AI Blog Bots Are Still Looking At This Blog .. But For What Rhyme or Reason?

Would non-human readers please go away! (see below, there is such a strange spike in things reading my blog, that I don't believe are human - but at best can described as automated screen scrapers): 

 

They would not be doing it if there was not money in it for them at the end of the road! 

What do they think they are learning?

I think that there is a real danger that they are learning pt collating is tantamount to pure "JUNK" - unreviewed postings across the wide blog-sphere, where people could be "legitimately" (as why not) saying anything they want to. If enough people say Pi is a rational number - it does not make it a rational number. 

Interesting Statistic - Increased Hits? Are these just "Bot Reads" from AI Crawlers?

Hello .. this is interesting .. I have not posted in a while, but the last two of my post were "read" in the mid-hundreds? When I was posting regularly I got less than that (under a hundred reads within the few days of posting) - I thought I had maybe 50 readers from my couple of hundred subscribers. So I am thinking these reads are probably AI Bot Crawlers surfing the Internet and Blog-Sphere, scooping up everything and everything for Gen AI Chatbot Models!

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks for the comments (see in comments tab) I am in agreement with everybody here. The Bots are doing it. Interestingly this post only generated a quarter of the hits the one either side did. Perhaps it was because of the lack of images or are the AI Bots "dissing me"?  

And what is the discussion at work this morning: AI Bot Driven Web Crawler activity! It sucks! Two webinars already on the subject. I think you will see some industry kickback soon, as it is useless web traffic. They are generating is obscene amounts of hits - and remember you have to burn power for those those back-end servers. So much for watching your C02 footprint "Big Tech"! "Permission based only" crawlers [maybe even charging the Bots] is probably coming next, along with fines for non-compliance! Money talks! 

Question to Fellow Bloggers: What to do About Bot Accounts sending Spam to the Comments Section of Posts?

This is bugging me. 

I moderate all comments so I see them coming in. An obvious Spam comments totally unrelated to the Post bit sneaking in a link to an "online gambling site". I click on the ID to see who the person is and it is obviously a Bot account. I click "Report Abuse" and say it is a Spam/Bot giving details. This all takes time. I get a "Thank You" (NoReply) email back from Google. No action seems to be taken though. They still dribble in and I am pretty sure I am seeing teh same accounts being used.

Anyone else suffering from the same scenario?

As I have "Moderation On" in my settings they don't make it through to the public page.

Slowly but surely it will fill blogs with Spam links. 

Is there a better way of reporting it to Google?  

Wishing you all a (belated) Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

My Blogging "New Year's Resolution" seems to be reporting Spammers trying to leave betting website links in the comments sections of one my historical posts to Google.

Frustrating that!

None of them (yet) have got through to be  shown on the Blog as I have set approval before publication wrt comments.

What the ... Heck ... is going on here?

Looking at the Blog stats I see this strange spike (see below, 1415 hits from a culinary we-site):

What is behind this freaky statistic? I think there is some sort of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Google Fake News fudge to appear to be legitimate so something can be promoted.

Any thoughts anyone?

Blogger Owners Beware : DO NOT click on VampireStat links

For the low down: 

http://spamspoiler.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/adsense-watchdog-zombiestat-vampirestat.html

So when you look at your traffic/visitors statistics in Google beware some peopel who come to your site come not for the content but for you to "honeypot" to them

No wargame content will be found at VampireStat or its ilk

Note to Self: Blogger Posting Settings

I recently experimented with "Blog Comments" settings.

I made two changes:

• The first was allowing "anon" users to post
• The second was to drop word verification off the postings

The former was a disaster as "Spam Gate" ensued, thankfully they came to my email account first for approval still so I could spot them and mark them as 'spam'. The second does not seem to have caused any issues yet. Comments from fellow bloggers experienced appreciated as it is nice to try and improve the user experience.

It just seems so much of a pity that there is so much mindless spam on the Internet :(

Hmm: Amber Warning - Watchout Watchout There's a Russian Malware Site About

Alert status Amber: 

Well, Bloggers Blog ... and Bloggers cannot help but being interested in their community and who reads their blogs, but beware. The URL's of the referring sites (Definition: A site that lists your blog and recommends by implication other people click on your link to see your content - hence the term 'referral') is given in the Blogger: "Traffic Sources" statistics section. They show up in your site statistics as in not who is visiting you but what "common" web-sites also likes you.

I have a "new" certain Eastern European referrer called:  

"http://www4(dot)savegco-antivir(dot)com"

(Note:The (dot) in the above is so that your browse does not inadvertently "take you there" (officer) - repeat do not go there)

It's a naughty site that tries to tempt you by pretending to be a "You-Tube" style of video site with alluring ladies showing more than the typical You-Tube yard of flesh and then immediately asks you (while you are distracted) to upload a "new" version of Adobe Flash [hit the browser close "x" button top right hand corner gents!] - if you don't a piece of "malware" is heading for you

:(

Then give yourself an anti-virus sweep just to be sure

A better description of what is happening can be found at: 
http://stramaxon.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/beware-of-ww4dotsavegcoantivirdotcom.html

And the $64,000 question: Are users of these sites really interested in my wargaming site? Answer "no": It is a 'black' server reading of a list of URL's trying to generate back traffic to steal identity information. In effect this is a modified version of a "phish" attack - as in "click me" you'll be rich. Why doesn't Google block it, well from the techie side of things the traffic profile is the same as legitimate referrals, it is only over time can Google detect odd things in traffic patterns - which is a little "after the horse has bolted".

Hope this may serve to be of help to someone

Anyone also else getting visits from unseen Chinese "Friends(?)"

A curious tale to tell, especially since I was just listening to a Radio 4 program yesterday describing the activities of Chinese Internet hackers (state-sponsored or not), particularly as I was looking at the different countries making access to this blog.

English speaking ones I can understand (even as second or third language), but I ask you who in China would want to read this blog?

The timing also ties in with the "comments" I rejected as obvious spam in the past few days or so. In my log I see various entries from China, one of which I show below:

Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Chinanet-zj Hangzhou Node Network (61.164.40.14)
www.qq829.com/web_stat.asp?dn=exiledfog.blogspot.com
(Don't go there folks just search on "qq820" in Google) 

Perhaps if I paint my 1/72 IMEX Chinese Liberation army kits I'll get a few more! Security wise anything has to be done on the Server as they host the pages.

Your thoughts and comments appreciated.