Anyone else getting out of hours connections?

[Griffin NoName]

Noticed something odd in my "Connection Log".

It's showing connections to the Monastery at times when I haven't been connected at all. Like not logged in, not even any old Monastery browser windows left open.

Like there I am with only one thing going on, nothing to do with the Monastery, and in the log amongst connections to the site I am browsing (in new browser window) there shows up connections to the Monastery at the same time.

Anyone keep an eye on their firewall logs? If so, can you see any evidence of similar behaviour?

Wondering how Joomla or SMF might be implicated.

[ivor]

What firewall are you using?

[Griffin NoName]

Can't you guess ?



Norton (still and not willingly)

No other sign of the firewall logging connections unaccountably - that is I can account for all the other crud in there.

Unless MSN.com is accessing the Monastery?

[ivor]

Do you leave the browser open on the Monastery home page?  It could be the chant box.

[Alpaca]

Both Joomla and SMF produce RSS feeds. Have you ever subscribed to any anywhere?

[Griffin NoName]

Do you leave the browser open on the Monastery home page?  It could be the chant box.

No. I logged out of everything. I shut everything, all windows, everything. I put the machine in standby. I went out for several hours. I came back. I took the machine out of standby.

NOTHING on the screen. Just all fresh. Ready to go.

I opened my browser, picked up hotmail.

Checked the log file.

There were the hotmail/msn connections, all correctly timed, and bang in the middle, the Monastery.

Both Joomla and SMF produce RSS feeds. Have you ever subscribed to any anywhere?

No.

At least never knowingly. Is it possible to BE subscribed by a trojan (not that I have ever had a trojan on this machine) or a program running without one knowing it is susbcribing one.......

[ivor]

How could your firewall log anything if your machine is in standby?  Is there a timezone problem or something?

[Alpaca]

If I'm reading correctly, the Monastery popped up in the middle of her MSN browsing activities once she got back.

Does it happen if you start browsing somewhere else rather than MSN? Given the "omg portal to ur internets" nature of MSN, it could be the culprit.

[Griffin NoName]

Yes, Alpaca, you read me.

Actually I have developed a theory, before I saw your reply.

Google analytics show that bay104 (part of hotmail) is refering to the Monastery. I have one or two unread emails with links to the Monastery from auto-mail on newbies. Now although my logs show I never went near bay104, the server hotmail refered me to was bay118, it is possible that all (unread - low number anyway) link referals get passed onto bay104. Or something along those lines.

I am inclined to agree, MSN is a culprit, if not the culprit !

The analytics Referring Sites is interesting anyway.

Although.... if one was really interested it would be quite hard, if the above is true, to actually extract anything really and truly definitively and absolutely and meaningful. Statistics <sigh>.


EDIT if I remember to, I'll delete those emails and repeat the exercise. just for the hell of it.