David Newquist notes a high prevalence of Russian hits on his blog, Northern Valley Beacon, and wonders if Putin’s hackers might be keeping an eye on local resistance to Putin’s puppet.
My current stats show no similar trend on Dakota Free Press, where clickers are mostly American:
Ecuador… aren’t they still giving Julian Assange sanctuary? But that’s at their embassy in London, and they cut his Internet in October….
Readership overnight remains largely local, with none of those foreign hits beating the top ten :
Town by town, the top four roughly reflect South Dakota population, but below 5%, we get a fun mix of South Dakota locales and farther flung blog readers:
Down at the bottom, I get two hits from Paris. Merci, mes amis! Vive la Résistance! Vive les États-Unis libres!
St. Petersburg Russia is showing up as one of the top 5 or 6 cities reading the Constant Commoner. Been this way for months.
That’s me down ere in Quito Ecuador Cory. Bueno Dia!
Interesting, John! I have noticed that I regularly get failed login attempts on this blog and on my campaign website WordPress installations. The IPs seem to bounce all over the globe—perhaps proxies for our Russian friends?
The Russians who visit you: can you tell if they are just viewing the page, or are they trying to get into your admin control panel?
Richard, seriously? What are you doing in Quito?!
Cory, this comes up when I click on Language: “Secret.ɢoogle.com You are invited! Enter only with this ticket URL. Copy it. Vote for Trump!” I’m on Google Analytics. Don’t know squat about the technicals of it–pretty much been ignoring it and hasn’t affected the operation of the blog. Just kinda weird. Now that Newquist has brought it up, I thought I’d mention it.
Multi-purpose trip.
1. Checking out a neighborhood I am considering getting a condo in as a retirement retreat by renting a nearby to the condos apartment for a month.
2. Visiting friends I met last time down and brining Xmas gifts. (Ho! ho! ho! said the white bearded guy from the El Norte)
3. Relaxing after a stressful end of Summer and Fall
4. Es in opportunidad por practica mi Espanol. (Brain exercise)
5. (inherent but not purposive) Losing some Weight. Quito is at 9,000 feet and I am doing a lot of walking up some very steep streets.
OOps, almost forgot reason number 6 (should number 3):
6. Having some very good dental work done for very low cost.
Richard … You’ve got the quality and reasonably priced dental and medical treatments correct. I have an inlaw from Peru who regularly takes her USA family members down for cosmetic surgery and dental work.
But, on Russia. Sanctions MUST be enacted and they must be severe sanctions. The Russian government’s well known surrogates involvement in our elections is nearly a warlike provocation. Should President Trump lift the sanctions, it’s his goat to herd from then on, politically.
Mike in Iowa lives in Bayard, Iowa?
No.no.no Nick Not Bayard. I am much closer to South Dakota than the Dismal, iowa metroplex (Dismal is French for Des Moines). I am in Obrien County near Sutherland. 2 counties east and the second county south of the Minnesota border from the Big Sioux River. I can be in South Dakota in less than an hour, if I ever figure out why I would want to.
John T-Stace Nelson prolly reported you as a Commie for coming to Cory’s. Or maybe Grudznick got his gravy taters in a wad and reported you.
lol. Nelson wouldn’t do that to a fellow Marined. The other guy I’m not so sure about. Thinking of giving Newquist a shout-out, though. Maybe we could use the opportunity to warm our relations with Russia. How about a borscht recipe exchange, David? Maybe a readers’ poll of all-time great balalaika oldies?
Marine! I’m gonna get down and give myself fifty.
I have noticed this interest from Russia for a number of months, too. On another blog I have recounted some Cold War experiences in Germany involving Soviet staff cars driving by our guided missile base and the early activities of the Red Army Brigade around Karlsruhe. Here is a week-long tabulation of hits:
Pageviews by Countries
United States
2757
Russia
1206
Germany
99
France
99
China
76
Netherlands
52
United Kingdom
27
Ukraine
27
Spain
21
Canada
16
Richard S. has been posting his Ecuador travels and experiences on Facebook. I have been enjoying them.
Really interesting numbers, David. Can you tell if the Russian hits are specific to certain posts, like your Cold War recollections, or are they to the main page?
Ah, Roger! I’ve been vacationing a bit from Facebook—that’s why I missed it! I should take my dental work to Quito—at the price they quoted me here, I think I could buy the airline ticket and still come ahead.
Porter, Trump won’t impose sanctions on Russia. He will reimpose sanctions on Iran… in part to punish Boeing some more.
Looks like Freeman give you the most clicks per capita of any city. Maybe make a run in district 19 next time? On a platform of mutton for all? And protections for war objectors?
I would relish running against Stace Nelson. However, a move to Freeman is not in my foreseeable future. (Besides, I might have to withstand a primary challenge from Frank Kloucek, and I know I can’t out-campaign Frank!)
You look at Nelson cross eyed and he will threaten to beat the hell out of you. Probably pick up votes just for the threat. Its a wingnut way.
I bet all those clicks were from Messrs. Kloucek and Nelson. Both plotting.
Alexandria and Fulton not in the chart. Looks like Stace and I will have to duke it our more often
Cory, Whatever your dentist quoted you – you could done here for about 20% of that.
Then consider he round trip from MPLS (took a $70 rental car there) is about $700 and rent on a VERY NICE (some might say exclusive) condo/apt., door man, maid, secure parking, amoblado (furnishings and everything else except clothing included) another $800/month.
If you buy groceries and do your own cooking – maybe add $6.00/day. Or you could eat meals out and that’s a choice of range from around $2/meal and upward as high as you want to go.
Of course with the right connections (like the CPA for the dental clinic) you might be able to pare that cost down to around 15% of your US quote.
You can blog from here too :)
I’m insulted that Appleton WI isn’t on the list. I read this every day
Although with multiple devices
CAH,
I can’t tell which specific posts get the hits. But on the blog devoted to my military experience, the hits f rom the U.S. and Russia run about equal.
I incline toward the suggestion of a geek colleague that the Russian hits are probably mostly from computers programmed to keep American Internet sources under surveillance in the manner that NSA collected telephone data.
Richard, I’ll keep Quito in mind as one possible location for blogging from exile if Trump starts sending out stormtroopers.
David, I like your geek colleague’s suggestion. I wonder if there is any way we can foul the computers’ intelligence, or if there are certain keywords that the Russian computers are programmed to look for that would affect decisions up the KGB/FSB intel chain of command.
Rlm, it’s nothing personal! I took my sample early in the morning, which means I was looking at hits from overnight. You may not have checked in during that sample period… but I’m glad you checked in now! Thanks for reading!