Defilter

[Tallguy]

Does anyone know a proxy or a defilter that actuially works?? Something to unlockled game sites at my school???

[Tony]

any proxy works until it gets caught. As soon as it makes the list of "known proxy sites", it's useless. You could set one up on your home computer and run it as a server.

[Tallguy]

how do you set up a proxy??? i'm not really good with web programming . . . yet

[Tony]

well then it's an excellent project to learn stuff!

start by setting up a web server. Apache is bulky, but it's most widely used and has a lot of documentation. It's not too difficult to get it running.

[Dan]

It relay depends on how your school is blocking web sites. If they are using the classic method of just filter it at the isp or higher up network level then any proxy should do the trick. However they might be smart enough to block most popular proxy s and proxy sites.

The best method might be setting up your own proxy at home and using that or using tor

There is also the ethical issue of if you should be bypassing a restruion on your schools internet. They cleary did not whont you going to thos sites for a reason and it might be best to repsect that as it is there computer and there bandwith.


Edit: tony beat me to it :p

[Tallguy]

wats the best server to use to start a proxy

i somewat agree with u Dan, but my teacher doesn't mind us bypassing sites (only games) as long its not during a lesson, and he said if we could make one (proxy/defilter) he would give us extra marks . . .

[md]

running an ssh server is the best way of running a proxy. you can then use an encrypted tunnel to get almost anything around firewalls.

[Dan]

md @ 14th January 2008, 1:22 pm wrote:

running an ssh server is the best way of running a proxy. you can then use an encrypted tunnel to get almost anything around firewalls.

Thats partly why i recomend tor. Althought not tehcanly a ssh it does add several layers of encryption to each packet and scaters them acorss the world (threw the tor nodes) and more imporntly it is so easy to use any one could figer it out and works as a proxy witch he is allready fimiluar with. The down side is that it requres installing software on the computer being used (unless you get it on a usb key) and it is easy to block from the school borad side if they are smart enought to block all tor nodes ips.

[Tony]

Tallguy @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:15 pm wrote:

my teacher doesn't mind us bypassing sites (only games) as long its not during a lesson

It's funny, during the high school I was allowed to bypass security on the condition that I would figure it out on my own and not share the approach with others. Which seemed fair enough.

[ericfourfour]

At my school they now have a company that provides them with hardware that does the internet restrictions: http://www.watchguard.com/. The school board does not really have to be stupid about it now. I think its better that they have professionals deal with it rather than school board's IT people.

I used to be able to use Firefox portable to get around the restrictions (a proxy setup in the ie tools menu), but now I think it is actual restrictions on http traffic.

One thing a classmate suggested was to setup a vpn at home and connect to it from school. I have been trying what Dan suggested (Tor). I haven't been able to test it yet because the computer labs are all booked for isus.

[Dan]

Personaly i find it silly that the blocking is done on the school borad level or realy at all. I think it whould be better to leave it up to the teacher to deside what sites students can access in there class time.

Maybe the best soultion whould be to leave the censorship off the lab computers and only have it enabled on public computers where there whould be no teacher around (libray computers). It seems silly to go over borad with security mesures that only make a system harder to use (like the disabling right click thing some do).

At the very least they could put more logic in to the sites they block. I think this whould be a case where less is more. Just blocking the realy bad like pronographic sites and leave the rest up to the teachers.

[Tony]

we've just bitter that a school board in London has blocked compsci.ca

[Dan]

Tony @ 14th January 2008, 3:42 pm wrote:

we've just bitter that a school board in London has blocked compsci.ca

And dwite e-mails apprently

[Euphoracle]

Schools like to block sites like this because they people will steal code to make assignments easier. That may be true, but why instead not block the student rather than the site? This site is excellent for informational purposes. This is fairly relevant to my 1, 500~word 1-paragraph rant on the schoolboard in Durham. Why do it? Technology isn't to blame, people are, so blame them. Better yet, block access to everything but the school's shitty Joomla site and be done with it all. Why even bother with internet? Buy more textbooks.

[StealthArcher]

Well, no one ever said that school boards were necissarily that smart.