Is There an Official Sohu-Google link?

If not, I smell a rat ...

[Angonasec]

This sequence caught the eye in my visitors log:

61.135.131.173 - - [27/Aug/2004:03:30:03 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 301 355
"-" "sohu-search"
61.135.131.173 - - [27/Aug/2004:03:30:04 -0400] "GET /index.htm
HTTP/1.1" 200 26360 "-" "sohu-search"

61.135.131.173 - - [27/Aug/2004:16:31:21 -0400] "GET /~!^~!^~!.html
HTTP/1.1" 404 32743 "-" "google"

Notice the visiting IP calls itself "sohu-search", then, returns 13
hours later, calling itself "google", deliberately looking for a
non-existent file. GET /~!^~!^~!.html

What's going on here? Looks fishy to me.
Ithinkweshouldbetold.

Ta!

[Angonasec]

After I got no response from WebmasterWorld to this recent post, I emailed Google, and here's their official reply:

<paraphrase - Woz>

It ain't our robot. Someone was spoofing us. Bad spoofer!

</paraphrase - Woz>

Proving that there is no legitimate Sohu-Google link, and the bot first identifying itself as:

61.#*$!.xxx.xxx - - [27/Aug/2004:03:30:04 -0400] "GET /index.htm
HTTP/1.1" 200 26360 "-" "sohu-search"

Is acting unethically in subsequently calling itself "google" :

61.xxx.xxx.xxx - - [27/Aug/2004:16:31:21 -0400] "GET /~!^~!^~!.html
HTTP/1.1" 404 32743 "-" "google"

Can somebody tell me why "sohu-search" would deliberately call for a non-existant file?

They appear to be a very greasy set: best firmly blocked.

Ta!

[edited by: Woz at 4:03 am (utc) on Sep. 12, 2004]
[edit reason] no emails please, see TOS#9 [/edit]

[Sanenet]

As I remember, somebody was discussing a bot that asks for pages like "/~!^~!^~!.html" a couple of weeks ago; the best answer we came up with was that it was a foreign characterset bot mistranslating something into western unicode (i.e. a chinese bot). Or that there's a security hole somewhere we don't know about (and you'd think somebody on this board would know about it!)

That would make sense in this case as sohu.com seem to be a chinese portal. No doubt the asian and pacific rim community can tell you more about them, and why they think it's ok to imitate google.