---
schema_version: "newruntime-reader-dossiers-v1"
type: "reader_dossier"
slug: "shodan"
kind: "scanner"
operator: "Shodan"
researched_at: "2026-10-23"
confidence: "medium"
json_url: "https://newruntime.com/readers/shodan.json"
canonical_url: "https://newruntime.com/readers/shodan/"
---

# Shodan

> Search engine for Internet-connected devices; its crawlers continuously query hosts and collect service banners for the Shodan index.

## Dossier

- Kind: Scanners & probes
- Operator: Shodan (https://www.shodan.io/)
- Documentation: none found
- robots.txt tokens: none documented
- Feeds: security scan, research
- Respects robots.txt: Not documented. No published opt-out or robots.txt policy found; scanner hosts reportedly use *.shodan.io hostnames (e.g. census.shodan.io).
- Verification: Reverse DNS
- Labels matched in our logs: shodan

## Why it matters to New Runtime (our interpretation)

Infrastructure scanning, not readership; exclude from audience counts.

## Observed behaviour

- Baseline 2026-10-23 (93-day window): 4 requests on 4 days; first seen 2026-07-29, last seen 2026-10-21; Returning.
- Live numbers: https://newruntime.com/bot-traffic-history.json and https://newruntime.com/crawler-journeys.json

## Sources

- https://help.shodan.io/the-basics/what-is-shodan
- https://www.netify.ai/resources/hostnames/census.shodan.io

Identity: A family name is what a client claims in its user agent. It is verified only when its request came from the operator's published IP ranges or passed forward-confirmed reverse DNS, as reported per family in /crawler-journeys.json. Anyone can claim any name.

All dossiers: https://newruntime.com/readers.md