Distributed Internet Measurements and Simulations Headquarters

[aristotle]

I've been seeing visits to one of my sites from Parklawn Computer Center DIMES HQ (Distributed Internet Measurements and Simulations Headquarters) (Rockville, MD). I've been seeing requests at least once a day for about a week. They come from slightly different IPs. Here is the Latest Visitors entry for a request earlier today:

Host: 150.148.14.37
/
Http Code: 200 Date: May 26 10:39:09 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 20526
Referer: -
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)

Does anyone know what this is about? Should I block the IPs individually?

[wilderness]

"ends with" Trident across multiple versions has been pests from numerous IP's.

[Pfui]

aristotle: That IP maps to "fda-gw-wo-03.fda.gov". Perhaps you have a fan in the FDA?

wilderness: Do you block UAs that end with Trident? A la:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla.*Trident/5\.0\)$ [NC]

[not2easy]

(even more OT) How about those with Two Trident/5.0s at the end? From MSNs Media-bot range:
65.55.212.77 - - [31/May/2015:02:59:01 -0500] "GET /private-diectory/private/nunya-bizness/captcha/captcha.js?ver=1.0 HTTP/1.1" 403 - "http://example.com/some-unvisited-page/" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0; Trident/5.0)"

_{(bold = edited but descriptive)}

[aristotle]

Well i don't understand how these requests can come from a .gov website, if that's what's happening. It looks like they're coming from Parklawn Computer Center DIMES HQ (Distributed Internet Measurements and Simulations Headquarters) (Rockville, MD) .

[lucy24]

i don't understand how these requests can come from a .gov website

Why not? Any large institution-- government, school, corporation-- will have a block of IP addresses. Some of those will be used for incoming traffic (the site's visible website), others for outgoing (browsing from computers that belong to the institution).

All the (human) contact names associated with the IP are "FDA suchandsuch". Look up the name "Parklawn Computer Center" and you will learn more.

:: wandering off to find out why in the world the Hathi Trust has anything whatsoever to say about them ::

[keyplyr]

I wouldn't block UAs that end with trident any version. You'll be blocking bots that might benefit your site.

This knee-jerk reaction to block everything that looks new is an obtuse tactic nowadays. It may have worked to a limited degree a few years ago but not with all the apps and platforms of late. It's really necessary to research each and every one to determine whether it can (or will be in the future) a positive actor that brings benefit to your site.

[trintragula]

It's really necessary to research each and every one to determine whether it can (or will be in the future) a positive actor that brings benefit to your site.

Or not. My pet monster is not known for doing background checks, and showing it your ID will not materially affect whether or not it decides to eat you... It is however a very shrewd judge, and if it smells oil on your robot, it will later be picking metal shards from between its teeth.

[keyplyr]

Or not. My pet monster is not known for doing background checks, and showing it your ID will not materially affect whether or not it decides to eat you... It is however a very shrewd judge, and if it smells oil on your robot, it will later be picking metal shards from between its teeth.

It's best to post only when sober :)

[trintragula]

You clearly haven't met my pet monster. ;) Seriously though, there are other approaches than classifying your visitors by where they're from. You often make it sound like there's no alternative.

[keyplyr]

there are other approaches than classifying your visitors by where they're from. You often make it sound like there's no alternative.

Quite the opposite. I use many factors to "classify" visitors, only one being IP range. You seem to have a misunderstanding about this. No problem, YMMV.