Bots flooding GC

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by John

We've hit a new record of bots on GC (unfortunately).

From the Online Users page:

"Most users ever online was 23274, Today at 08:10 AM."

That stat is over a 15 minute period. So 23,274 "users" from 7:55 to 8:10 AM today. Probably 99% bots.

The previous record was 15,051 back in August 2024.



Some bots are more difficult to deal with than others. Over time some are also getting better at disguising themselves, making it increasingly more difficult to manage.

The bots causing the massive slowdowns on GC leading up to last summer were originating from two specific IP addressed at a cloud web services provider. Those IPs I redirected in a way where it would not be clearly obvious that they were redirected and no longer on GC.

Since then I've redirected many other bots/IPs in a similar way.

Most seem to be originating from China, Singapore and now Brazil.

Not sure yet how I'll be managing this most recent onslaught of bots. The bulk of them seem to have gone away, but could be back at any moment.

Oh wow! How can you tell which countries they originate from?

John, where’s the coffee thread? I want to buy more coffee. You work so hard to keep this site going and I just want to thank you in the best way I possibly can.