!!!!WAC02 I485 scanner!!!!

B

button

Registered Users (C)
!!!!WAC02 I485 scanner!!!!(taken off)

This is a small app scanning range of WAC number and discovering I485 cases out of them. Just enter the day (for example 050) and the number range (last 5 digits of the WAC number) and the scan will begin. All the discovered I485 WAC numbers will go in wac.log file as well as output on the screen. This app uses the new online case status info WEB site... My first observations are that I485 cases are pretty sparse among the WAC numbers (I485 cases are rare...)... Enjoy. Hopefully this app will contribute the other stats.

P.S.: After having the WAC number, one can go to https://egov.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/cris/jsps/caseStat.jsp and check its actual status.
 
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Bug fix(taken off)

This version displays the correct number of cases found on the screen when it's finished. Use this version instead of the one above...
 
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button

I think it is a great idea to collect results. I think it would be much help if you or one or two other people collect the data once and present it on a free website or something. If you put the program out like this, people might just push the limit of INS bandwidth and we will all be in trouble if this service goes down.

please think about it and comment

good luck...
 
makes sense, but...

neeru,

What you are saying makes sense, but unfortunately INS might be collecting some statistics on their WEB server - at least logging of IP addresses. If they notice that many requests are coming from same location (IP address), this may become suspicious that somebody is trying to "import" their database silently:) Moreover, it's not impossible to track down the person by his/her IP as well (which may result some unpleasant experience :( ) That's why, I think the requests to the WE site should go from different persons(locations) rather than just one person (location) and when someone finds out some WAC I485 numbers to publish them along with their status read from INS site (of course the last five digits can be skipped for "anti-abusive" purposes). This may give us additional status/approval information even without real users posting it to this forum... I think that most of us can set aside 5-10 min sometimes to scan a couple of WAC numbers (more than 100 is not recommended) from their day or any other...
 
WAC01 version(taken off)

niceguy101,
Here is your special edition :)
 
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MY 2 CENTS

Button, .. magnificient effort.

But here's the thing, as people mentioned above, this might hog their bandwidth if *all* of us start doing this and bring their site down or something. That site is a great tool for waiters like us, and frankly kudos to INS for putting up something like that. I read their plans to implement that not too long back. Pretty awesome that it is already there.

a) We don't wanna loose it.
b) We don't wanna give them any more work than they already have, since we know how efficient they are.
c) We don't wanna be caught as individuals trying to inquire about others cases and get our IP's tracked by fbi or something. (Don't know).
d) I think someone from India/China could run this app, (if we have friends there with broadband), collect the statistics and send us exactly how many have gotten approved versus blah blah.

Let me know what you think, but .. magnificient app ..
(PS: Maybe it'd make sense to add a delay between individual checks .. like 5 mins .. so the process takes a day but won't kill bandwidth). But I'm suggesting to take that application off.

- SM
 
scanner taken off

Silly Man,
You may be right. I took off the apps. All I wanted is to raise a discussion and to see some opinions. I hope I didn't screw something up. All I wanted is to help all these waiters.
 
Button

Button, I think you did good. What I told you are just my views. If other's feel different, we can put it back.

I thought of people putting porno on yahoo breifcases and then yahoo started putting bandwidth limiters on it. So people made apps to get around those bandwidth limiters and the bandwidth limiters started getting stricter. To the extent that today yahoo breifcase is useless unless you pay for it.

But I was wondering if somehow, you or someone could modify that app, so it'd send a request slower (not clog the b/w), and run it overnight when the site isn't bogged down. And also instead of just finding a 485 case, if we could log the status as XML .. then we could run some statistical analysis off of it in whatever platform we wanted to. And it'd be great to find out what WAC#'s are even valid so we can get some insight into what exactly is their numbering scheme.

And run it off their text version site, so the bandwidth hit is lower.

Then we could distribute the load amongst different people, so everyone runs a range of #'s, and we join our results together. First we can make such an app, then request for volunteers who'd run that for us.

Chances are, if they don't see a problem with your application bringing down their website, they won't bother you. Hey we wouldn't wanna introduce problems for us would we? We are dealing with a bad organization here, lets not make 'em worse.

Regards XML, I suggest the following structure

<wacs>
<wac>
<number>WAC02blahblah</number>
<casetype>....</casetype>
<status>....</status>
<date>....</date>
</wac>
...
<wac>
<number>WAC02blahblah</number>
<casetype>....</casetype>
<status>....</status>
<statusdetail>...</statusdetail>
<date>....</date>
</wac>
...
</wacs>

What language did you write that in? I'm wondering if I could contribute in any manner. I could write the analysis engine if you can provide the data in the above (or standardized) format, and then PCee can post the results on his site, and the XML downloadable, which we can refresh every 15 days or so.

It's a good tool and a great idea, we just need to mature it a bit.
 
long message

Also I might saw something that might be of help to you.

Using the following form,

<html>
<form name="caseStatSearch" method="post" action="https://egov.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/cris/jsps/caseRes.jsp">
<input type="text" name="appReceiptNum">
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Search">
</form>
</html>
Click to expand...

When you get the results as a string, in that string, search for
" <table width=100% cellspacing=4 cellpadding=0 border=0>"

... from there on to ..

" <!-- End Content -->" ... is the data you are interested in, and that is luckily in well-formed XML. We can just read that, run a xsl transform on it to convert it into the form we want. Introduce delay and poof, you have your app ready.
 
button, s-man

thanks for taking it off.

you did an excellent job creating it. I think you and/or a selected set of volunteers can just collect data and put it out (only if you have time ofcourse).

I am surprized at the speed with which you could put this out. INS should have employed you to create the status website in the first place!!

good luck...
 
seems i missed that app which button wrote......was thinking of writing a script but after reading this will hold on till someone slowly gets some data . INS shold realise we all tech persons wating so thye should speed up this process or our minds will work in such way only. LOL secondly now anyone can run such program from anywhere around the world and download data :cool: think INS should implement some security like some additional info of the person who's trying to access like last name / phonenumber / house number etc.
 
this was to tempting .... on average single day csc can receive application from the range of 3000 to 4000 . couple of days i checked it were 3610 , 3727 which include all type of applications GC renewal h1s visa extentions 485 ead etc etc.
 
scanner development...

Silly Man,
I used C++, but it can be done in any other programming language capable of downloading stuff from INET. Basically the app simulates browser by making HTTPs connection to the first page (this should be done, because otherwise their WEB app is getting out of state if you directly send your "POST" request to submit page :) ). After getting the response from the second "POST" request, I search for I485 in result HTML coming from the server. It would be a good idea to format an XML with this data. I will enhance the app to accept some command line args and to work in non-interactive mode as well. Also it will output the XML using similar schema you are proposing. It will include at least the following fields for each wac element:
<Receipt_Number>WACxxxx</Receipt_Number>
<Application_Type>I485....</Application_Type>
<Current_Status>Fingerprint Processing Complete-Non-Ident </Current_Status>
These fields can be extracted from the HTML relatively easily. I will leave XSL implementation and the WEB design to somebody else (maybe you).
Good luck.
 
Sounds good

Button sounds good.

Also make sure to point the requests to text versions of the site with some introduced inherent delay. Command line is a good idea.

Can you post a sample xml you create .. so I can get started working on some analysis based on 485's. But I'm hella busy, so don't kill me if it takes a while hehe :), depends if I get time. I'll give it my top priority after my paying job.

Anyway, another thing, just to make sure, your sample output is going to scan all WAC's, and put in all kinds of case statuses for all WAC's for all kinds of apps. This'd be great for other people and we'd get some clue into how they number their apps.

Once we have this ready, we can distribute this app to volunteers to send us XML files, so we could then put them together and get a nice comlpete picture of WTF IS GOING ON !!

Anyone have any other ideas? Please share. (Now? :) )
 
new version is ready...

Silly Man,
I'm ready with the new version of the app. This version is much more sophisticated than the previous one as it was just an experiment yesterday. I am quite busy myself (i have full time job anyway), but I think that it's an interesting app and that's why has higher priority :). Here is the XML schema (pretty simple) implemented right now in the app (WAC Scanner):
// <WACs>
// <WAC>
// <Receipt_Number></Receipt_Number>
// <Application_Type></Application_Type>
// <Current_Status></Current_Status>
// <Comments></Comments>
// </WAC>
// .................................
// </WACs>

Attached is a sample XML file, produced by this app. Also it now offers both interactive mode and parameter mode (for year, day, start number, end number, delay). Of course this new app will be available only per request for noble purposes :). Let me know if you have any comments. These are the command line options:

Usage: WAC Scanner [-h] [-i] [-q year day start end delay]

Options:
-h help screen
-i interactive mode
-q quiet mode
year = year to be scanned
day = day to be scanned
start = start number
end = end number
delay = delay between scans

It outputs an XML file with name:
WAC<yy><ddd><start number>-WAC<yy><ddd><end number>.xml

The app can be scheduled by some service on regular basis with an appropriate delay (during night time) and the output transformed with XSL can be displayed from a WEB site (by scanned ranges, for example).
 
more friendly look of the results...

Unzip somewhere and open WAC0203254100-WAC0203254110.xml in IE browser. The XML uses a simple XSL for rendering data.
 
act fast or....

INS might start asking couple of other questions like name, dob etc before giving the status out on the web site. It will then become difficult for anyone to get statistical data.
 
There is no need to scan WACs quicker being afraid of INS to require an additional data like an Alien Number or a name.
WAC list would have its value when only rescanned at least once a day.
So, it will all get useless when INS has the additional check implemented.
 
Got it

Hey Button,

Very cool. I got the XML. I gotta get to work right now, but I'll work on this today evening. While I'm working on the web page to render the statistics, do you wanna spearhead the effort of data collection?

Meanwhile, here is what I am thinking of implementing.

#1, % of total cases that are 485's.
#2, Tabular description of 485 cases only (Similar to yours).
#3, % 485's that are approved, in RFE, and in FP statuses.
#4, the last date I can find in the statuses so we know the results are fresh till that date (if their website is not regularly updated).
#5, (I am gonna try this), barchart showing range of WAC# with approved # of people on X and Y Axis.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

- SM
 
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