Google proxy junk

[dstiles]

I have just blocked what I think is a google proxy IP range 64.233.160.0 - 64.233.191.255. None of the IPs has rDNS as far as I can discover by IP sampling.

All I seem to be getting from this range is low-level scrape and what looks like invasion attempts - or at least some rubbish bot hits. There are a significant number of hits in the three categories below:

-----
IP: 64.233.173.n

UA: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7

Referer: [google.com...]

-----
IP: 64.233.172.nn

UA: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-US; rv:1.8.1.20) Gecko/20081217 Firefox/2.0.0.20

Referer: none

-----
IP: 64.233.173.n

UA: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7

Referer: __JC_UNKNOWN_VAR_cloak.regionals-2009-08-06-00-00.vars.referer__

-----

None of the browser UAs is current. In fact they all seem to be the same as the two UAs above which are way out of date and very vulnerable, so I would guess at bots not browsers.

None of the "google referers" seem valid - they just emulate the fake msn referers with the hl parameter added. If this is google's attempt at fake referers it can go away as fast as possible.

The "cloak" referer is something I can't track down exactly but seems to be in several logs listed on google. It looks as if it may be PHP or Perl code of some kind that's escaped from a very poor script (one reference suggests libwww-perl).

As far as I can tell no IP within the range has every brought real traffic, although I'll keep an eye on it for a while just in case.

If anyone can convince me these accesses are genuine I would very much like to see the argument. It's probably far too much to expect the google rep to comment on this if he's even still around.

[wilderness]

dstiles,
I've had it denied for an eternity.

At one time it was the home of the google speed accelerator and/or translator.

Given their record of IP's and tool applications, google could using it randomly and for anything.

[dstiles]

Translator - I'm reasonably ok with that. As far as I know I have the translator IP range allowed providing the UA includes identification - it's too much to expect google to identify its rDNS. :)

I'm aware proxies come in on that band as well, hence approving the UA.

In the end it comes down to an amateur approach. Professionals surely wouldn't screw up like this, mixing everything into the same pot. It shouldn't take more than one man-day a month to administer and maintain if it's set up properly to begin with.