Google and Captcha

[Ratsima]

Beginning this morning, every time I do a search with Google I get the following:

To continue, please type the characters below:

[Captcha characters and entry field appear here]

About this page

Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it's really you sending the requests, and not a robot. Why did this happen?

IP address: 110.164.nnn.nnn

Time: 2013-08-13T10:19:39Z

URL: http://www.google.com/search?q=losin%20koh%20kra&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

The IP address given is not my IP address, but it does belong to 3BB Broadband, which is my ISP. (My IP address is in the range 49.48.nnn.nnn.)

The "Why did this happen?" is a link that simply links back to the same page.

My guess is that this means that 3BB is now capturing (and recording?) every Google query and then forwarding the query to Google using the IP address given above.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Any other ideas?

[happysanook]

Well all your queries and everything you do runs through them anyways. They shouldn't have to capture and redirect if they want to snoop.

Could be just some sort of DNS issues. Give it a day and see if it clears itself up.

[SeaVisionBurma]

Are you in an apartment or condo building on a shared connection, or even a home or small office sharing a network?

I use SEO software occasionally which involves making several hundred Google queries in a short period.

Following this, if anyone else on the network tries to Google something they get the exact same response you posted above.

Its nothing sinister- they're just making sure you haven't got a spambot running on your network

Sent from my i-mobile IQ 1

[rakman]

Change your search engine site priority. How are you getting to Google for your search?

Which browser are you using?

Sounds like a DNS issue or search engine "hijack". Check which DNS server you're pointed to.

From a cmd window type:

ipconfig /flushdns

and see if it helps.

[Suradit69]

I just got the same message before 6:00 am this morning (when traffic shouldn't be much).

I've also sometimes come up with weird message like "Oops, Google couldn't find ______" and sometimes the thing it couldn't find was Google Search. I'm using IE10 on 3BB, but I think I switched once to Chrome or Firefox briefly and got the same "Oops" message.

[Ratsima]

I'm not in an apartment. There are a few computers on my home LAN. Only mine gets the message.

After experimenting a bit, I see that I only get the message with Safari (Mac). Not with Chrome.

I tried several DNS (Google, OpenDNS, 3BB), but get the same message.

Got it again at 6:00 AM this morning. None of the computers were active during the night.

For others who have received the same message, is the IP address in the message your actual IP address or is it a different IP address in your IP's pool of addresses?

[Suradit69]

I'm not in an apartment. There are a few computers on my home LAN. Only mine gets the message.

After experimenting a bit, I see that I only get the message with Safari (Mac). Not with Chrome.

I tried several DNS (Google, OpenDNS, 3BB), but get the same message.

Got it again at 6:00 AM this morning. None of the computers were active during the night.

For others who have received the same message, is the IP address in the message your actual IP address or is it a different IP address in your IP's pool of addresses?

Didn't check the IP address when I saw the message this morning, but come to think of it, the weirdness I've experienced with Google seems only to happen on my desktop. I don't think I've ever encountered anything similar using my iPad even though it's using wifi on the same modem/router as the desktop.

Edit. It just dawned on me to check the browser history and I got (see below), not my IP address and the time shown (23:57) would have been about six hours before local Thai time.

A check of that IP address shows up as 3BB in Pattaya: http://www.base64online.com/ip_address.php?ra=110.164.253.81

Edited August 14, 2013 by Suradit69

[Ratsima]

That's the same IP address I get. I suspect that is not your real IP address?

So far, I think I know the following:

• The problem is machine specific (never happens on other Macs or iOS devices on the LAN)
• The problem is browser specific (happens only with Safari)
• The problem is not DNS related (all machine and all browsers use the same DNS)
• The problem is not DNS cache related (on the Mac: sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder)
• The IP address reported by Google is not my external IP address
• The problem is not browser-cache related (emptied the Safari cache)
• My original conclusion, that 3BB was somehow causing this, was wrong

[Suradit69]

That's the same IP address I get. I suspect that is not your real IP address?

So far, I think I know the following:

• The problem is machine specific (never happens on other Macs or iOS devices on the LAN)
• The problem is browser specific (happens only with Safari)
• The problem is not DNS related (all machine and all browsers use the same DNS)
• The problem is not DNS cache related (on the Mac: sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder)
• The IP address reported by Google is not my external IP address
• The problem is not browser-cache related (emptied the Safari cache)
• My original conclusion, that 3BB was somehow causing this, was wrong

Well your conclusion are well over my head. I know how to turn my computer on and off. Anything beyond that I'm winging it.

As I said, I haven't had Google problems on my iPad (as far as I can recall), but have had issues on my desktop using the IE10 browser.

[brimacthai]

I got the same message this morning as well but didn't take much notice... until now that is... wonder what's up with this? I'm in Surin, private home with 3BB as well.

[Ratsima]

We're not the only ones:

http://trafficplanet.com/topic/6933-google-blocking-ip-for-rank-checking/

This discussion involves the same IP address and error message and 3BB.

I now think that 3BB changed something recently which caused this problem.

[tfbpa]

Had the same with my 3BB, didn't check IP address though and I am querying Google with advanced operators so I expected that to be the cause, although normally it doesn't happen.

So I guess something is indeed happening with 3BB as it doesn't happen with the same laptop with Firefox on my TOT connection from a different location.

[tollgate]

I had this yesterday once on my 3BB connection, Been fine since though.

[bangkokstick]

Also got it with 3BB but not with TOT and TRUE (I have 3 connections)

[Jale]

Have you tried indirect (and more private) access to Google and other search engines such as https://ixquick.com/eng or https://startpage.com ?

Edited August 14, 2013 by Jale

[MilesofSmiles]

What they're talking about in that thread you link isn't really normal usage.They're checking tons of keywords one after the other.

One way around is to try a different google datacenter.... .com .co.th .com.au .co.uk, etc.

Google will show captchas first, then soft ban 10-60 mins, then perm ban an IP for making too many requests (searches).

It looks this way to G , either because, the ISP is pushing many users through 1 IP, or the forward proxy is not passing on your WAN IP.

IE, everybody on the same ISP doing searches from what looks like the same IP. They think it's a scraper or rank checker and start to show captchas.

It's caused by sloppy setup by the ISP

Best thing to do is call 3BB and complain,

Either that you have some malware/virus doing automated queries in the background that you don't know about.

Some browser plugins also generate lots of traffic in the backround, so give that a look.

You can do 3-5 requests/second all day long.

Private proxies will work, hard to buy 1 of them though..

https://www.boxpn.com/ is a decent workaround, and cheap.

Adding 8.8.4.4 + 8.8.8.8 as DNS servers can also improve your predicament.

They're very fast, and unfiltered. Understand that google runs them, so, you'll get better ads

( add via adapter properties, DNS tab)

DNS is not proxy, don't try use it as one.

[Maestro]

Didn't check the IP address when I saw the message this morning, but come to think of it, the weirdness I've experienced with Google seems only to happen on my desktop. I don't think I've ever encountered anything similar using my iPad even though it's using wifi on the same modem/router as the desktop.

Edit. It just dawned on me to check the browser history and I got (see below), not my IP address and the time shown (23:57) would have been about six hours before local Thai time.

A check of that IP address shows up as 3BB in Pattaya: http://www.base64online.com/ip_address.php?ra=110.164.253.81, the time you made the quoted post.

2013-08-13T23:57:59Z is 06:57:59 A.M. in Thailand on 14 August 2013

[MilesofSmiles]

Try your browser in private mode, which will turn off plugins and make a few other changes.