Using Wildblue.vps FAP Script -- What happened?

[lahazard]

Originally Posted by Terabyte

I would characterize the current method of making the FAP info available no more secure than the last. The only thing they have done is rounded the numbers to hundreds instead of actual numbers. If that is security, it is security though obscurity and that of course is no security at all. All they have done is to give us less precise information.

All sounds quite Orwellian (newspeak) to me! It is WB that sets the limits we must abide by, but it is WB that makes it so darn difficult for each user to keep track of where they are in terms of those limits. What exactly are they "protecting" here?

Whose security......

(or profitability - or better yet (especially if you have a conspiracy theorist prone personality - the kind that seems drawn to the area where I live) - ability to control )

....is the real concern here?

And how does preventing access to specific FAP numbers it?

Nonetheless, I remain thankful to folks such as WildBlueGhost and Spice300 for helping the IT-challenged among us to be able to continue to police ourselves in terms of our day to day usage. (I'd still rather deal with all of this than move back into the "City." (or a more populated area in order to have access to other high-speed options.) It's a trade-off I make voluntarily and without regret. And if the doomsayers turn out to be right (i hope not, but I have my own doubts) then it may not be long before no matter where you live you will find more and more "interference" with your ability to move so freely and quickly so "cheaply" (it's a truly relative term, I know.)

All I really want from WB is the ability to police my usage in such a way that I keep from getting FAPped.

I accept the up and down limits. I accept paying a high price for the upper tier of usage allowance. I accept that the weather can cut me off at any moment. And I accept that there are many aspects of high-speed internet options that I will simply (most likely) never have access to (at least where I live) because of the nature of it being a satellite connection. What I do have with WB now is still way better than the really, really, REALLY crappy dial-up that was the ONLY option around here prior to WB and Hughesnet. (Even if I were to ever get FAPped, the slower speeds would still be faster than my old Dial-up on it's "best" days (which were extremely rare.))

So since I have no delusion that WB is going to voluntarily make it easier for us to police our own usage, I repeat that I am deeply appreciative of those of you who are both willing and able to help the rest of us do so. And I remain thankful for this forum as even though i do not spend a lot of time around here, it is always the first place I come when there is a problem as the folks around here have always been the ones who helped me resolve whatever my problem with my WB usage/service was.

Lou

[Terabyte]

Well said lahazard. I too give my thanks to those who have given us tools to track our usage in ways that make sense to us.

Oh one other conspiracy theory is this: If you can precisely meter and thus control your usage, you will not be afraid to use more bandwidth when you need to up to your limit. If you have no clue and are constantly in fear of being FAP'd you will probably use less. Indeed the 80% email warning will put the fear of you-know-who into you in that case. In other words it is an artfice to get people to use less without actually lowering the FAP (which I'm sure they have studied and have discovered that it would cost them subscribers).

So I conjecture that is the new test warning page if you are using the proxy (I don't use the proxy). If I have only used 6000 out of my 12000 for a the rolling 30 (which is accurate at this point) and decide to download a fresh Ubunto iso, I really don't need to be told about it by Wildblue. Having a page show up in my face like that would only tend to inhibit my usage when no such inhibition was warranted.

I think lowering the "return to normal" point to 70% and the warning page is the only part that studies showed they could benefit from without losing customers. Remember this is totally musing on my part -- I have absolutely no knowledge or information.

I know this is totally conspiratorial, but it doesn't hurt WB to know that this is one way some of us see some of what they do.

However, that theory about decreasing usage falls a little short because so many people find out about the FAP when they first unwittingly violate it. So what is WB's point? Danged if I know. All I know is that anyone who knows the least litte bit about IT and security knows that this new Fapmeter isn't one bit more secure.

[MAKAKA]

Originally Posted by lahazard

All sounds quite Orwellian . . .

The new WB business model.

[MAKAKA]

Here is a way to view usage; the way it was three years ago.
Copy and paste the code in a text editor.
Replace MyID with your WildBlue ID.
Save as a plain text file with a name "MyFAPusage.htm"
Open in your Browser.

One or the other of the servers should give some results but not always.

If you are only interested in the numbers just try one of the URLs.

<!--– Replace   MyID    with your WildBlue ID >
<html><head></head>
<body>
<center><Big> <Big>
<EMBED src="http://www.attwb.net/content/fap-sso/chart.swf?dataUrl=http://www.attwb.net/content/fap-sso/proxy_username.asp*user_name=MyID@wildblue.net" 
WIDTH="565" HEIGHT="420"></EMBED> <BR>
From AT&T Server
<BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>
<EMBED src="http://my.wildblue.net/content/fap-sso/chart.swf?dataUrl=http://my.wildblue.net/content/fap-sso/proxy_username.asp*user_name=MyID@wildblue.net" 
WIDTH="565" HEIGHT="420"></EMBED> <BR>
From WildBlue Server
</body></html>
<!--– Replace   MyID    with your WildBlue ID >

[boofus]

Originally Posted by MAKAKA

Here is a way to view usage; the way it was three years ago.
Copy and paste the code in a text editor.
Replace MyID with your WildBlue ID.
Save as a plain text file with a name "MyFAPusage.htm"
Open in your Browser.

Thanks for your efforts, but neither of these appear to work anymore. The ATT one won't even repsond to pings. Even though the other will echo pings, it doesn't return any data at all.

Boo

[WildBlueGhost]

Boofus that is strange that it works for me.
http://www.attwb.net/content/fap-sso...D@wildblue.net

[MAKAKA]

Originally Posted by boofus

Thanks for your efforts

As I said, some times it works.
An hour ago it did not; I just tried it and it did.

It's a crap shoot.

edit: the one that worked was the WB server.

[Terabyte]

Oh my gosh it is the long lost fapmeter. The ATT one just worked for me.

[YellowHammer]

They'll fix that..

[MAKAKA]

Originally Posted by Terabyte

The ATT one just worked for me.

Funny, it's the WB that works for me (off and on) today; go figure!

[boofus]

Originally Posted by WildBlueGhost

Boofus that is strange that it works for me.
http://www.attwb.net/content/fap-sso...D@wildblue.net

My understanding is that it depends upon what beam/center you are on. This is from a thread posted many months ago. I'm on the Duluth center, do not know what beam; altnough I'd suspect that the center would make a bigger difference than beam (due to IP routing).

Boo

[Terabyte]

http://www.wildblue.cc/wbforums/showthread.php?t=8118

That's the fix for Fapzilla or for WildBlue.vbs. I'm linking from here just in case someone didn't see it and also for future reference. Thanks all you smart people! This is awesome.

[Spice300]

Here is how my VBS script file has been accessing the FAP meters for the last three days. It first tries the NRTC FAP server, then the AT&T FAP server and finally the Ikano FAP server if the previous ones will not read. The Ikano FAP server no longer responds. It failed to read the primary FAP server 13 times out of 70 attempts, read the secondary FAP server successfully 11 times and failed to read both twice. That is a 19% failure rate at reading the first one and a 3% failure rate at reading both primary and secondary FAP servers.

5/5/2009,13:32:04,213,6753,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,14:08:08,,,Error contacting webserver. ikano FAP server
5/5/2009,14:32:04,211,6726,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,15:02:03,211,6729,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,15:32:03,211,6722,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,16:02:03,211,6724,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,16:35:06,210,6715,AT&T FAP server
5/5/2009,17:02:03,211,6718,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,17:32:07,211,6717,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,18:02:03,211,6718,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,18:32:06,211,6720,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,19:02:08,211,6721,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,19:33:28,212,6723,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,20:02:02,212,6724,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,20:35:05,212,6726,AT&T FAP server
5/5/2009,21:02:02,213,6729,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,21:32:03,213,6730,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,22:05:08,214,6738,AT&T FAP server
5/5/2009,22:32:03,214,6743,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,23:02:02,214,6744,NRTC FAP server
5/5/2009,23:37:03,214,6745,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,00:05:04,215,6747,AT&T FAP server
5/6/2009,00:32:03,215,6747,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,01:02:04,215,6748,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,01:32:03,216,6756,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,02:02:03,217,6776,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,02:32:05,218,6789,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,03:02:05,218,6790,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,15:32:04,211,6669,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,16:02:03,211,6669,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,16:35:06,211,6669,AT&T FAP server
5/6/2009,17:02:03,211,6688,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,17:32:03,211,6688,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,18:02:03,211,6688,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,18:32:03,211,6690,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,19:02:05,212,6708,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,19:32:04,212,6794,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,20:03:22,212,6819,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,20:35:07,213,6841,AT&T FAP server
5/6/2009,21:02:04,213,6913,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,21:32:04,213,6933,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,22:02:07,214,6983,AT&T FAP server
5/6/2009,22:32:12,214,6983,AT&T FAP server
5/6/2009,23:02:03,214,6986,NRTC FAP server
5/6/2009,23:32:06,214,6987,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,00:02:03,214,6993,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,00:32:03,215,6997,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,00:36:45,215,6997,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,12:02:06,207,6835,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,12:32:05,205,6788,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,13:02:03,206,6793,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,13:32:04,206,6771,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,14:04:36,206,6776,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,14:32:03,207,6784,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,15:02:03,207,6787,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,15:32:03,208,6790,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,16:03:31,208,6795,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,16:32:02,209,6797,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,17:05:08,ERROR,ERROR,ikano FAP server
5/7/2009,17:32:04,209,6803,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,18:02:06,210,6808,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,18:35:09,208,6780,AT&T FAP server
5/7/2009,19:02:03,209,6809,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,19:35:06,208,6774,AT&T FAP server
5/7/2009,20:02:03,209,6778,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,20:32:04,207,6719,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,21:05:08,207,6720,AT&T FAP server
5/7/2009,21:32:03,205,6690,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,22:02:03,206,6694,NRTC FAP server
5/7/2009,22:32:07,207,6701,NRTC FAP server

I have had more problems than usual reading the first FAP server but the second one usually works. When one server fails to read using the VBS file, executing the program manually will immediately read the FAP meter properly. If Fapzilla or the VBS files are written to read the same FAP meter several times upon an error, I think the odds of successfully reading the FAP meter will greatly impove.

[equivocal]

Could you recap on which are the NRTC, ATT, and Ikano servers?

[Spice300]

Originally Posted by equivocal

Could you recap on which are the NRTC, ATT, and Ikano servers?

The Ikano FAP server, which no longer responds, was the one originally used by Fapzilla. Its IP address was 216.126.204.65, and the server was accessed when using the following URL:

http://my.wildblue.net/content/fap-sso/proxy_username.asp?user_name=


The AT&T FAP server was discovered and posted by someone at this site after apparently modifying the "my.wildblue.net" portion of the WB URL. attwb.net resolves to 216.126.204.65 which is the same IP as the Ikano FAP server.

http://www.attwb.net/content/fap-sso/proxy_username.asp?user_name=

Boofus, the Duluth DNS server or perhaps your local DNS cache may not contain an entry for attwb.net. To make the AT&T FAP server respond you could try putting the following entry in your hosts file:

216.126.204.65 attwb.net

In Windows XP the hosts file is located in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\ and the file name is "hosts" without an extension.


In November 2008 someone here posted the URL for the Dish Network FAP server. Because one must append the Dish Network customer number (it begins with "ES-") to the end of the URL, it only works for customers who have Wildblue service through Dish Network. myaccount.dishmail.net resolves to 64.106.208.169.

http://myaccount.dishmail.net/wbisp/usage_gadget/usage_gadget_xml.jsp?u=


The NRTC FAP server is the one that is read when users who have WB service through the NRTC access their admintool page. The NRTC requested that I not post this URL over concern that the server would be overloaded if too many users attempt to access it.