Re: Problem with the TB automatically usage of an alternative search engine

[Andrew Lewman <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:27:45 +0000
James Brown <jbrownfirst@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Today I have the next problem when the TB automatically use the
> ixquick.com-engine instead the Google:
> "We have recently received a large number of searches coming from your
> computer or others on your local network in a very short time frame.
> In order to protect our service against automated "screen scraping"
> software programs, your access to Ixquick's search has been paused for
> approximately one hour.
> 
> If you were using Ixquick normally, we apologize for the inconvenience
> and will be able to lift this pause if you phone us at (212) 447-1100
> (USA). Alternately, if you were operating a "screen scraping" program,
> you may phone us to work out an arrangement. You can also contact us
> at: autoquery @ ixquick.com"

This appears to be something new from ixquick.  In the past they never
rate limited queries from individual IP addresses.  The problem is not
with TBB per se, it's that ixquick is seeing lots of queries per IP
address.  

Before we launched torbutton 1.2.5 with this automatic redirect
feature, I asked ixquick if there was any problem in sending them
potentially millions of queries per day.  They never responded.  Now
that we have their attention, maybe they will.

-- 
Andrew Lewman
The Tor Project
pgp 0x31B0974B
+1-781-352-0568

Website: https://www.torproject.org/
Blog: https://blog.torproject.org/
Identi.ca: torproject
skype:  lewmanator
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