While I can think of several reasons you would want to do this, I can't think of any that make me want to help you. This isn't really a Perl question, either ... you might want to update your node to demonstrate that (a) you are doing something that is legal and moral, and (b) you are attempting something in Perl.

Of course they can tell. Webmasters have eerie powers. And legions of flying monkeys which they'll send out over the Intarweb to track you down and give you such a wedgie.

Not to mention they monkeys' eerie powers. Well, not really eerie; more . . . preternatural. I mean they can fly and give superwedgies, but that's about it. Above and beyond what one would normally expect from monkeys, at least.

Oh, and if you've ever logged in to the site from anywhere you'd better make sure to check the name on your waistband now (because that's how the monkeys check they've got the right guy; if you don't have your name there, they'll take your wallet to first check your ID and give you the aforementioned wedgie).

It sounds like you are planning to do something immoral and/or illegal - just don't. (And the site administrator will probably have the data they need to track you down should they want to.)

What about privacy concerns? What if he means he's a human rights researcher and wants to avoid arrest by a repressive government?

What if he's an agent of a repressive government who wants to surreptitiously research on human rights organizations in order to find dissidents to arrest?

If what they're trying to do is above board, state the objective up front rather than coming at it obliquely. There've been posters in the past that had questions in a similar vein that turned out to be trying to defraud someone (there've been other script kiddies; that's just the one that sticks in my mind due to the persistence and the astonishing utter ignorance of how networks work (OK, and the presence of one of my all time highest rep nodes :)).

It would also be wise to set your user agent to something normal.

This might be sufficient to avoid suspicion for most sites, but some sites will be more paranoid (I'd imagine safari would be one of these).

As I mentioned, a sufficiently paranoid site will likely catch you, by detecting behaviour that is not typical of humans.

A couple suspicious activities:

• Opening every link of a page in sequence
• Opening links that are not visible. This could be due to style settings, or being in an invisible block
If it's a commercial site with a monetary interest to protect, you will likely be caught.