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12-08-2023, 06:31 AM | #1 |
Wight
Join Date: Jun 2023
Location: Treading the Narrow Way
Posts: 198
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I Do Believe We've Been Invaded
It seems there is an attack of bots.
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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 |
12-08-2023, 08:42 AM | #2 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,368
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Ah, I remember these feoul creatures. They would come in my youth, and raid our forum where the defenses were weak...
ETA: holy cow, they made over a page of spam threads on N&N and Mirth? That's prolific. That's bot talent...
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera Last edited by Galadriel55; 12-08-2023 at 08:45 AM. |
12-08-2023, 03:56 PM | #3 |
Wight
Join Date: Jun 2023
Location: Treading the Narrow Way
Posts: 198
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It seems they've returned in force, and with newfound vigour.
😂
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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 |
12-08-2023, 04:16 PM | #4 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,368
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Thankfully it looks like the mighty Mithadan and fellow admins prevailed, and the forum has been scoured of this spam-filth. All hail the great defenders of the Downs!
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
12-09-2023, 06:08 AM | #5 |
Wight
Join Date: Jun 2023
Location: Treading the Narrow Way
Posts: 198
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Indeed. The devious foes have been vanquished by the valour of our guardians!
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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 |
12-09-2023, 09:21 AM | #6 |
Spirit of Mist
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
Posts: 3,365
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Much credit belongs to Estelyn and others, who did most of the pruning. Thanks to all.
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Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land. |
12-09-2023, 10:04 AM | #7 |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,996
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I would rep you for your speedy and heroic efforts, Mithadan, but I am told that I have to spread the rep around to others before I can do so.
I was able to rep Estelyn and mormegil.
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Ill sing his roots off. Ill sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Last edited by Bźthberry; 12-09-2023 at 10:08 AM. |
12-16-2023, 04:58 PM | #8 |
Emperor of the South Pole
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: The Western Shore of Lake Evendim
Posts: 622
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It's nice to be a part of a legacy Middle Earth forum that hasn't been abandoned to the AI spambots Well done killing them off.
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03-07-2024, 03:12 AM | #9 |
Newly Deceased
Join Date: Mar 2024
Posts: 1
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I value that you wrote this great post for us. I promise that this will be good for most people mapquest driving directions
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03-07-2024, 05:09 AM | #10 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
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Quote:
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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03-07-2024, 06:35 AM | #11 |
Wight
Join Date: Jun 2023
Location: Treading the Narrow Way
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Quite so.
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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 |
03-07-2024, 11:52 AM | #12 |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
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That lefthand turn direction into the Dead Marshes was regrettable.
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
05-15-2024, 02:58 AM | #13 |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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The parade of Socratic bots continues; WCH has attracted two in a row to say "Oh yes, [Insert User Here], you are so wise." My assumption is that they're powered by current-generation 'AI' chatbots.
I've mostly been ignoring the ones that don't drop links, but is it worth reporting them on sight? They seem to mostly make one or two posts, but it's occurred to me they might be waiting to reach a critical mass and then spam the forum massively. (The other option is that they try to spam right away, but the one-post-per-minute block catches them.) hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
05-20-2024, 01:18 PM | #14 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
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Quote:
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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05-20-2024, 08:58 PM | #15 |
Spirit of Mist
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
Posts: 3,365
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We are aware of them. Those posts that have links embedded get deleted. I find the mindless (no pun intended) posts wearisome but harmless. It is the sheer number of scrapers that bothers me. I used to be amused at the number of guests but now recognize that they affect the websites resources (familiar word)?
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Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land. |
05-22-2024, 08:17 AM | #16 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
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Ahhh, so that's the reason.
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
07-10-2024, 02:54 PM | #17 |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Aug 2023
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 43
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There are currently 3959 visitors on the forum: me and 3958 guests. Those must be bots. I believe there's a way to ban these IPs. It makes it incredibly difficult to use the forum because every other time I click a link I get "Resource Limit Reached".
Edit: In fact, I got a "Resource Limit Reached" message while I was trying to post this! |
07-10-2024, 03:45 PM | #18 |
Spirit of Mist
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
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They are bots or AI scrapers. The culprit appears to be the Movies forum for some reason. 80% or more of the "visitors" are congregating there. As I understand it, the 508 error, also known as "Resource Limit Reached", results from excessive traffic. The obvious solution would be to take down the Movies forum, but this would be an undesirable option, and there is no guarantee that it would cure the problem.
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Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land. |
07-11-2024, 01:41 PM | #19 | |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Aug 2023
Location: New Jersey
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Quote:
There's something very strange going on there that's attracting the bots like moths to a flame. The admins really need to do something about this, it's making the board harder and harder to use. |
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07-11-2024, 03:52 PM | #20 | |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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Quote:
I'm worried now that I've gone and linked that thread specifically somewhere that's drawing the locusts... I'll try and take a look round, because that's annoying if so. hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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07-11-2024, 09:14 PM | #21 |
Spirit of Mist
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
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I did not notice that. Huinesoron, check on your end, and I will make some inquiries as well.
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Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land. |
07-11-2024, 10:35 PM | #22 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
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I did share a link to that thread specifically with a few people, but I haven't posted it anywhere. I'll ask if any of them put it up somewhere else. Indeed, if all those views were real traffic, that would be quite the audience. Is there anything else about the thread that might attract them? Would the sheer number of hyperlinks somehow serve as a magnet?
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
07-17-2024, 10:03 AM | #23 | ||
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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Quote:
Quote:
I also don't understand why they would. They've sent 4000 bots to our thread today because, say, it links to lots of YouTube videos, and then.. what? What's the profit? What's the point? They're not even posting! If the Downs tracks visiting IP addresses it might be possible to check them against lists of known scrapers. And if there's a tool to look at what exactly is getting the views (eg, are they coming in through the front page or straight to a post?) we could try fixing that specific thing. All I know how to see is the viewers per forum, not per thread. hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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07-18-2024, 05:09 AM | #24 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
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Quote:
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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08-06-2024, 01:44 PM | #25 |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Aug 2023
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 43
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I can't help but wonder why it seems like nobody is doing anything about the bots? I was hoping that bringing it up and pointing out the target of the bot activity would help spur some kind of change. Are there any admins or mods who can be contacted or who can comment on the situation? I don't know about anyone else, but the bot activity is seriously hampering my ability to use the forum.
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08-06-2024, 02:57 PM | #26 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
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Quote:
In the meantime, though I get the 508 errors very frequently too, they don't really limit me all that much beyond being a mild annoyance. Just refresh the page once or twice, and you get through. It's annoying when it happens as you're submitting a post, cause then the site thinks you are trying to post twice and puts you in the "timeout zone" for posting in rapid succession, and I am always scared I will lose my post when this happens - but I've never lost it, and you literally click on any other page to get out of the timeout counter.
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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08-06-2024, 06:53 PM | #27 |
Emperor of the South Pole
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: The Western Shore of Lake Evendim
Posts: 622
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The bots are getting wily since all they have to talk to on Arwen Undomiel is each other. They have gone looking for more old tech boards to invade.
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08-07-2024, 01:03 PM | #28 |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Aug 2023
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 43
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08-09-2024, 08:10 AM | #29 |
Spirit of Mist
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
Posts: 3,365
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If you have recently entered the forums, you have all noticed the frequent 508 error messages (insufficient resources) preventing access to the Downs, I have attempted a fix.
A 508 message, based upon my feeble, tech-deficient research, is the result of a site's servers being overwhelmed by too many users viewing or interacting with the site. Others have commented upon the large number of visitors shown as being on the site, often more than 2500 (the counter shows that the most people on the site at one time was 6300 this past May). Recently, Huinesoron noticed that one forum, The Movies, was consistently attracting more than 90% of the visitors. He also noticed that one thread, Full-Length LoTR Parody Movies, was showing an absurd amount of "hits," presently more than 22 million (not a typo) with the number increasing by hundreds of thousands every week. It appears that something in this thread has been attracting bots/AI scrapers. This is based upon observation, not technical confirmation. I know of no way to determine whether any particular post in the thread is attracting the attention. The primary posters on this thread over the last several months have been Huinesoron and Galadriel55 who have been using it to develop their Finrod Rock Opera (a worthy endeavor if you have not noticed it). After discussing this with them, I have moved this thread into a private forum. It is no longer visible in The Movies. They will continue to privately work on the Finrod Opera in the private forum. I am sure that if any of you want to see it or follow their progress, they will accommodate you. Before I moved the thread, The Movies forum showed roughly 2000 visitors. After I moved it, it showed 135 visitors. I suspect that the "visitors" that we viewing/mining the thread when it was moved will remain there, clogging our server until they leave the page they are viewing. After that, they will not be able to reach the thread, hopefully curing the 508 problem. Or maybe this ham-handed effort will not be a fix. We'll see. __________________
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Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land. |
08-09-2024, 08:35 AM | #30 |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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Thank you, Mithadan. Hopefully now we're in hiding things will settle down. If anyone still wants to see what's going on with Finrod-Zong, you can access the Google Doc of the current state of it through my signature or G55's. If the bots want to try and DDOS Google, they're welcome to!
(Credit where it's due, it was you and Elvellon who put together where the bots were swarming; I just theorised on why.) At this time there are 2796 "guests" on the Downs, with only about 600 of them viewing specific forums. The rest are hopefully either still viewing the Zong thread until they refresh, have been bounced to the main page, or are hitting the "no such thread" page; in any of those cases I hope we'll soon see a drop-off in numbers. EDIT: For reference/tracking, 15 minutes of "Viewing" and "User" counts. Times are in GMT+1, date is 2024-08-09; this is about half an hour after the Zong thread was moved. hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera Last edited by Huinesoron; 08-09-2024 at 09:06 AM. |
08-09-2024, 11:04 AM | #31 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,368
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Status report
I have absolutely no clue where you guys can see the visitors to specific fora. I can only find the guests listed on the main page - still around 2.8K, similar to Hui's observation a couple hours back. I still ran into the 508 twice while jumping back and forth between the forums. And views to the Zong are still at 22M - up from 17.9M a month ago as observed by Elvellon. Let's see how these numbers change over the coming days and keep our fingers crossed. Thank you Mithadan!
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
08-09-2024, 01:32 PM | #32 | |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
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Quote:
Currently we're at 6294 Guests, but only slight increases in each forum. So the bot servers have come online, but they're on the main or error pages for sure. Hopefully once they realise they're not reaching the correct page they'll back off. hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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08-09-2024, 02:04 PM | #33 |
Spirit of Mist
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
Posts: 3,365
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Interesting that just after the thread was made private, visitors shot up from about 2200 to a new record high of 6589....
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Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land. |
08-10-2024, 01:14 AM | #34 |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
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8:10 am at GMT+1, we have 5721 guests. Breakdown across forums, top to bottom:
318/109/194 181/33/208 62/5 15 2/6/3/67 153/5 I don't know if it's useful, but I'm trying to log the numbers at various times of day to see how they rise and fall. EDIT: 9:05am GMT+1, also on 10 Aug: 5464 guests. 40/21/101 41/13/37 32/0 7 4/6/2/60 17/11 EDIT2: 10:46pm GMT+1, 10 Aug: 5292 guests 65/32/71 22/11/37 45/3 7 2/1/2/62 42/7 EDIT3: 11:53pm GMT+1, 10 Aug: 4927 guests 55/22/87 25/11/41 55/1 9 4/5/2/59 19/4 EDIT4: 9:22am GMT+1, 11 Aug 3191 guests 83/11/114 43/6/67 160/4 4 0/0/0/44 13/5 EDITAGAIN: Dropping the full logging until something interesting happens with it, but: 11 Aug, 9:43pm GMT+1: 3217 guests 10 Aug, 00:30am GMT+1: 7328 guests. 11 Aug, 11:07pm GMT+1: 3328 guests 12 Aug 6:49am GMT+1: 3313 guests 12 Aug 9:26am GMT+1: 3023 guests 12 Aug 11:49am GMT+1: 3140 guests 12 Aug 5:48pm GMT+1: 3165 guests 12 Aug 9:46pm GMT+1: 3135 guests 12 Aug 10:35pm GMT+1: 2847 guests 13 Aug 9:27 am GMT+1: 3072 guests 13 Aug 1:11pm GMT+1: 3140 guests (starting to see a theme here...) 13 Aug 9:49pm GMT+1: 3092 guests 13 Aug 10:55pm GMT+1: 3226 guests 14 Aug 12:34pm GMT+1: 2987 guests hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera Last edited by Huinesoron; 08-14-2024 at 05:34 AM. Reason: More logging. |
08-13-2024, 10:52 PM | #35 |
Emperor of the South Pole
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: The Western Shore of Lake Evendim
Posts: 622
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I find it amusing that a couple of the AI Bots posted to the discussion thread for my old fanfic story.
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08-14-2024, 07:51 AM | #36 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,368
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I started paying more attention to the numbers too, and it's visobly noticeable that the amount of 508s correlates. I hardly get them at 2000, but get them at every turn at 4-5K. And each time I observe, relatively few are sitting in specific fora - less than a thousand total. Most are just hanging out. The sad thing is that they really don't appear to be falling off. The numbers fluctuate, but aren't really decreasing. Would a captcha "capture" these rogues, do you think?
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
08-14-2024, 08:10 AM | #37 |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Aug 2023
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 43
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Not sure if this is helpful, but dropping this here:
https://forum.vbulletin.com/forum/vb...09#post4482109 |
08-14-2024, 08:29 AM | #38 | ||
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
Posts: 3,881
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Quote:
Quote:
hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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08-16-2024, 02:48 AM | #39 |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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I don't want to jinx it, but the numbers I wrote a few posts above were all 3000+; since I stopped recording them, I've only seen one 3000+ guest count, with everything else being in the 2000s. (I think I saw a 2400 at one point!) Maaaaybe the bots are slowly winding down?
16 Aug, 09:48 GMT+1: 2874 guests. 16 Aug, 11:43 GMT+1: 2750 guests 16 Aug, 12:54 GMT+1: 2855 guests 16 Aug, 14:14 GMT+1: 2806 guests 16 Aug, 22:36 GMT+1: 2803 guests 17 Aug 14:32 GMT+1: 2755 guests 17 Aug 21:34 GMT+1: 2747 guests 17 Aug 22:47 GMT+1: 2675 guests 19 Aug 10:25 GMT+1: 2817 guests 19 Aug 13:48 GMT+1: 2949 guests 20 Aug 13:48 GMT+1: 2604 guests. Earlier today I noticed another 26xx and a 27xx. 20 Aug 14:36 GMT+1: 2651 guests hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera Last edited by Huinesoron; 08-20-2024 at 07:37 AM. Reason: Data logging |
08-23-2024, 05:55 AM | #40 |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
Posts: 3,881
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I've kept tracking guest counts occasionally, and over the past 5 days it kind of looks like there's a pattern:
The bottom of the "trough" on the 22nd is at 1pm GMT+1, which means if this pattern is real and not just a data artefact, the bots are cycling from ~2600 at GMT noon to ~3000 at GMT midnight and back. I'm not sure that qualifies as useful information, unfortunately. EDIT: I've also just had my daily "this website has no security certificate and is going to eat your computer" warning at 1pm GMT+1. I'm not sure if that's my computer waiting a day between sending the message, or if the Downs does something at GMT noon that could be linked to both issues. hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera Last edited by Huinesoron; 08-23-2024 at 06:17 AM. |
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