Spiders and Bots and Crawlers

Oh my!

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Spiders and Bots and Crawlers

Post by bookworm »

We’ve all seen them poking around the forum. Bots and other web crawlers, scurrying around following links to probe the internet. The Who Is Online table provides a glimpse into their activity, usually showing them scanning forums and threads. But sometimes it catches them doing things that are unusual and humorous.
For a while now I’ve been meaning to make a thread dedicated to the amusing antics of these strange creatures, and when Woody shared some of his sightings with me I finally decided to do it because they definitely take the cake so far. I’ll let him post those in a moment, but first I’ll represent my own highlight sightings from the past.



There’s this little gem, which displays a double enigma.

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First of all, of course bots can’t post. But even if they could, it couldn’t be in City Hall. A truly bizarre moment.
Discussion of that incident can be found here.



On a few occasions the site has been completely overrun with guests who, thanks to KF’s admin vision, we found were all bots.

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We still have no explanation for those occurrences.



And finally, Dan shared a moment where a bot actually made it all the way into the chat room. A truly remarkable achievement.
Jun 21 21:35:46 * CC (cgiirc@tl-A6F69~007.googlebot.com) has joined #aio
Jun 21 21:36:58 <Tim> Wow.
Jun 21 21:39:03 <Tim> I think that's actually one of Google's web crawlers that was poking around the chat site and managed to get far enough into the CGI:IRC interface to activate the chat connection.
Jun 21 21:39:03 * CC has quit (Quit: CGI:IRC (EOF))
Jun 21 21:40:17 <Tim> I can't say I've ever seen that happen before.
Jun 21 21:41:09 <SomeoneElse> What was it doing?
Jun 21 21:41:25 <SomeoneElse> lol web crawler's sounds way too much like bugs.. *shudders*
Jun 21 21:41:49 <Tim> Reading web pages like it always does. That's how Google finds out what's on the web to let you search it.
Jun 21 21:42:09 <SomeoneElse> So it's not going to like spam us?
Jun 21 21:42:22 * CC (cgiirc@tl-A6F6~9007.googlebot.com) has joined #aio
Jun 21 21:42:35 <Tim> It so happens that the CGI:IRC chat page looks enough like a normal web page that it loaded it and caused a chat connection to start.
Jun 21 21:43:44 <Tim> No, it's not capable of understanding how to type things. It's like a little kid pressing whatever buttons it can find, with no knowledge of what it might be doing.
Jun 21 21:46:07 * CC has quit (Quit: CGI:IRC (EOF))
Jun 21 21:48:53 * CC (cgiirc@tl-A6F6~9007.googlebot.com) has joined #aio
Jun 21 21:49:05 <Tim> It's gotten onto a few other networks, it seems. Google's cache of EFnet's chat page shows the transcript of the bot accidentally logging in.
Jun 21 21:50:38 <Tim> Despite the amusement this causes, I can put up a sign telling the Googlebot not to stick its fingers in those sockets.
Jun 21 21:51:50 * CC has quit (Quit: CGI:IRC (EOF))
Jun 21 21:53:12 <Tim> The impressive part is the fact that in order to get to that page, it had to enter a nick *and* choose the CGI:IRC radio button *and* press "Chat."

These are certainly strange and mysterious entities. If you make interesting observations of your own, post them here! :)
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Post by Woody »

Here's my two, and they are quite funny:

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This one's even better:

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So those are my bot sightings. \:D/
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Post by bookworm »

:hilarious: Those are great! The bot poked around and liked what it saw so much it wants to join us! :rofl2:
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Post by Woody »

Wouldn't it be hilarious if that were actually possible???
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Post by DanP740 »

If a bot can log into the chatroom, it could probably register an account.
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Use the chatroom! It's been active for a year, and most of you are missing it.
"Every time I start banging rocks together to make a beat, I feel all guilty and I need to repent for my sinful ways. :(" - Jelly
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Post by Arkán Dreamwalker »

Arkán hates seeing the word "image" everywhere and not knowing what anyone is talking about. Arkán is usually a patent person, but this is so excessive(ly annoying)... that even he is fed up. Does anyone have any advice? Besides forcing everyone switch from photobucket to tinypic?
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Post by Marvin D. »

I love how people are rolling on the floor in laughter about robots.
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Post by DanP740 »

Image
Image
StrongNChrist 1991-2011
Use the chatroom! It's been active for a year, and most of you are missing it.
"Every time I start banging rocks together to make a beat, I feel all guilty and I need to repent for my sinful ways. :(" - Jelly
"I actually want to see this happen... the controversy would be legendary. :o" - American Eagle
":hilarious: This ladies and gentlemen is the founding of: 'The Awkward Club!'" - Steve
"Happy birthday, big Mercy! \:D/ \:D/" - Whitty Whit
I wasn't yelling. I was talking with vehemence.
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Post by Woody »

DanP740 wrote:Image
Dan, you're hilarious. :hilarious:
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Post by Joy »

Wow, that is strange.
Dan, that is totally a win!
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Post by bookworm »

Shortly after Woody showed me his sightings I noticed a bot attempting to send a pm myself. Probably the same one.

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Post by jelly »


Relevant.
Fallacy of false continuum. // bookworm
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Post by bookworm »

Jelly wrote:Relevant.
No it isn't. :?
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Post by Woody »

Here's one I just saw. :hilarious:

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Post by Jesus' Princess »

I saw this one earlier tonight
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Post by bookworm »

Just now :lol:

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Post by DanP740 »

And what is Yandex?
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StrongNChrist 1991-2011
Use the chatroom! It's been active for a year, and most of you are missing it.
"Every time I start banging rocks together to make a beat, I feel all guilty and I need to repent for my sinful ways. :(" - Jelly
"I actually want to see this happen... the controversy would be legendary. :o" - American Eagle
":hilarious: This ladies and gentlemen is the founding of: 'The Awkward Club!'" - Steve
"Happy birthday, big Mercy! \:D/ \:D/" - Whitty Whit
I wasn't yelling. I was talking with vehemence.
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Post by bookworm »

A new bot that’s been poking around lately.
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Post by Moontide »

Yandex is a Russian search engine.
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Post by bookworm »

A new bot has shown up, and it is displaying interesting behavior.

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