u500k.erinye.com - the AOL data analyzed

Looking at the Top Ten Users

While I've previously only looked at queries regarding some very special search interests, this is not the only possible starting point. For example, there is one user ID that accounts for nearly 280.000 of the approximately 36 million entries of the log files. From this much data, you can get a pretty good picture of who this person is, in any case. Her first search during the affected period was for "bird flu" by the way. The following is this person's search activity by hour of the day:

hourly search activity of one person

Data was sampled for a period of three months, this means this person has an average of about 200 searches per hour during her high times. This number includes pressing the "next page" button, though, and might very well result from alternating bursts and periods without searches. The high number of total searches of this person might also mean that this is a shared account. It could be a family or a small office. On second thought, maybe not a small office, considering this user's searches for nude models at night. Also, she wants to buy a mobile phone that can play mp3s and is interested in ring tones. She's also looking for hints for a PC hack and slay type game. So, while it's probably not a small office, it's either a family, a school or a public library or something along those lines. There being searches during night time points toward a family and queries submitted by this user also span about all topics a typical family's individual members might be interested in, such as gang bang photography, used cards, treatment of STDs, computer game hints, schools, fertilizers, cooking recipes, how much a one month old baby should eat, birth control, sneakers and bloody diarrhoea. However, there's an average of about 25 queries per hour during this person's low times, which is much more than what a family would produce.

Since I can't really say what kind of a person this is and I'm too lazy to look for names in the search queries that I could link to an institution with one public AOL account, let's look at the second winner in terms of number of queries in the log files. This user id only accounts for about 9.000 entries, so it likely corresponds to fewer real persons. I won't go much into detail and I hope the charts are still of some interest. The following is this user id's online search profile by hour of the day:

hourly search activity of one person

Almost all of this user's searches were conducted during day, with most of them being from late afternoon. The subjects of this person's searches are much easier to decode, too. Most of them cover cooking. Many cover related subjects such as stores where you might buy ingredients for those recipes. For example, this person is looking for a store in NYC where she could buy food. There are also less frequent searches on other topics, like a charger for a mobile phone, lyrics, digital cameras, wedding dresses and cakes, student loans, and the like. It is notable that there is no single search for porn related to this user. This might very well be a single mom who really is into cooking, or a mom whose husband has an AOL account of his own or who doesn't use the AOL software. She also probably has a Motorola V330 mobile phone from T-Mobile and lives in or otherwise has an interest in New York City. If I were a criminal, I might be looking for exactly this type of person. However, I'm not, so let's move on.

The user id with the third most entries is responsible for about 8.000 recorded queries. This is her profile:

hourly search activity of one person

I have totally no idea what this person is trying to tell me when I read through her searches. This person seems to talk to her computer through AOL search.

i got not a dam thing
are you a fool
wake up mr high style
tell you to fuck off
you are no help to me
you don't rule me
you don't rule me
you are the same
you are the same
you are the same
rick way nicer then you
take lesson from him
women fight for him
you are a fool
name you fool
tell rick i say by
joe find a whore
Either all of this log data is complete and utter nonsense and nothing but an elaborate joke, or this person needs help. I can't offer any, though, so let's look at the fourth entry from my top list. This is the profile:

hourly search activity of one person

This user very rarely used AOL search before noon during the three month period the data was sampled in. Search queries include "perverted people", "sick and gross people", various murder cases of historical interest, death camps, various massacres, Adolf Hitler, sex trafficking and baby sitting. Also lots of movie names, but no porn. This is probably not a girl who would like to kill babies though, and therefore boring, so I'm moving on to the next entry again.

Person number 5 on the top list accounts for about 7.000 queries and this is the profile:

hourly search activity of one person

However, this person's searches are rather useless again. Almost all of them cover female celebrities. The next person on my top list also accounts for about 7000 entries and has this profile:

hourly search activity of one person

This person searched for someone from Richmond, Virginia. Also for her secret obsession, pictures of gays making love to women, generally pictures of men making love to women, how to tell a man that you want to have sex with him, and math help for 17- and 16-year olds.