--- TIC-TECH message:
We most all love to hate Bess. But most of us see the alternatives as
being worse. Maybe we should have a competition as to the wierdest site
that got blocked by Bess? But, the answer may not be all cut and dried.
Bess sometimes gets a bum rap. Just because you didn't get to a particular
Web site doesn't mean that Bess was the culprate (sp?).
I have been blocked on such things as going to Microsoft to register
students to take MicroSoft Certification tests. But, in those cases, it
isn't Bess but the Microsoft Server that blockes us. Their server looks
back at us for strong authentication, doesn't find it, and says forget it.
(At least this was the scenario in the past). But, if you look, you will
NOT see that big Red Dog. When Bess blocks you, she definitly lets you know.
You've probably noticed Bess has undergone some changes over the years.
Well, here is a change that might give you some hope, not of bypassing
Bess, but of working with Bess after you've been blocked.
I've always thought that once you see that big red dog, that you are toast.
No go! Well, that no longer may be true. In an earlier posting, I
mentioned Bess blocking a US Government site. That was true, but then it
wasn't true. Sometimes Bess will block you IF YOU HAVE A TYPO IN YOUR URL!
Judy backtracked that State Department problem and it turned out to be a
typo. Entering the absolutely correct URL got to the site.
As another example, I was called to one of the computer labs to figure out
why some kids could get to this one site and other kids were blocked by
Bess. The URL was long and involved, but as soon as I saw that it started
with "geocities", I knew that Bess blocked that site. But, wait a minute,
I could look over at another computer and see it loged into the "geocities"
site. A more careful examination of the computers that were blocked by
Bess showed some typos in the URL.
So, it used to be that a site like "geocities" was completely blocked by
Bess. It seemed to be "Don't waste your time even going there". But now,
Bess will block parts of a site and allow you into other parts of that same
site. So, if you get blocked by Bess, proofread your URL carefully. You
may still have a chance to get in.
-Wes
wfelty@gte.net
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 14 2001 - 23:05:16 PST