proxy servers?

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, my school just got sercurity crazed. We've had internet access in the classroom as a research tool for some years now. All of a sudden, the tech guys are blocking all kinds of websites for no apparent reason.

Is there a way to get around their blocks by using a remote server?

Thanx,
AJG

[gowator]

I use a ppptp tunnel to my home server and browse from there.

However Its not the simplest solution!!!!

It really sucks, I went to a site today actually looking for putty and the webblock filter comes up telling me its blocked becuase its a sex site!!!

Presumably in my employee record somewhere are all these records of me trying to visit sex sites !!!!!

[baldyeti]

I guess you could search google for say "free internet proxies" or somesuch. Then find one that is permanent and offers decent bandwidth for you. But most of them operate on non-80 ports, meaning you might not be able to talk to them through your firewall. Plus a very high number of hits will inevitably make that traffic rather prominent in you firewall/proxy logs. I don't think you'd stay very long below the radar. The best thing, really, is to discuss the filtering policy, and make it a point to report all blocks you find abusive.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

I do report the blocks that make no sense. Either I'm ignored, or the block is lifted for a short time only to resurface a week or two later! Its as if the filter is automatic and just blocks sites as they come up based on some criterion that makes no sense....

For example, my chess club is too big for the 4-6 tournament chess sets and clocks we have. So, every meeting, some of my students run an unrated section online playing against eachother over www.uschesslive.org but this site gets blocked everyother week! I never knew chess was X rated....

Regards,
AJG

[aay]

OK, my school just got sercurity crazed. We've had internet access in the classroom as a research tool for some years now. All of a sudden, the tech guys are blocking all kinds of websites for no apparent reason.

Is there a way to get around their blocks by using a remote server?

Thanx,
AJG

Are you running Knoppix? Use the JAP application that probono has on his klik page. Works great. Change the proxy settings in your browser to 127.0.0.1:4001

The official JAP page is here: http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html


EDIT

If they block port 4001, I think you can change it w/in jap. Just switch it to port 80

[tearinghairout]

Slightly off-topic, but this reminds of the story of the high school that implemented blocking software, then found that its students could no longer access the schools own home page because it contained too many occurences of the word "high".

[windos_no_thanks]

I never knew chess was X rated....

I guess you haven't seen History of the world part 1 by Mel Brooks...
Very off topic, sorry

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, aay! OOO, so that's what JAP is for. Oh, this is good, very good!

Thanx,
AJG