Comments on: Google goes offline.

By: Frank

Frank — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:45:18 +0000

(Note to self: read … the … datelines … Frank)

By: Frank

Frank — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:43:20 +0000

It’s 6:49am here in Japan (Sunday, June 21 on our side of the dateline), and I’m getting nothing from anything google, including http://www.google.ca and google.ca. If this is some DNS change that needs to populate through to proxy firewalls, it seems to have left an awful lot of services in the lurch. In any case, the outage doesn’t seem to have settled out yet.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:30:01 +0000

^^ See Reader’s Write “I just noticed at the bottom of google.ca their is a direct link ………”

Cheers!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:55:08 +0000

I’ve needed a proxy to access p2pnet since about several months ago. A lot of blog sites are the same way. They restrict who can enter based on os, browser, scripting, cookies, or other factors. same with wikipedia, as my entire ip range for my isp is blocked.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:57:16 +0000

staying tuned.. and I guess the install instructions + config failed to mention you need to click “new identity” to connect to a new proxy (continue pressing new proxy until you succesfully connect to a fast one) your connection will be slower but hey at least your more anon than you were before. Do an IP trace and see if bounces even remotely near you. Did you manage to get google.com yet?

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:23:36 +0000

@ RR: This is starting to get ridiculous. I’ve installed Tor, and it’s running correctly. But I still can’t open anything to do with Google.

I was planning on asking their PR minions what’s going on and why users weren’t told about this, but I can’t even get into their media centre.

Frankly, I’m not exactly in love with Google and I wouldn’t even bother with it. But YouTube is sometimes useful.

It pisses me off royally to have to go to all this trouble just to be able to use their search engine once in a while.

Having said that, though, in an earlier comment I admit I’m totally useless when it comes to things technical and I’m still not at all sure my inability to open a Google page isn’t in some way down to my own incompetence.

UPDATE

There was some kind of delay â it’s working now.

Also, I’ve just emailed the Google press centre, to wit:

I run p2pnet.net, a daily digital media news site based in Canada, and I check Google news, among other sites, for items.

This morning I wasn’t able to log on to any Google page. Nor, using other search engines, was I able to find an explanation. Eventually, a p2pnet reader put me onto the Tor and I can now access Google.

I’d like to know: what caused the blockage; if there was an announcement somewhere telling Google users about it and how to resolve it; if so, where is the explanation located; and, why it was initiated in the first place.

Cheers! And thanks …
Jon

Stay tuned.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:09:49 +0000

I enjoy using google chrome at the moment I kinda like being able to search in the same box as the website header. As for why google would do this my only feeling is certain countries have enacted such legal restrictions that it has become necessary to restrict access to each countries google domain and then further restrict search results depending on the country but thats out on a limb here I wouldn’t have a clue what goes through their minds as long as its “not evil” I usually dont pay much attention. Im also guessing they chose to do their code update early in the morning when the site is the least busy.

can anyone else confirm the redirect (anyone not a resident of the US)?

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:56:22 +0000

Thanks, RR. I’ll get to fixing this a little later.

For now, other people must be having the same problem. How come, do you think, Google didn’t warn people about this? Shouldn’t there have been a very prominent announcement?

I now you’re not a Googler, but you may have a thought or two ….

Cheers! And thanks …
Jon

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:50:04 +0000

sorry let me rephrase that (now im taking up your comments sorry if you can combine them feel free) SOCKS is more of an encryption method between connections… and with Tor your connecting to several proxies at onces… Making it very hard to trace (im no expert please dont quote me on any of this) . If you made it this far congrats your official anon.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:45:59 +0000

FYI a Socks Proxy is a combination of several proxies at once. Your Ip will bounce world wide making it very difficult to track.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:41:27 +0000

I just noticed at the bottom of google.ca their is a direct link “go to google.com” which lets the viewer load google.com but if you type “google.com” into your browser you will be redirected to your countries google.

Tor is a SOCKS proxy, your IP will bounce from different hosts around the world making it difficult to track your whereabouts (possibly dangerous in some scenarios and probably a hit with spammers who avoiding being banned)

download/install the vidalia bundle (specifically Tor is all thats really needed but privoxy can be helpful at times) http://www.torproject.org/download.html.en
install the tor button into your firefox browser https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/
Or simply download the Tor browser bundle with firefox.
I wouldn’t suggest letting tor or privoxy run on startup its a waste of system resources only use it when necessary.

here are the complete install and config instructions for Windows http://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-windows.html.en
here are the complete install and config instructions for the browser bundle (might be easier to configure I dunno) http://www.torproject.org/torbrowser/index.html.en

also available on linux and Mac. Enjoy

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:28:45 +0000

^^ I wasn’t offended. I really am a complete dork when it comes to this kind of thing. I don’t even know what a SOCKS proxy is so I’d be grateful if you’d explain.

I doubt if Im the only one in this boat so at the same time, you can also tell other people how to fix this, although I have to admit Google is far from being the only outlet I check when I”m looking for posts and so far, it isn’t conspicuous by its absence. Not even nearly.

Cheers!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:04:20 +0000

jon sorry I was still lurkin,

All of the above are working for me (with google.com as the exception). I dont know what to say, I gave a guesstimate.

of course your not an idiot, all i meant was some code was changed and now if you access google.com your instantly forwarded (or redirected) to your countries google .ca .fr .whatever . I tested it with several proxies (as I said I dont recall this being normal I could always get to google.com). As for youtube I dont use it that much and it seems to be working fine.

http://www.torproject.org/ set up a SOCKS proxy and hit google/youtube see what you discover.

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:45:20 +0000

I’m a total idiot when it comes to anything technical and I’m afraid I don’t understand what “some kind of dev code change because now unless I use a proxy I cannot access google.com im immediately forwarded to google.ca” means.

However, I do know I can’t access Google or GooTube for whatever reason, and I have no idea how to remedy that (if I even wanted to ).

Cheers!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:27:51 +0000

just checked it out it appears (tho im certainly not an expert and im half awake) that their must have been some kind of dev code change because now unless I use a proxy I cannot access google.com im immediately forwarded to google.ca which never happened before that I can recall…

might have been to quick to report on this one jon. I dont ‘think’ its a malfunction or an attack.

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:27:45 +0000

Could the whole Google network be down? YouTube doesn’t seem to be responding either.

Cheers!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:15:19 +0000

google.com does not work either, not for me anyhow

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:02:12 +0000

this happened for me last night (EST) on google.ca google.com worked fine tho