"PB" == Piet Beertema <Piet.Beertema@cwi.nl> writes:
Hi Piet! PB> The current hostcount methods builds it's counting on the DNS A PB> records but nowdays is there a lot of machines which is not being PB> registred in DNS while they can make use of the Internet resources. PB> Example of such machines may be machines behind firewalls, private PB> addresses (193.168/16 and 10/8) or dial-in machines. These machines PB> will not be found in the DNS and therefore will not be counted. PB> In the effort of possibly make the hostcount values show more of the PB> reality in some sense it would be good to get some method of collecting PB> such hidden information. PB> I'd suggest to first pose the question what the *need* is PB> of a more accurate hostcount. It's good to have a rough PB> idea about the number of hosts, but I fail to see any use PB> for an *accurate* hostcount (other than perhaps for even PB> more unwanted "commercial interest"). And if we would come PB> up with even the possibility of an accurate hostcount, the PB> next request would be for an accurate user count... First, this is certainly not an intent to get precise numbers, just geting somewhat closer. Secondly, I assumed that there would be a separate discussion on the need for better values. This was just a small proposal to maybe provide better numbers (it may very well fail, infact there is very good chanses for it). So, IF people want better numbers here is a proposal of a method to get those. If no one sees an interest in such numbers then we can just forget the whole thing. Cheers, Magnus