Cause For Alarm?

[Altjaeger]

First before anyone jumps to conclusions I AM NOT accusing Swamp of manipulating the system.

I am a bit ignorant in the ways of the computer world, but just noted something that I wonder if it is a cause of concern in view of past history with people crashing our system.

At the bottom of the page is a list of who is online. Normally at this time of evening we have 20-30 people online with about half members and half guests. I just noticed we have 16 members and 133 guests online. That is a sudden jump of maybe 10 times the normal number of guests with members in the normal bounds. Is this a possible cause of concern with sabotuers probing the system?

[Greywolf]

At risk of discouraging anyone thinking of registering on here.

I'm guessing, that as summeer ends do a kids fancy turns to the upcoming season.
For most of the Summer was spent on sights for dirtbikers, ATV,ers and the like. And of coarse a few on the fishing sights.
Speaking of which you may or may not notice;
the large amount of participants when fishing season starts, which quickly waynes as the difficulty of finding fish increases with the warming of the weather.


just a thought.

[Altjaeger]

I see we are back to 8 members and 12 guests this morning. It was just a very unussual variation that caught my eye and raised a flag.

[Greywolf]

And a good catch it was.
So far all is quiet, but would sure welcome all comers with good intentions.

[TXAnn38]

Paul, I've been told that, at times, those "guests" are bots probing the server. At any given time, there are lots of probes going on--that's why firewalls on our personal computers are important. They may be as simple as a search engine listing a link pertinent to a search, or as irritating as mischief makers looking for a place to sow their seeds. Most are harmless, unless someone slips in past a firewall and plants some malware. Ann