What does local use of Sci-Hub look like? – iNode

"Mindful of privacy issues, I asked a friend in campus IT to take a list of 6 or 7 domains and derive an extract file from the DNS query logs, providing just date, time and query string for anything that matched the domain information I provided.  Here’s an excerpt of the result: ...

Producing this extract is now part of a weekly cron job so I’ll be able to monitor the relative use of these sites over the coming months.  In this one particular instance, I can’t wait for the Fall term to begin…

So what did I find by monitoring DNS queries between July 3rd and July 10th?

The graph shows activity for users on the campus network.  A better name for this post might be, “What does local use of ResearchGate look like?”...

Here are the numbers if you include off-campus traffic to subscription sites (DNS resolution happens here since our proxy server is on the campus network):

• Sci-Hub (includes the .tw, .se, and .ren domains): 87
• ResearchGate: 1186
• Springer-Link: 551 (391 on-campus users; 160 via campus proxy server)
• Google Scholar: 977
• ScienceDirect: 1730 (1306 on-campus users; 424 via campus proxy server)
• Engineering Village: 129 (111 on-campus users; 18 via campus proxy server)...."