Wierd Google response

[blackangst1]

So...I have IE7 as my normal browser and FF setup to use Privoxy/TOR. EVERYTIME I do a search on Google with FF via TOR I get the following text:

We're sorry...

... 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.

And makes me enter a code to proceed. Sometimes it will then take me to my search results, other times it cycles through the same security warning.

Any ideas?

(No, Im not infected)

 

[John]

http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ

4.10. Google tells me I have spyware installed.

[link]

This is a known and intermittent problem; it does not mean that Google considers Tor to be spyware. Instead, Google tries to detect certain kinds of spyware or viruses that send distinctive queries to Google Search. It then notes the IP addresses from which those queries are received. Finally, Google tries to warn the users of those IP addresses that it received queries indicating an infection.

When you use Tor, you are sending queries through exit nodes that are also shared by thousands of other users. If some of those users are infected with software that Google detects, Google may mistakenly conclude that the exit nodes themselves are infected (because the requests appeared to originate from the exit nodes) and, for a limited period of time, will try (incorrectly) to warn all Google users who share an exit node with an infected machine that they are themselves infected.

You may also get this sort of message when lots of Tor users are querying Google in a short period of time. Google interprets the high volume of traffic as somebody trying to "crawl" their website, so it slows down traffic from that IP address for a short time.

To our knowledge, Google is not doing anything intentionally specifically to deter or block Tor use. The error message about an infected machine should clear up again after a short time.

If we think of a measure that would prevent users from seeing this sort of spurious warning message, we will certainly suggest it to Google and to other web site developers. There may also be technical workarounds for Tor end-users affected by this problem; if you find a useful workaround and write up a description of it, please let us know.

 

[blackangst1]

Thanks for the reply John. I understand about the exit nodes...but wouldnt Google base this response on IP traffic? Because I use Privoxy I pretty much have a different IP every time. Perhaps that is my problem?