I'm sitting here at work (I'm a TA at a local high school) and I have computer access during my study halls that I cover so I can pass the time. Obviously I can get to the forum with no problem, but I can't access my Hotmail e-mail account because the district's network administrator has that domain blocked using the BESS Internet Filtering Service by N2H2 ( http://www.n2h2.com/ ) Is there a clever way of getting around these things?
Thanks, Ken S.
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10:14 AM
PFF
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Cliff Pennock Administrator
Posts: 11569 From: Zandvoort, The Netherlands Registered: Jan 99
Wow Cliff, that site is blocked by my firewall at work under pretty much every category they have! Are they maliciously running over boxes of kittens over there???
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11:01 AM
JSocha Member
Posts: 3522 From: Felton, MN, USA Registered: Apr 2001
We have a company FW that I have set filters on to heavily visited sites that are not work related during the day, especially ****, dating sites, sports, etc... and as they come up after reviewing them. I do leave some and talk to our boss about it to get his okay.
I just leave the ones open that I need (and of course with the boss's approval)
But there may be a reason why they have set the filters to possibly avoid lawsuits and stuff based on potential content.
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11:03 AM
Raydar Member
Posts: 40685 From: Carrollton GA. Out in the... country. Registered: Oct 1999
Try one of the services like http://www.anonymizer.com. One other problem is on the server side some sites will not accept connections from known anonymizers.
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11:50 AM
Cliff Pennock Administrator
Posts: 11569 From: Zandvoort, The Netherlands Registered: Jan 99
Easy: Use a modem on a fax (analog) line if you can find one.
Harder: If you have broadband at home, proxy hotmail off a system in your house.
Easy but could get expensive: Get a cell phone like mine with a serial cable. That hooks me up anywhere, but mail is about all it's good for at 14.4kbps (Verizon service with a LG TM510 phone).
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12:49 PM
kslish Member
Posts: 1475 From: Womelsdorf, PA Registered: Apr 2000
I know why the school uses the filter. It's to keep the kids from chatting or doing e-mail when they should be doing classwork in the labs. However, the system is flawed...it blocks sites primarily by looking for keywords in links or URLs. For instance, I can surf every section of the Fiero Forum except for section #3 - General Fiero Chat. That is because the link has "chat" in it's name and that's a keyword that triggers the filter.
Ken S.
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02:01 PM
FieroLisa Member
Posts: 1992 From: Sebastopol, CA Registered: Nov 2000
Hehehe, I remember BESS. If I remember correctly, BESS blocks everything that they havent looked at and if you see something that's blocked and know it isn't something bad, then you are supposed to report it to them and they will review it and if they see fit, they will unblock it. When I first encountered it at school, all you had to do is go to the "Internet settings" part of Netscape or IE and turn off the Proxy server. After a bunch of people started doing this and the word spread, they made it so you couldn't do that anymore. However it might work where you are at.
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06:54 PM
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kslish Member
Posts: 1475 From: Womelsdorf, PA Registered: Apr 2000
Thanks Pontiaddict, I'll try that trick tomorrow to see if it works. I did remember some funky stuff in the internet control panel...but I'm not that familiar with Windows NT and 2000 (I'm mainly a Mac and Linux man) so I was sorta just poking around.
And Lisa....grrrrr, no comment
Ken
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11:29 PM
Aug 31st, 2001
FieroLisa Member
Posts: 1992 From: Sebastopol, CA Registered: Nov 2000
Ken, since you're already familar with Linux, if you've got a box inside the firewall and access to a *nix machine outside you can try running the browser remotely through an ssh tunnel. Depending on the bandwidth of your connection it might be a bit slow but usable.
Keep in mind that bypassing firewalls is very often a policy violation that you can be "writen up" or imediatly fired for. Many comanies using filters are also using activity logging. They will know where you went, how long you were there, and so on.
Many companies block access to email to prevent virus infestations and other things like SEC violations. The local exchange/sendmail servers use various antivirus and other monitoring software.
Pretty much every IT person I know is sick to death of the time it takes to clean up these messes. Company boards and share holders are sick of the cost of these problems. Expect more and stricter policies in future.
Examples... One guy is being sued and may face jail time for installing the Distributed Net client on PC's at a college durring Y2K work.
A woman was recently fired for having a bunch of MP3 files on her machine.
An area bank recently fired a bunch of people for "inapropriate material" and similar issues.
Many companies are moving to Win2K desktop so that they can eliminate user ability to install crap like Webshots, Gator, Bonzi Buddy, Comet Cursor and other.