Latest MyDoom Variant Gives Google Problems

Devil's BSD writes "It seems like the latest MyDoom worm variant has caused a bit of an Internet storm. Google, at this time (12:28 EDT), is returning 503 errors on all queries submitted from certain locations. The MyDoom variant searches the user's address book for email domains (i.e. @yahoo.com) and searches various engines (such as Google) for email addresses in that domain."

Comments

What locations?

[ErichTheWebGuy]

is returning 503 errors on all queries submitted from certain locations

Is that geographic locations, IP blocks, or what? I can use Google just fine at the moment, but have heard of trouble in California (I am in Colorado). TFA gives no details. Anyone have answers?

Google is doing fine for regular searches...

[stienman]

Perhaps I'm simply 'located' better, but I can do regular google searches just fine.

But when I ask for "email slashdot.org" it returns a forbidden search page.

So it looks like Google is primarily stopping searches that are typical of this virus, but they may also have automated filtering that stops searches which are too many from IPs and netblocks. This part is probably something they implemented long ago.

But google is going slower for me today, and sometimes it stalls (some of the frontend machines dropping out a bit more frequently than usual?)

-Adam

well. com(mercial) is bad anyways

[Keruo]

use mirrors instead:

http://www.google.co.jp/
http://www.google.fr/
http://www.google.se/
http://www.google.fi/
http://www.google.ca/

all above seem to be responsive atleast to me

Re:Ah hah

[gmuslera]

AllTheWeb and Teoma are good alternatives, as far I remember, and do some things in a smarter way than Google. MSN search is supposed to be improved in a beta URL (there was an history here about it some weeks ago)

And you have also metasearchers, that not only search google, but also others. If you want almost the opposite of google in simplicity, you can try Kartoo, where you can have graphs with aggrupations on search results, flash animations and things like that.

Last, but not least, there are a search engine that you can use to find search engines very close to you. If its good enough, probably there is a Slashdot article on it, so slashdot search is a good first step if all the other search engines you know are down but you still can access slashdot.

You keep using that word..

[aziraphale]

... I do not think it means what you think it means.

i.e. is an abbreviation for the Latin id est, "that is". It's a synonym for "in other words", "that is to say", or (sort of) "specifically". It does NOT mean "for example", or "such as". For those expressions, you're looking for the Latin abbreviation e.g. - exempli gratia, which means "for example".

Saying this virus "searches your machine for email domains, i.e. yahoo.com", you're actually saying that it "searches for email domains, in other words yahoo.com". This implies that yahoo.com is the only email domain it searches for (or that you are an idiot, and honestly believe that 'email domains' is synonymous with 'yahoo.com'), which makes it seem like a rather pointless search, to say the least.

I.e./e.g. confusion seems to be increasingly common, which surprises me, because it doesn't seem to me that their meanings are at all similar. It seems rather like confusing the phrases 'In spite of which' and 'since Thursday'. Since Thursday, people still seem to do it.

If you really can't remember whether you mean i.e. or e.g., then just write out 'for example' or 'in other words' in full... it doesn't take that much longer.