The Prestigious Prestidigitator, or, Greenland on my mind!

O

orca

Registered Users (C)
guys:

let me admit at the outset that i'm pretty computer-dumb. that didn't, nevertheless, stop me from trying out the hallowed script, which Greenland - and now most thankfully - Pork had bestowed upon us. however, in so doing, i might just have discovered something fabulous absolutely serenditpitously (and surreptitiously). this was all while trying to eek out details from the light-year distant supernova that is my ND - the astronomically placed 19th April 2002.

here goes:
if you run the script, say, a 1000 times, and the BCIS shows you the exit door for the next 24 hrs, you can still gain a re-entry permit to the game, albeit through the back-door. all you need to do is wipe off your cookies and files (by going to tools > internet options > delete cookies and delete files). after that you just restart your computer, and start off from where you left off.

i have been trying to set up proxy servers to run the script from multiple computers; things got frustrating, and i just thought i'd employ something simpler, and lo and behold! this very simple trick worked, to my utter disbelief. i've been able to pull off over 5000 runs within a few hrs and from the same computer, and without any major problems. just be mindful of the cookie monster, and hopefully with sufficient volunteers to firm up these data, the monsters on Sesame Street will give us a more comprehensive viewpoint of what's actually going on at NSC.
 
Originally posted by orca
guys:

let me admit at the outset that i'm pretty computer-dumb. that didn't, nevertheless, stop me from trying out the hallowed script, which Greenland - and now most thankfully - Pork had bestowed upon us. however, in so doing, i might just have discovered something fabulous absolutely serenditpitously (and surreptitiously). this was all while trying to eek out details from the light-year distant supernova that is my ND - the astronomically placed 19th April 2002.

here goes:
if you run the script, say, a 1000 times, and the BCIS shows you the exit door for the next 24 hrs, you can still gain a re-entry permit to the game, albeit through the back-door. all you need to do is wipe off your cookies and files (by going to tools > internet options > delete cookies and delete files). after that you just restart your computer, and start off from where you left off.

i have been trying to set up proxy servers to run the script from multiple computers; things got frustrating, and i just thought i'd employ something simpler, and lo and behold! this very simple trick worked, to my utter disbelief. i've been able to pull off over 5000 runs within a few hrs and from the same computer, and without any major problems. just be mindful of the cookie monster, and hopefully with sufficient volunteers to firm up these data, the monsters on Sesame Street will give us a more comprehensive viewpoint of what's actually going on at NSC.
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Orca,

I doubt if you are "pretty computer-dumb"....it takes some knowledge to do the things you are doing ... ;)
 
Orca,

I ran 1000 nos t through script this morning and then I read that customer service no has been changed so I thought to check my own status on net and it said I can not see the status because I reached the limit..

Thanks for the info. You are not a computer dumb for sure. But I read in this forum that BCIS actually remembers our IP address and it does not allow more than 1000 enquiries from same IP address per day. So I am surprised to see that this is not the case.
 
dear: i still think the BCIS 'remembers' (remember? "an elephant never forgets"! and an elephant (a mastodon?) of BCIS's stature could never forget). all that this deletion (i think) achieves is to 'erase' BCIS's memory banks. whatever works...
 
What is The BCIS Cookie Called

What do the BCIS call their cookies, where are they stored. It may be possible to modify the script to expire the cookie each time you make an enquiry.
 
orca

hardly what i'd call serendipity... that's just plain using the old bean. plaudits to you for your prestidigitation! there is something diabolically delightful in these furtive forays into the elysian fields... if only lucifer could have found his way back into grace by deleting a cosmic cookie...

paulclarke1, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find that cookie and kill it (not the cosmic cookie, the one in hades). this message will still be there in 5 seconds...
 
I have checked my system

I cannot find any evidence of a cookie being created when you go to the BCIS site or look up a case. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place, can anyone tell me where to find these cookies.
 
Not Always

This is not the case if you are running Win NT/2k or XP.

Dear. - Are you seeing a cookie being created or modified when you access the BCIS web site? If so what is it called?
 
Script!!!!!!!!!!

Mine 2 cents.... if you go to the BCIS Q&A page they say that cookies are NOT used with the status check. I tried the script and after being rejected found no BCIS cookies on my comp.

Anyway, they check our IP's to ban "overusers". In the case of dialup services, they provide a dynamic IP so restarting computer and reconnecting usually means that a new IP address is asigned and this solves the problem.

Another way of getting around is using these proxy servers, but have no clue how to do it. I tried using something called anonymizer which directs traffic thru some remote anonymous server, but in this case I could not retrieve any case info probably because the BCIS server rejects anonymous inquires.

Thus, maybe, lets assign some days among us and then create a master spreadsheet which we can then update. I can run the script for one day in March and June 2002, for instance. We can post which days we are intersted in and then split the work among us. I would be interested to spread the days throghout 2002 to see the progress and if number of filed I-485 is getting smaller as the time passes.

Please, post your comments and let's do something organized.
 
Pork

i'm retrying this cookie monster business - what happens is that the BCIS website is letting me in, but as an unwelcome guest. what i mean is that it lets me go through - perhaps - 200 more case statuses before it shuts me off again. they used to give me 500 cases (although from my home computer) after cookie deletion, but i guess they don't like me anymore. i know this DOES work, only that the persistence might not be worth a handful of 200 or so cases that you re-retrieve each time you are indeed persistent. i've been able to go up only by 1000 since last night, and that too after 5 cookie deletion bursts.
 
actually, in the case of a win2k or xp o/s, cookies would be under C:\WINNT\Temporary Internet Files

i just took a cursory look, and i found that the BCIS case status check precursor page, when first invoked, creates a "jsessionid" parameter in the query portion of the URL string, and the HTML itself is saved under the innocuous name of "index[n].htm" (in my case, n=1) under the Temporary Internet Files directory. doing a view-source on this file reveals that the HREF reference to the URL of the actual form where you submit your info has the "jsessionid" in its query portion, so the form upon invocation knows your jsessionid value. so, it ain't cookies. sneaky!
 
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i agree with monkz's idea... divvying up the dates amongst ourselves (possibly, two dates each: one's own, and any one other), and updating a master spreadsheet would be the right way to bite the elephant (or woolly mammoth).
 
i agree - sorry for sending you guys in a wild goose chase. could someone confirm that deleting cookies actually works? it STILL continues to work for me - pretty sinister, eh?
 
Orca,

I deleted the cookies this morning and I could see my 1001st query but afterthat it does not work. So we have to find some other way.
 
believe me - i'm doing it right now and it did 1000 more for me, but for a different date. are you sure you also delete the temp files and then restart the computer?
 
paulclarke1

i'm on LAN - but it's funny how it seems to give me lesser and lesser numbers of case statuses each time i do this stuff. i'm not sure what's going on. but as long as it moves, even at a snail's pace, i'll keep on trying to get more hits.
 
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