Strange Referrer IP#

[Ann]

I use Sitemeter to see who my visitors are and one very odd referrer I kept getting to my site was from NIPR.mil. Whoever this was, would stay HOURS at a time at my site, days and weeks on end, so I finally blocked them out. I mean, what good could someone like that be up to, right? Repeat visitors is good, but this one freaked me out...it was like a stalker referrer or something. Also, he (she?) was using Netscape 3.01, so there's no way they could've even been viewing my site the way it was intended.

So my question, if anyone knows, is, was this an actual HUMAN (who just liked to hang on to my site for some weird reason), or could it have been a 'bot or something? And if it was a 'bot, was it best to block it out (like if it was spidering my images) or was that a bad thing to do?

[admin]

Try this Google Groups Search (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=p60qdt8nb3ofcptcva8r7dq9htsgjsas8c%404ax.c om&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3DNIPR.mil%26hl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_en%26i e%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3Dp60qdt8nb3ofcptcva8r7dq9htsgjsas8c%2540 4ax.com%26rnum%3D2)

[Ann]

Not really sure what that all means.

If it is someone from the military on that site of mine, then what a waste of taxpayer's money, because all they'll find there is only of web graphic-related interest!

[admin]

What I got out of it was that it could be a proxy for any number of military related users.

[Ann]

I'm not familiar with military-related stuff, but not sure why someone, anyone, from the military would be interested in my site. That's not to say that someone wouldn't, but it would be as an individual's hobby and therefore shouldn't they NOT be using their employer's internet access for that? If you are based somewhere, do you have internet access via the Military's servers out of your own home? So could it be someone's wife or something?

Would there a way (via .htaccess) to send this person to a special page of mine?

[admin]

There is a way....I am sure, but very custom .htaccess files I am not very good at.

[Afkamm]

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?nipr.mil$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://ann-s-thesia.com/shouldn't_you_be_working.html [L,R]

A point to wonder on.... for you to get a referer url from a military website, that website would have to be linking to your website in the first place. Maybe they're watching you :p

To answer your other question, people surf from their work compuers all the time, if you frequent forums you'll find that a lot of people post from work :)

Marc :-)

[Ann]

Originally posted by Afkamm
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?nipr.mil$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://ann-s-thesia.com/shouldn't_you_be_working.html [L,R]
Thank you!
A point to wonder on.... for you to get a referer url from a military website, that website would have to be linking to your website in the first place.
What you mean by linking is having a link on some military site to mine...or do you just mean visiting?
Maybe they're watching you :p
There's nothing that would be of interest to the military there at all...nothing controversial. That's what's puzzling.
To answer your other question, people surf from their work compuers all the time, if you frequent forums you'll find that a lot of people post from work :)
Yeah, but spending 8 hours a day or more at my site is not exactly a lunchbreak surf. ;)

[Afkamm]

What you mean by linking is having a link on some military site to mine...or do you just mean visiting?

Yeah, that military site must have a link back your yours, possibly, what was the full referer link you got, you still remember it all? :)

Yeah, but spending 8 hours a day or more at my site is not exactly a lunchbreak surf.

8 hours? really lol Maybe it was some guy/gal looking for pretty pictures to put on weapons :p

Marc :-)

[Ann]

Originally posted by Afkamm
[B]Yeah, that military site must have a link back your yours, possibly, what was the full referer link you got, you still remember it all? :)
The weird part is that there was no referrer. I use sitemeter to check, and the referrer part was just blank. They were also using Netscape 3.01, I think.
8 hours? really lol Maybe it was some guy/gal looking for pretty pictures to put on weapons :p
Part of their kinder gentler image?:p

[Afkamm]

Ah right, no referer, so there is no link then on some military website then :)

What you're talking about is a host address, something like dsl-80-46-233-222.access.us.nipr.mil?


Marc :-)

[Ann]

Originally posted by Afkamm
Ah right, no referer, so there is no link then on some military website then :)

What you're talking about is a host address, something like dsl-80-46-233-222.access.us.nipr.mil?


Marc :-)
It was just nipr.mil and the number was 198.20.196 or something (that's not the exact number...just an approximation). That's all the info I had on them, other than they'd stay something like 324 minutes at a time, every day, week on end.

I blocked them out the other week, but then removed the blocking and they haven't been back lately, so we'll see.

[rlane]

I think it's their router coming out of mil onto the public internet, could be several visitors, they may all look alike.