320541 - search string starting "phpbb..." in searchbar returns 403 from google

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, defect)

Description

[vickery]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7

I'd say it's a Google problem, except the same search term entered from the google home page or a google results page has no problem.  The 403 message page from Google contains text about "... computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests ...", which is probably just misleading.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Select google as the search engine in the search toolbar
2.Enter phpbb as the search string
3.Observe page returned by google

Actual Results:  
A page with the title, "403 Forbidden" and content saying, "    We're sorry...  ... but we can't process your request right now. A computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears that your computer or network has been infected.
    We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your computer is free of viruses and other spurious software.
    We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google."


Expected Results:  
To receive a search results page.

Problem occurs for both Firefox 1.5 and 1.0.7 ... different computers in different locations.  Virus and spyware checks indicate no problem on the client machines.
Actual search string can have more characters after phpbb on it.  Same search term works normally when entered on google home page and/or in the search box in a google results page.  Or if you type in "phpb" google asks, "did you mean phpbb" and you can click on the link for "phpbb" in that text and it works okay.

I will experiment to see if any of my extensions might be involved, but the fact that the problem occurs for both ff 1.0.7 and 1.5 where different versions of the extensions are being used seems to make this avenue less likely.

Comment 1

[Kevin Brosnan]

If you make google think you are using IE and you do the search in Firfox from google's homepage the search works. This looks to be fallout from an internet worm. I think this is a tech evanglisim issue.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/03/google_autolink/

Comment 2

[vickery]

(In reply to comment #1)
> If you make google think you are using IE and you do the search in Firfox from
> google's homepage the search works. This looks to be fallout from an internet
> worm. I think this is a tech evanglisim issue.
> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/03/google_autolink/

I know what the words "tech evangelism issue" mean, but don't understand what you're saying in this case.  And I don't know anything about the searchbar; does it send a different request to google from what a search from google's home page sends?  Maybe using post instead of get?  If so, it sounds like a bug.

Comment 3

[vickery]

I just exonerated Firefox, and apologize for the slander!

Following up on the previous comment and my reply to it, I did an http GET and verified that the url http://www.google.com/search?q=phpbb gives the same error result from google when entered in the addressbar of firefox, ie, and opera.  So the issue is that google, probably in response to the worm issue cited by Kevin Brosnan, rejects all GETs for /^phpbb.*/i

Dunno why the address bar doesn't have the same problem, but my "ff bug" is dead.