Choking the internet

I've often wondered about the vagaries of internet traffic.

This little blog chugs along nicely at three to four thousand looks per month. That's not a big deal, but it's not nothing either. Historically, the top three audiences for the think tank at Falling Downs are the US, Canada, and Russia, in that order.

Russian page views have sporadically disappeared for months at a time. That's not something that can happen unless somebody somewhere is deliberately choking off traffic. It's impossible to have had 50,000 page views from Russia over five years and then have exactly none for months at a time.

We're not surprised by this. After all, Putin's Russia is much given to paranoia, and probably for good reason. After all, you'd be paranoid too if the greatest military empire in the history of history had it in for you.

But here's a real puzzler; my number one audience is following the Russians. Today I had more page views from France than I had from the USA!

Again, that can't happen unless somebody somewhere is deliberately choking off traffic.

Why?