Suspicious ip from msnbot/1.0

msnbot/1.0 hotmail.com

[gordongecko]

We've had a few pokes from a ua claiming to be msnbot coming from hotmail's ip range 64.4.0.0 - 64.4.63.255.

I am unsure whether this is legit msnbot traffic and suspect that it might be someone spoofing msnbot's ua and trying to sneak by using hotmail's ip.

99.9% of all visits from msnbot come from these recognized ranges.

207.46.0.0 - 207.46.255.255
207.68.128.0 - 207.68.207.255
65.52.0.0 - 65.55.255.255

Has anyone experienced similar or suggest a reason why msnbot might be spidering a site via hotmail's ip?

GG

[larryhatch]

The first thing that pops into my head is an email spammer, I could easily be wrong.
Look back at your logs and see what files they called up.
Were these regular GET calls, or POST and other critters?
Did they download the usual files the bots would spider, or other stuff? -Larry

[gordongecko]

Hi Larry,
They've only been twice in last week taking just 2 pages. Regular GET calls, robots.txt first and then only the index page.

The UA is not malformed "msnbot/1.0 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)
" but no HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE.

It's not acting like a spammer, but I suppose it could be a prelude to a full site rip. I wonder ... is the MSNguy still around?

GG

[Receptional]

I haven't seen a post from MSNDude for a while :(