51 percent of internet traffic is non-human

Set aside your morning coffee and put down that toast in preparation for shock. When you clicked on your favourite gadget site this morning you came in the Stuff front doors outnumbered by machines. It’s not a Matrix world we’re in, but the internet is machine heavy, with over 51 percent of online traffic from non-humans. Here’s the breakdown.

Research from cloud based service provider Incapsula has shown: 5% is due to hacking tools looking for an unpatched or new vulnerability within a site, 5% is scrapers, 2% is from automated comment spammers, 19% is the result of ‘spies’ collating competitive intelligence, 20% is derived from search engines (non-human traffic but benign), and only 49% is from people browsing the Internet.

Scared yet?

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Fraser Macdonald consulting editor

About

Fraser used to wear a Psion Series 3 palmtop in a shoulder holster. Perhaps he still does.Either way, his lifelong mission - including fourteen years for Stuff - has been to see whether the consumer electronics industry can ever replicate that kind of cyborgian joy.So far: nope. Despite a plan to combine a action camera and Olympus Eye-Trek goggles to become Man Who Sees The Vision Of A Man Three Inches Taller Than Himself.He also likes mountain bikes, motorbikes, cars, helicopters. Still thinks virtual surround is witchcraft. Dislikes jetskis, despite never having been on one.