From: mortee <mortee.lists@...>
Date: 2007-11-01T11:24:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Bounty: $250 - Successfully log in to AOL Webmail with Mechanize


I think I have it figured it out. I have a script that can log you into
AOL webmail using Mechanize, to the point where it greets you with "Hi,
<username>". If that's what you needed, then I have the solution for you.

mortee

dave.myron@contentfree.com wrote:
> We're about to release a gem called Blackbook that will automate
> scraping contacts from various services. We have Gmail, Hotmail and
> YahooMail all done - they were easy - but AOL Webmail (http://
> webmail.aol.com) has stumped us.
> 
> After countless hours comparing LiveHTTPHeader captures of successful
> logins using Firefox (with meta redirects and javascript disabled)
> with logs of unsuccessful sessions using Mechanize, we're finally
> putting a bounty on AOL's head.
> 
> Comparing the Firefox session with Mechanize's shows they're nearly
> identical (seems like all but the Accepts header matches) until the
> very last request: Firefox is authenticated and Mechanize is diverted
> to an error page.
> 
> We're offering a $250 bounty to the first person to successfully log
> in to AOL Webmail with Mechanize.
> 
> If you'd like a starting point (which might not help much since it
> ends up at an error page), here's our code:
> 
> =============
> 
> require 'rubygems'
> require 'mechanize'
> 
> agent = WWW::Mechanize.new
> agent.user_agent_alias = 'Windows IE 6'
> 
> page = agent.get( 'http://webmail.aol.com' )
> 
> page = agent.get( page.body.scan(/snsRedir\("(https:[^"]
> +)/).first.first )
> 
> form = page.forms.name('AOLLoginForm').first
> form.loginId = '<your username>'
> form.password = '<your password>'
> page = agent.submit(form, form.buttons.first)
> 
> page = agent.get( page.body.scan(/onLoad="checkError[^\)]
> +/).first.scan(/'([^']+)'/).last.first )
> 
> =============
> 
> That mimics what we can do in Firefox (cutting and pasting where we
> use #scan in the code) and the last request should authenticate us
> (with several cookies including one named Auth) but we get redirected
> to an error page.
> 
> Good luck. In addition to your bounty, your work will also net the
> community another gem.
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
>