August 15, 201114 yr I have been trying for several hours to connect to http://www.ssa.gov/onlineservices/ along with a half dozen other sites at the social security administration and they all time out without connection. Are these blocked or what?
August 15, 201114 yr Also, timed out when I clicked on the link. This issue has come up on other forums, like the General forum. The consensus is that it's the U.S. gov't doing the blocking of traffic from Thailand.
August 15, 201114 yr Author Thanks Nancy,I tried an ip cloak and it worked for me also. It seems rather odd that the Govt would block a Social Security website from access from overseas. I thought I was able to access this site a few months ago with no problem. Maybe I am mistaken.
August 15, 201114 yr Also, timed out when I clicked on the link. This issue has come up on other forums, like the General forum. The consensus is that it's the U.S. gov't doing the blocking of traffic from Thailand. Highly unlikely its being blocked by US gov. Especially in such a user unfriendly way (time out rather than a "sorry" message). A more likely scenario is bad cache on your Thai ISP's caching proxy server. Another less likely scenario would be a routing issue between your Thai ISP and that US gov netblock. Additionally, I have tested from both home (CAT Internet) and work, and I see no issues. [mestizo@alamo ~]$ telnet www.ssa.gov 80 Trying 199.173.225.5... Connected to www.ssa.gov (199.173.225.5). Escape character is '^]'. HEAD / HTTP/1.0 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Generic Web Server 1.0 Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:41:25 GMT Cache-control: public Content-type: text/html Connection: close Connection closed by foreign host. -Mestizo
August 15, 201114 yr Using two different ISPs - 3BB on my home connection and UniNet on my university computer and both give timeouts. My VPN connection to the US and it works fine. Seems more broad-based than a single ISP. Chiang Mai specific? //edit - one computer is using Google DNS and the other OpenDNS.
August 15, 201114 yr Same error here when I tried to make an appointment at the US Consuale via the ACS Appointment site It only seems to be affecting my computers on my home network. This happens on three separate devices: 1. A desktop PC running Windows 7 / 64 bit OS using the latest web browsers Firefox, Chrome, and IE9 2. A laptop running Linux Mint / 32 bit OS using the latest Chrome browser. 3. My mobile phone running Android. NOTE: I was able to use that same phone to make the appointment on the ACS Appointment site from a public hotspot with no problem. I have changed my DNS server settings, changed the SSL settings in my browsers, deleted my browsers cache and cookies and restarted my PC -- all with no success. Friends can access your site from their home computers with no problem as well. I am assuming that it must be something with either my ISP (CAT Telecom) or my home network setup or possibly my browsers security settings. Using a VPN allows a connection.
August 15, 201114 yr Times out every time on my building network. One of their agents told me before I came that accessing SSA from Thailand was not possible except by telephone or mail.
November 16, 201114 yr I am having the same problem ... cannot access the social security site or the department of education website. Did lookups on both sites, got the ip address and tried to reach them that way... no go. Anyone got any recommendations? WHen you say you use a vpn, how are you doing that? I tried hotspot shield and could not get in that way either.
November 17, 201114 yr I received this response from the U..S. Consulate back in September 2011 when i could not connect with their ACS Appointment site. A short time after that I was able to connect with their ACS site, but I still cannot connect with the U.S. Social Security sites. Thanks for your note, and sorry that you're having trouble with our website. There appears to be a problem with certain Thai ISPs (True, TOT, and 3BB), and our IT people are trying to diagnose it. [/size] In the meantime, we're helping people with appointments directly. What kind of service do you need? Also, do you have a preferred time to come in? We're open for service most Tuesdays and Thursdays (though we're closed this Thursday, September 8, for training). Back to the website: You might have trouble accessing other U.S. websites that use secure connections, like that of the Social Security Administration. One thing that seems to work is using a proxy server. If you'd like to try that, contact you ISP to get instructions on setting that up. Sincerely, American Citizen Services Unit U.S. Consulate General Chiang Mai ]
November 17, 201114 yr I received this response from the U..S. Consulate back in September 2011 when i could not connect with their ACS Appointment site. A short time after that I was able to connect with their ACS site, but I still cannot connect with the U.S. Social Security sites. Thanks for your note, and sorry that you're having trouble with our website. There appears to be a problem with certain Thai ISPs (True, TOT, and 3BB), and our IT people are trying to diagnose it. [/size] In the meantime, we're helping people with appointments directly. What kind of service do you need? Also, do you have a preferred time to come in? We're open for service most Tuesdays and Thursdays (though we're closed this Thursday, September 8, for training). Back to the website: You might have trouble accessing other U.S. websites that use secure connections, like that of the Social Security Administration. One thing that seems to work is using a proxy server. If you'd like to try that, contact you ISP to get instructions on setting that up. Sincerely, American Citizen Services Unit U.S. Consulate General Chiang Mai ] never had a problem connecting with US consulate office here in CM.... but today, finally got hotspot shield to work correctly and got thru to dept of education... but in general, it should not be so difficult. I sent email to Dept of Edu, asking them to look into the problem..
November 17, 201114 yr TOT Pattaya. It had been unavailable, but now it is back up. I suspect others problems will be fixed now as well. http://www.ssa.gov/
November 17, 201114 yr TOT Pattaya. It had been unavailable, but now it is back up. I suspect others problems will be fixed now as well. http://www.ssa.gov/ that link is still down for me, as well as the edu links... weird and wonky... the internet gods have spoken, i guess.
November 17, 201114 yr Might be your ISP. I have TOT DSL (Lamphun) and can connect without a problem. I have 3BB in Chiang Mai. I'll have to try that when I'm back in town.
November 17, 201114 yr No luck with my regular 3bb... I turn on HotSpot Shield and it works fine... My guess is that it's related to the ISPs. We might be collectively be able to tell if this is the case if the people reading this post try the site, and then comment if they can connect or not connect, and which ISP they use. If you're not sure of your ISP, go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and it will report your IP address and ISP in the lower left hand corner of the scan window.
November 18, 201114 yr Just got off the phone with department of education and they acknowledged that non - US internet addresses are not able to connect to DOE and SSA. They are working on the issue but do not have a timetable for the fix. So...hotspot shield is your friend, i guess, til the fix is in.
November 20, 201114 yr Might be your ISP. I have TOT DSL (Lamphun) and can connect without a problem. I have 3BB in Chiang Mai. I'll have to try that when I'm back in town. I cannot connect with 3BB in Chiang Mai.
November 20, 201114 yr Still up on TOT Pattaya. Anyway, there's always Ultrasurf in a pinch. thanks Jingthing! ultrasurf works better (for me, on 3BB in CM) than hotspot shield. Especially since several of the private torrent sites i belong to don't like HSS and kick me off when using it. Now i will have to see if MJ likes Ultrasurf... since HSS knocks out MJ also.
November 20, 201114 yr I did some searches on this "HotSpot Shield" program and it seems fairly safe, so I just downloaded it. No problems, just make sure you 'unclick' the addons it defaults to as you install. I was immediately able to connect to the SSA site and the speed seems fine. I will play around with it when I have time, but it accomplished what I needed so far. Thanks for the tip!
November 30, 201114 yr Might be your ISP. I have TOT DSL (Lamphun) and can connect without a problem. I have 3BB in Chiang Mai. I'll have to try that when I'm back in town. I'm in Chiang Mai now and I'm unable to connect to the site. Speed test shows Triple T Internet PCL although I pay my bill to 3BB. Hot-spot shield is your friend...
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