ArcNet - over 1000 requests?

[billdaly]

The log for one of my sites (which doesn't get many visitors normally) shows over a thousand requests for files over a six hour period from an address that seems to be owned by www.arc.net.my. They're a Malaysian ISP - their site now seems to be at www.nttmsc.com.my.

The visitor (presumably a robot of some sort) spent around five minutes downloading every file on the site, then came back again and again and did the same. There doesn't seem to be a referrer for even the first visit. The total bandwidth was around ten meg.

Extract from log (start of first visit):

203.115.202.70 - 203.115.202.70.28054103974329752 [13/Dec/2002:01:34:57 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 5976 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible ; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"
203.115.202.70 - 203.115.202.70.28054103974329752 [13/Dec/2002:01:35:31 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 5976 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible ; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"
203.115.202.70 - 203.115.202.70.28054103974329752 [13/Dec/2002:01:35:34 +0000] "GET /favicon2.ico HTTP/1.1" 200 318 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible ; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"
203.115.202.70 - 203.115.202.70.28054103974329752 [13/Dec/2002:01:35:34 +0000] "GET /links.html HTTP/1.1" 200 3291 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible ; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"
203.115.202.70 - 203.115.202.70.28054103974329752 [13/Dec/2002:01:35:34 +0000] "GET /collateral.html HTTP/1.1" 200 5149 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible ; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"
203.115.202.70 - 203.115.202.70.28054103974329752 [13/Dec/2002:01:35:34 +0000] "GET /quizone.html HTTP/1.1" 200 8960 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible ; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"

Does anybody have an explanation, please?

[wilderness]

Were you expecting to gather clients in Malaysia or any other portion of the far east?
Does your website provide a non-profit service which is beneficial to some folks in Malaysia or any portion of the far east?
If not?

Why allow them to absorb bandwidth you pay for to gather a few email addresses to send you Spam?

deny from 202.
deny from 203.
portions of 210.
and portions of 61.

Unless of course your just inclined to provide them with you check book ;-) TIC

[billdaly]

No, I don't expect the site to have any particular interest for anyone in Malaysia, or to get any business from there.

I'm still puzzled, though, as to why the robot should have gone through the whole site so many times. And it downloaded all the image files (there are quite a few largish jpgs).

[wilderness]

I'm notorious for assumptions :-)

Let assume the bot in Malaysia doesn't speak or understand english, which your site is likely in?
The bot coughs, the operator steps in who also understands very little english, he coughs and the process of the bot spidering, ALL the linked content of your site continues.
Albeit for an occasional cough and restart they seem to be stuck in a coughing loop ;-)
As much of the far east does when they set their goal on harvesting sites.

403's are really the easiest language communicator.
UNLESS you feel the compelling need to use those redirecting 403's because you have the need for the last laugh, in either event with redirect 403's your just asking for continuous problems.

BTW, I don't mean to present myself as the know-all end here.

Webmaster World
does have a forum on Asian and Pacific Search engines
[webmasterworld.com...]

[kevinpate]

Unless you perceive a solid benefit in reaching Far East markets, a 'deny from' 202, 203 and a few other numbers added to htaccess can trim off unproductive bandwidth gobbling.

I'm a volunteer newbie webmangler for a NFP youth organization. Geographical area, and thus our membership drawing base, involves 1/3 of my home state.

I have no problems with folks from other parts of our state, or our country, or even adjoining nations, taking a walk through the site. After all, the state is trying to recruit new residents and well, we can always use more folks in our organization as well, so I certainly don't want the site to read 403 to everyone outside our existing geographic limits.

However, it's extremely unlikely someone in the Far East has an interest in joining the national organization via our local council. For that one in multi-millions person, the national org. site has a council finder. It will pop out mail, phone, email and fax info in addition to our (for them) non-reachable local web site.

I can always make arrangments to temporarily open access when and if the need does arise. In the meantime, closing certain IP access provided a noticeable monthly bandwidth reduction.

Well, it actually allowed a productive reallocation of that bandwidth. The reduction allowed more information to become available for download with no additional expense to the NFP. This helps serve the existing members, so it cost nothing, but it added value. That's a nice combination of circumstances.

It could be a horrid solution for someone wanting to
become the Sam Walton or Ron Peal of widgets in Singapore, but for us it was a thrifty way to be loyal to our current customer base.

Kevin outta Norman, America
who knows just enough to border on dangerous, but is
having a great time learning while I hike the electronic
trail.

[wilderness]

BTW to both Bill and Kevin,

Welcome to Webmaster World

I've put a online reigon sale for two clients the past three years. The online data results in about 100 PDF's for each client.
On NEARlY all my sectional pages I've gone to great lengths to include the full name NA.
Can you imagine how upset I was to see somebody from Hungary this year attempting to download every PDF for one of the sales? Resolved that fast.

Websites can be designed and tailored both locally and regionally. I presonally see nothing worng with that.
At least until I start selling franchises ;-)

[billdaly]

Thanks, everybody, for your comments on this. All my sites are pretty much UK-specific, so I've now blocked ArcNet from all of them (except my personal one, where I don't have the facilities). Thanks again.