{"id":598,"date":"2008-09-02T07:53:11","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T15:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=598"},"modified":"2009-09-25T21:32:22","modified_gmt":"2009-09-26T05:32:22","slug":"shot-like-ben","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=598","title":{"rendered":"Shot like Ben!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some of my searches on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/\">Google<\/a> are resulting in a 403 error return (<q>Forbidden<\/q>) from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/\">Google<\/a> itself, with this message: <blockquote style=\"font-size: smaller ;\"><h2>We're sorry&#8230;<\/h2><p>&#8230; but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application.  To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.<br \/><br \/>We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.download.com\/Antivirus\/3150-2239-0.html\"> virus checker<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.download.com\/sort\/3150-8022-0-1-4.html\">spyware remover<\/a> to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.<br \/><br \/>If you're continually receiving this error, you may be able to resolve the problem by deleting your Google cookie and revisiting Google. For browser-specific instructions, please consult your browser's online support center.<br \/><br \/>If your entire network is affected, more information is available in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/support\/bin\/answer.py?answer=86640\">Google Web Search Help Center<\/a>.<br \/><br \/>We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google.<\/p><\/blockquote> This is, of course, a bit annoying.  But it is also interesting, as it says that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/\">Google<\/a> is acting to stop the use of their system by malware.  However, I don't see how <em>spy<\/em>ware <span style=\"font-style: italic ;\">per se<\/span> would make use of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/\">Google<\/a>.<\/p> <p>The searches in which I've engaged which have triggered this have used <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/help\/operators.html\">the Google <q><code>site<\/code><\/q> operator<\/a>, and have looked for a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.php.net\/\"><abbr title=\"gibberish abbreviation\">PHP<\/abbr><\/a>-generated page.  Further, the 403 error return is more likely to come after I have moved through multiple pages of results.<\/p> <p>My inclination is to think that what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/\">Google<\/a> is <em>really<\/em> trying to block is some sort of <em>zombie<\/em> searching for vulnerabilities in the sites to which it provides links.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of my searches on Google are resulting in a 403 error return (Forbidden) from Google itself, with this message: We're sorry&#8230;&#8230; but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,4],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information-technology","category-public","tag-google"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}