3 ms·
Another great way of detecting bots is to redirect the visitor through an SSL connection and sniff their cipher suite. By comparing the list of ciphers the bot
by loopdoend 14y ago
Another great way of detecting bots is to redirect the visitor through an SSL connection and sniff their cipher suite. By comparing the list of ciphers the bot presents with a list of known ciphers of major browsers, you can accurately detect a majority of bots. Many bot authors use the same few libraries which never change their cipher suite.
- mthoms 14y agoThis seems brilliant. Are there any downsides?
- loopdoend 14y agoThere is a slight performance hit, there is overhead added by creating SSL connections. However, using this method you can detect most cURL bots, practically all bots written in Ruby, and myriad other bots that are lying about their User-Agent. Combine it with other techniques for maximum effectiveness.