Bots In A Password Protected Gallery?

Mary Jo,

I was at my sister's house one day last year as she was looking at one of my images. She lives in northern Indiana and when I logged in later and checked my visitors she showed as Beverly Hills. You can't trust what it says.

Stumble Upon is Beverly Hills.

Could be picking up their SU account.

I'm still not sure if bots can see into a password protected gallery. Or should I take it to mean that the only person with the password must have looked at them.

bots can't go in the gallery. if i can't get in, neither can it. if only one person has the password, then that was the person looking at it. the servers get strange depending what you log in with.

---Mike Savad

Take it to mean that the only person with the password must have looked at them.
My best guess is Beverly Hills is the location of a proxy server for a wireless network. Its been brought up before that visits through a cell phone show up as visits from CA.

Beverly Hills is a proxy... many mobile devices for example are wired through their. You can look up the IP address on whatismyipaddress.com and see for yourself.

I have read several times in these discussions that Kiez, Germany is a bot.

Is Kiez a bot .....because that location certainly CAN get into a password protected gallery.

I made a password protected gallery last night and I have given the password to NO ONE. When I checked my Visitor count in Behind The Scenes this morning it lists a visit to one of the images in that (supposedly) password protected gallery. The visit was in the early morning hours and from Kiez, Germany.

So I have the same question and concern as Mary Jo Allen.

i wonder, where are the FAA servers located. they is it in kiez? because they are the very first thing that shows up as soon as its uploaded. and its doubtful any bot is that fast. it must be a server thing.


---Mike Savad

I would ask support on this. I would ask how it is possible you got a visit in a PW protected gallery when you never gave out the PW.

Interesting question about FAA's server, Mike.

Good suggestion Bradford. Thanks.

Just checked before leaving the site and now there are two visits showing up from Kiez for that same image.

Mary, ignore the 'text' name of the visit, its quite regularly wrong.

What you need to look for is the IP, if you hover the mouse over the text, it will show you the IP popup.

FAA seems to either have its own database of IP's vs Locations or it uses a 3rd party source, but it seems to be quite wrong, as I and others have found.

Although finding location from IP isnt always 100%, it can be useful.

If you post that IP here, or yourself use resources on the net, you can find out the location more accurately.

@Mike, Kiez are bot servers in Germany, I forget which one though, I had found it before. They probably monitor the 'new artwork' pages etc, and pick up new stuff from them instantly.

Rob.

FireFlux,
Why would images in password protected galleries show up in the 'new artwork' pages? I posted them directly into the new pp gallery.

Oh, I was answering Mike/Mary on that one.

Hmm, strange that a passworded one got a Kiez hit yes.

They 'shouldnt' be able to get in... but if its logged as a visitor, then clearly it has, so I guess someone needs to look into that one..

Again though, dont trust the 'text' that is there, check the IP address to be 100% sure, in a service like myip.ms or similar.

Just checked all my passworded images, none of them have been visited by any other IP than myself.

Just out of curiosity, what is the url for your image that is password protected, and has had a visit from Kiez?

Not the url for the gallery, but the url for the actual image page.

Dont worry, if it is passworded correctly, then I wont be able to see it :)

I'll just try to see if its got into Google or something else 'weird'.

And you definitely posted the image, and at the same time as uploading it you checked the passworded gallery? Or did you upload it, and then immediately go and change it to the passworded gallery afterwards?

Rob.

Before it was fixed, and the new feature of the thumbnail images below each image was new, I had an image from a pw protected gallery showing as one of the thumbnails...and it received some bot visits. The image had never been displayed in a regular gallery before that to receive bots visits. I posted about it in a thread and Abbie replied, and I haven't seen that problem since as soon as they fixed it where pw protected images were segregated from the thumbnail stuff.

Update on my pp image: Another visit, this time from Cardiff - United Kingdom. Here's the strange thing.....the image that is getting visitors is not showing up for me at all. It doesn't show as a thumbnail when I open the gallery and it doesn't show up when I go through the gallery pictures. It is not there anymore but it is still getting visits! How can that be?

I made the new gallery and password protected it. THEN I uploaded 15 photographs into the gallery. But all day only 14 photographs are there.....and yet the missing one got another visit since it disappeared!

Now....if I go to Behind The Scenes then Visitors it is showing up as a thumbnail. I can click on the thumbnail and it shows up as #10. I can hit previous and/or next and go back to it from there. But I cannot go to it from the gallery page (no thumbnail). When I go from the gallery page the photograph at #10 is the one after the missing image when I go to it from the Visitors page.

I contacted support about this earlier today.

Information I have found online from entering the IP addresses of the three unauthorized visitors.

Kiez, Germany 144.76.23.140
IP: 144.76.23.140
Decimal: 2420905868
Hostname: p3n11.trendiction.de
ISP: Server Block
Organization: Server Block
Services: None detected
Type: Corporate
Assignment: Static IP
Blacklist:
Geolocation Information
Country: Germany de flag
Latitude: 51 (51° 0′ 0.00″ N)
Longitude: 9 (9° 0′ 0.00″ E)

Kiez, Germany: 144.76.23.137
IP: 144.76.23.137
Decimal: 2420905865
Hostname: p3n8.trendiction.de
ISP: Server Block
Organization: Server Block
Services: None detected
Type: Corporate
Assignment: Static IP
Blacklist:
Geolocation Information
Country: Germany de flag
Latitude: 51 (51° 0′ 0.00″ N)
Longitude: 9 (9° 0′ 0.00″ E)

Cardiff, United Kingdom: 83.57.201.216
IP: 83.57.201.216
Decimal: 1396296152
Hostname: 216.red-83-57-201.dynamicip.rima-tde.net
ISP: Telefonica de Espana
Organization: Telefonica de Espana
Services: None detected
Type: Broadband
Assignment: Dynamic IP
Blacklist:
Geolocation Information
Country: Spain es flag
State/Region: Comunidad Valenciana
City: Elche
Latitude: 38.265 (38° 15′ 54.00″ N)
Longitude: -0.70609999999999 (0° 42′ 21.96″ W)

did you post the image inside the folder any place? maybe the fact it's being called on at all, will invite new people. i wonder if the fact people are trying to get into the folder - while blank for them, if the ip is recorded.

i just clicked the BFF one, there should be a listing in either westfield or linden nj.


---Mike Savad

Kiez is a proxy - servers go through it... or whatever the terminology is. I've had buyer "from" there a few times.

I voted to make this discussion private....anyone else want to do the same?

one of these days, i or someone else will get that sale from kiez, it will be posted to all, and a huge party will be celebrated...


---Mike Savad

Mike,
I don't know where to look to find visitors to galleries. I only know about the ones in Behind The Scenes, Visitors and it only lists visits to the individual images (that I am aware of). I just checked that and there are still just the three earlier visitors (2 from Kiez and 1 from Cardiff).
Thanks for clicking the BFF one (gallery)......what did it show you? Did it ask you for a password? Did you see any images?

Kathy... Cardiff is me! :)

Is it this image: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/make-and-model-needed-1-kathy-k-mcclellan.html

If so, then that image is not in any gallery (I suspect), and definitely not in your password protected gallery, so anyone can view that one, including the Kiez bot and me :)

Maybe you missed setting the check box on that one when you uploaded it, and it didnt get put in the passworded gallery...

To double check (since looking at an image doesnt tell you which gallery its in), try to edit that image yourself, and go down to 'galleries' and see what checkboxes are set. If it does have 'BFF' set as the gallery then there is a bug, but I would think that you will find it doesnt have any gallery set.

Clicking on your BFF gallery asks me for a password.

Rob.

@Heather, why do you think Kiez is a proxy?

Although as I've said, the text display isnt really what you need to be looking at, as its not always accurate, and it does group in lots of IPs into 1 group.

The 'normal' Kiez that most people see are within this IP range (atleast from my investigations) 144.76.23.132 -> 144.76.23.143 (its probably more IPs than that though)

This IP range is owned by the company in Germany called 'Hetzner' who are a hosting company for servers.

A company called 'Trendiction' uses Hetzner as their ISP for their marketing tool that goes around the web scraping pages, and then aggregates data and usage on their site, that they then get people to pay them for. (see http://www.trendiction.com/en)

If I check my own web site logs for my machines, then any hit from that IP range, always has the 'trendiction.de/bot', HTTP_REFERER set, indicating its a Bot, and that its from Trendiction.

Also, myip.ms links Trendiction to those IPs: http://myip.ms/info/whois/144.76.23.143

And, Project Honey pot also does: https://www.projecthoneypot.org/ip_144.76.23.140

Now, obviously, Kiez is a town in Germany, and there are humans living there (I presume), so yes its possible that someone will buy from 'Kiez', but the large majority of visits people see will be from this bot, and not humans.

Just out of interest, can you send us/link the sales announcement page that you have of a sale from Kiez? I would be interested to see that, and what IP it is on the image.

Thanks,

Rob.

FireFlux,
A big DUH for me and a big thank you for you!

I am so thankful, not only for what I learn in these discussions but for everyone's patience as I learn.

The box for BFF was not checked and I never even thought to troubleshoot that! I got stuck on going through the gallery a million times, checking the visitor count and looking for it there. I never thought to go through my photos in the image section or I would have seen it myself!

That photo is now where it belongs.

I apologize for any drama/panic/concern this may have created. That is never my intention!
Kathy

No problem :)