Work Internet Filters

[Multibocks]

So my work blocked a bunch of websites that I use to pass the time. It appears to be a general block and not one that someone manually put each website in. I noticed that when I try to go to these websites the block has "category: games" and I was wondering if they just threw up a general block for all game sites? Do websites have to list what category they belong to or is that just something that is autofilled by their blocking software?
I hope they don't block this website as now I spend a lot of time here, engadget and gizmodo. I will be pissed if they block those websites too. Is there any way to get around the block? A web portal that allows you to view blocked websites? Any help is appreciated =)

P.S. For those of you who think I don't do my job and screw around: My job has spurts of activity, sometimes I don't even have the time to go pee and other times I could fall asleep for hours and not miss a thing. I'm looking to fill those dead times.

edit: I R winna for getting wrong forum.

[Tynk]

More then likely they actually have a third party vendor that supplies them with proxy filter categories which the can then allow or disallow category groups.
While this is much more efficient for the company doing the filtering, they do on occasion have false positives or negatives.

[Caspian]

My work just switched to a new provider. Usually the blocked sites are based on lists of keywords like "gaming", "WoW", "Megamillions", "Casino" or "porns".
If one of those words show up in the URL or URI (whats after the .com) it will block it. Sometimes they scan for keywords on the site itself.
This is the keywords tag on the page I am looking at.


<meta name="keywords" content="Multi Boxing, Multi-boxing, Dual-Boxing, Dual Boxing, Quad Boxing" />

There are ways around this. I have access to an external proxy that I can open an ssh tunnel to. I force my browser to use this instead of the corporate proxy and gateway and get to everything I want.

googling "free web proxy service" turns up a number of links. Depending on your company's implementation some will work for you and some will not.

This is pretty much what I use http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/jp107/xp-remote/web-tunnel/ with a private external proxy

[Multibocks]

Heh I tried googling the free proxy service, but every site I tried is blocked. I did find one that was attempting to use google's translation service (using translate english to english), but even though this was through google's website it was still blocked (not sure how they they can block it and not block google fully.) Oh well, it was worth a try.

[Caspian]

Yeah my new one blocked that too. Its because the blocked site is in the URI.


http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=10001
|--1-| |-----------2--------------------|-----------------3--------------------|
|------------------------------------4---------------------------------------------|
1. Protocol
2. Address site or URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
3. File
4. URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)
So with the google trick (shich doesn't work any more anyways - try it for something you can get to) the banned site is still in the URI so still get blocked.

If you knew that already, sorry, i was in the mood to make a cheesy diagram. If you didn't I hope it helped.
Try going here and setting up a shell account http://freeshell.org/
They try to ssh to it. Grab PUTTY if you have to. If you can get out you can set up an tunnel to to an external proxy. I think you could use something from
http://www.hidemyass.com/proxy-list/ .
Or, if you have one of the more common lynksis routers at home you can use this http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato and redo your firmware so you can have your own proxy.

[Nisch]

Get a job in IT so you're the one applying the filters. ;)

Amen to that. On most hardware boxes, you can assign a "safe IP" that excludes you from the blocks :whistling:

[aboron]

and a qos rule that prioritizes your traffic as well...

[Starbuck_Jones]

Sounds like smart filter, They use that at my work as well. Depending on how locked down your corp network is, you will either be boned, or there will be 1000 ways to get around it. For us, getting around it means bad things if you get caught.

[Multibocks]

ya I messed with it for a while now and it's just too damn restrictive. Oh well, guess I will start bringing books to work.

[Ellusionist]

Set up a VNC server at home, open port 5900 on your home router, go to work, connect to your home VNC server, and browse until your heart's content!

That is, if they haven't blocked port 5900. But I'm sure you could specify whatever you wanted. Hell, set your home VNC server to port 80. :)

[Wilbur]

http://www.coralcdn.org/

DHT based CDN, you can always reach the ENTIRE internet ;-)

[Jafula]

Or leave a PC on at home and get this software onto it (assuming the site is not blocked at work):

https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/

You don't need to mess with ports this way. Now you can remote control your home PC from work... well thats how I got around the web blocks at my old job...