made on the Web site for 15 minutes.
> > >
> > >So why would one computer want to keep hitting our site  hour after 
>hour
>on
> > >the same page?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > ______________________________________________________
> > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
> >
> >
> >
>

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