Do you block referrals that look like this

[hanuman]

Do blocks referrals that look like this: "XXXX:++++++++++++++…"?

personally I'm not sure what that is supposed to be, maybe a way of masking where they are coming from, but I don't want to see it in my logs and I don't trust it.

what others think?

[jatar_k]

I have seen those from programs that mask the referer, I really don't worry about them unless they cause trouble.

[larryhatch]

Generally harmless it seems to me, I suspect its just people trying to protect their privacy.
One thing does bother me though. I never see the 'visitor' doing a normal browse,
i.e. one page to the next to the next like regular visitors.
I see this daily. I will look a little closer next time, which actual files/filetypes are involved. -LH

[larryhatch]

OK, I checked some access logs at random looking for the ++++++ type strings. I was wrong in one regard.
When these pseudo-referrers appear, its only in the FIRST page downloaded from my site.
The same person could view many pages, only the first record has the +++++ junk.
From what I see now, browsing patterns look like ordinary people looking around normally.
What they have done is to mask off the user agent which sent them, be it an incoming link, a search engine,
or a manually typed / bookmarked URL.

I don't see much use for it, I can't tell who's visiting whether they use this gimmick or not.
In any case, this looks very innocent. A dedicated bad-guy would want something much less obvious. -Larry

[Bisqwit]

Yes, I created a specific error handler for those "referrers"...
<snip>

[edited by: engine at 2:50 pm (utc) on June 10, 2005]
[edit reason] TOS [/edit]

[dcrombie]

I think this is a 'feature' you can turn on in Opera.

[Jonesy Jones]

I have used this feature in Opera to fool the server into thinking it is IE5. This gets past the 'we don't support you' messages. Quite handy.

[Matt Probert]

Do blocks referrals that look like this: "XXXX:++++++++++++++…"?

No.

Matt