I don't think website visitor numbers are valid anymore. | The Coffeehouse

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

You know, I don't think website visitor numbers are valid anymore. In the past 2 weeks, I have "cought" over 2600 IPs of infected machines trying to post SPAM on one of my websites. Advertisers should not pay per visitor or click anymore. Perhaps it is time for a new way?

Funny how we live in a technical world ( I mean while on the Internet ) but at the same time, this world is so broken. For example one of the most important functions which is email is basically broken due to SPAM and now visitor statistics are broken due to SPAM bots, also "script kiddies" can DDoS major websites out of this world in matter of minutes since they control so many infected machines.

With the number of Internet "citizens" going up every day, these problems will just get worse and worse every day.

Makes you wonder, why won't anyone fix these issues? What is going on at ISPs? Do they ignore all these issues on purpose? Will "Internet2" be better at solving such problems? and perhaps the most important question of all, Who has the responsibility to fix our broken Internet?

What's your take on it?

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

I could reply, but I don't want to run the risk of offending you with something I say and have several 'Bas is ignorant' threads posted on this forum.

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to Bas

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 4:08 AM

+1

Herbie

EDIT: I can't wait until ManipUni disagrees with somethin Turrican posts. I f Turrican has a prblem with W3bbo, it'll be hilarious when he comes up againt Manip.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

OK I'll do it then.

1) You are assuming those spam visitors are full blown browsers which display ads. It's unlikely this is the case from some, if not the majority.
2) Pay per view for advertisers is long discredited anyway.
3) Pay per click has its own problems, as google has long discovered. There's a lot of money in fraud detection there.
4) Pay per purchase which is the only option left removes a lot of advertisers; as you are assuming a purchase is the only endpoint for adverts. It's not.
5) Visitor statistics is not one of the most important things on the internet.
6) What makes you think ISPs ignore it? How do they detect it? Is it against every ISP's AUP world wide?
7) What do you think Internet2 is going to add (aside from better packet tracing and that's IPV6 not Internet2)
8) What makes you think having broken ads makes the entire internet broken? There are more important things to worry about, DNS hijacks, phishing, bot nets and the like.

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to blowdart

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 4:19 AM

6. I know several people on a couple of major ISPs, so I know by fact that they do ignore this. ( atleast where I am )

8. It isn't really about the ads, it's about the infected PCs. and you are correct on those other points, however most of your points also reflects the infected PCs problem.

My thread perhaps wasn't too clear, what I meant was not that the ads. business is broken, I should have pointed out the infected PCs first I guess.

turrican
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance! - Albert Einstein

In reply to Bas

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 4:08 AM

hehhhe

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to turrican

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 5:48 AM

How do you know they get complaints? You certainly can't tell who clicks your ads from link spammers; unless you're directing through your own redirects. And again, how do they know it's real. Email headers can be checked; clicking, no, not unless an ISP is logging every bit of traffic.

As for business being broken; no, it's uneducated users and operating systems that make it too easy for uneducated users to infect themselves. But it's too late to fix those OSes now. Until older machines vanish we won't see the true benefits of UAC and protected mode. Of course other browsers need to use protected mode as well.

Cupiditas
Chris Hawkins

I know website visitor numbers aren't valid anymore. Spam aside, Google hits my website more than people do.

Chadk
excuse me - do you has a flavor?

It's all working as intended, just as how virus are working as intended.

Antivirus software is only there to save people from themselves. Maybe you should save yourself too. Changing your password to something you don't remember could be a start.

BlackTiger
If you stumbled and fell down, it doesn't mean yet, that you're going in the wrong direction.

There is nothing broken actually. Sometimes misused - yes. But not broken.
Remove money from everything and everything will be "fixed" immediately. Big Smile

"Viva la revolution!!!" Big Smile

Year 2017 is close. May be we will do something better than our great-great-grandfathers.

BlackTiger
If you stumbled and fell down, it doesn't mean yet, that you're going in the wrong direction.

In reply to Chadk

#Nov 24th, 2008 @ 12:22 AM

"Set it and forget it!"? Big Smile

elmer
I'm on my very last life.

In reply to blowdart

#Nov 23rd, 2008 @ 5:54 AM

Or perhaps a free anti-malware/virus service that owners of windows can subscribe to and allow the shift of some responsibility to the O/S mfg might help... oh, wait... I think I read something about that the other day ??