Interesting Browser and OS statistics

If you look at the bottom of this blog you will see a counter for the visitors to this blog. The counter does more than count the number of visitors it also keeps track of where the ISP is, OS used and browser used along with other bits and pieces. When I review the log I was struck by the OS and browser stats. Of course being a Linux blog I would expect to see high percentages of anything but Microsoft products. However, I have another blog on gardening and the numbers even though they are small are startling.

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As of 2006/10/18 for this blog I had 57 visits.

OS:

• Windows 63.15%
• Linux 33.34%
• OS X 1.75%
• Other 1.75%

Browsers:

• IE 28.57%
• Firefox 58.93%
• Konqueror 10.75%
• Opera 1.79%
• Netscape 0%
• Mozilla 0%
• Safari 0%
  

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For my blog on gardening the stats are for 70 visits.

OS:

• Windows 69.99%
• Linux 15.71%
• OS X 12.86%
• Other 1.43%

Browsers:

• IE 54.29%
• Firefox 30.00%
• Konqueror 0%
• Opera 0%
• Netscape 1.43%
• Mozilla 2.86%
• Safari 10.00%
  

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Those numbers are quite startling for me especially on the gardening site. While the absolute numbers are small they should be troubling for Microsoft as more and more people are not using Microsoft products. I have more numbers for my Google home page, but, those numbers are skewed in favour of Linux and Firefox as only family members use that page and we tend to use Linux and Firefox.

SPAM SUCKS!

The spam bots are still working overtime. The volume is down a bit, but, all of my accounts are now getting spammed. The Yahoo account is the one that gets most of the crap (4,800 spams so far this year). My GMAIL and Sympatico are getting spammed. Fortunately the Sympatico is only one or two spam messages a month, but, it is still a pain. Fortunately I have an option to let Sympatico know it is spam if I read it using the web interface. The GMAIL so far has detected all spam messages correctly and all I do is empty the spam folder every several days.

I know that there are laws in the U.S . and other countries that purports to minimize spamming, but, how about the various government LEAs look at who is buying the spammers services and go after them rather than the spammers themselves as a start. FOLLOW the money people and nail the ones using the services and spam may drop to tolerable levels. SPAM will never go away, but, will go down to a level where 80% of my email is legit rather than 80% spam as it now stands.

A good number of messages now are for stock promotions. For a while I forwarded them to the SEC, but, most of them now are repeats of the same companies so I have stopped for a while. When I find something new I pass it on.

For everyone who are using Windows (or Linux or Mac OS for some of the below):

• Are you using a firewall?
• Are you using an anti-virus canner package?
• Are you using a spyware scanner package?
• Are you keeping your software up-to-date?
• Are you keeping Windows up-to-date using Windows update?

If you do the above you can help by making sure that your machine has not been taken over and made into a 'bot' that spammers can use for routing the mail or DDOS attacks or to steal your personal information. We also have to do our part in securing our machines and networks too. Patching and scanning does take time, but, you can schedule it when you are not using the machine and help do your part.

I love hackers... NOT!

One of the things I run on my Linux box is a FTP server so that friends and family can drop off and pick up photos or movies. This relieves the mail servers of the multi-meg file downloads as part of my family still has only dial up, but, they have large digital photos and movies that they want to share.

The only problem is that there were a number of hackers who probed my system and found that my system was available. Not a problem in that I don't have default IDs or passwords, but, I did leave an anonymous account available to make it easier for family to get on. The hackers did use that to try to put up warez, but, didn't have the access authority to do much else . It was a real pain as I needed to clear out the upload area every several days from their 1 meg test files and clear out my security log for the password attempts. A few sites did respond back to me when I sent a copy of my log and hopefully they will cancel their accounts, the rest didn't send me a reply.

I did make a few changes on the FTP server.

1. FXP is now off (default is on). FXP stands for File eXchange Protocol and it lets you copy files from one FTP-server to another using a FXP-client. Normally you transfer files using the FTP protocol between your machine and a FTP-server, and the maximum transfer speed depends on the speed of your Internet connection (e.g. 56k, cable or T1). When transferring files between two remote hosts using a FXP client, the maximum transfer speed does not depend on your connection but only on the connection between the two host, which is usually much faster than your own connection. Because it is a direct connection you will not be able to see the progress or the transfer speed of the files. I guess the hackers took advantage of this.
2. There is a prompt for userid and password now.
3. I deleted the ability to download from the upload area. They can put files up, but, no one can download from that area until I vet the files and move them to the download area.
   
4. I updated the router firewall to block out the offending sites that didn't reply back on the hack attempts.

I will be watching the security and file transfer logs for the next week on a daily basis to see if that works. My lesson is that I should have checked all of the default settings and read up on what they were before letting the FTP server loose.

Update 2006/10/06: Another site has replied back that they are looking at the problem. I believe them as I have not had a hack attack for almost a week from their IP ranges. It helped that I wrote a short, but, nice note and then attached the log showing the full attack for them. Their reply was just as polite and very professional. The change I made to turn off FXP seemed to have stopped the hackers from dropping files on my server as I have not seen any activity there for the last week.