I came across elgooG (Google spelled backwards) really quite by accident. One
of those - let me see what happens if I type Google backwards in the search
engine we know well. To my genuine surprise not only did Google return something; but what it
returned was amazing. The first thing that came into my mind was Alice falling down a rabbit hole and into a curious hall (Alice in Wonderland Chapter
1).
ElgooG is the literal mirror image of the Google search engine; not only is all
of its content a reversal of Google, the search terms must also be written in
reverse in order to give you the desired results.
It turns out this
was originally created by All Too Flat
"for fun", and it found practical use in the People's Republic of
China after the domestic banning of Google, as it circumvented the government's
firewalls.
Another important
aspect is that because search terms in elgooG were typed in reverse, and the
search results were also in reverse, it was harder for intermediates to track
what users were searching for.
A bonus for me and those using computers in the 80’s will
appreciate is the simulated terminal mode (see image). Not only does it take
you back to ASCII based computer graphics of the day but the analog carrier
signals simulated by a MODEM connection has to be seen and heard.
Just as an aside
remember those early modems established a 300 baud rate (symbols per second)
connection. Now you’re probably reading this blog on a network connection of
say 9.5Mbps. That’s 9500000 times faster than the old 300-baud modems of the
era. Try the modem at:
No comments:
Post a Comment