About the traffic from this project
If you found this page in your logs: the probe you saw is part of a random-sample measurement study of the public web. Here's who we are, why, and how to opt out.
What this is
The Reachable Web Observatory is an open, continuously-running random-sample study of the reachable public-IPv4 web. It generates random IP addresses, checks a handful of common web ports (80, 443, 8000, 8080, 8443), and — for hosts answering HTTP/HTTPS — records what an anonymous visitor would see, to study where observable exposure and third-party security signals concentrate. It does not log in, exploit, fuzz, or probe non-web services. Full details are in the methodology and ethics.
How to identify our traffic
Every page fetch we make announces itself in the User-Agent header, so you can spot (or filter) us directly in your access logs:
Scanning currently runs from a single low-rate host on an ordinary connection — not a large distributed fleet. To protect the operator's privacy we don't publish that host's IP address, but you can reliably identify and filter our traffic by the User-Agent above. The most durable way to stop it for good is to opt out below, which works regardless of which address we scan from.
Opt out — stop future scans
Email the IP or CIDR range you control to abuse@verdantprotocol.com. We add it to the exclusion list and agents stop capturing it within two days, permanently. Because the scanner address is not currently published, the exclusion list is the reliable way to stop future traffic; the User-Agent above can be used to filter HTTP fetches in the meantime.
Remove existing records
Send the host(s) or range you want removed and we will delete those records. There is no automatic expiry — captures stay until removal is requested. Acknowledgement and completion are targeted within two days. The request should identify the address or CIDR; we may ask for a minimal demonstration of control when needed to prevent fraudulent requests. Specify whether the request concerns the public record, stored screenshot/page text, future observations, or all of them; our confirmation will state the completed scope. Reports of abuse or content that shouldn't be public anywhere are prioritized; see the disclosure policy.