StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I am a university student living in residence and consequently have no choice but to get my internet access throught the university. This would not be a problem except for one thing, they somehow block just about everything except for web-browsers. I can't even use IRC to chat with my friends. Does anybody know how they do this and how to get around it?

That's easy. Shut down all port forwarding on the router (total firewall) and then set up a transparent proxy server. Nothing will get through except for properly formatted HTTP requests.

If they're not as strict, they might just have a port-forwarding setup which allows port 80 through but nothing else. This would theoretically allow you to tunnel other traffic through port 80, but I don't know how you would make IRC work over the thing unless you had some host on the outside which would translate it back.

Luke Starkiller wrote:I am a university student living in residence and consequently have no choice but to get my internet access throught the university. This would not be a problem except for one thing, they somehow block just about everything except for web-browsers. I can't even use IRC to chat with my friends. Does anybody know how they do this and how to get around it?

Typically they do this by only allowing certain "ports" out of the firewall. For example, port 22 is the port usually for SSH/SSH2 terminals and port 80 is used for HTTP. Trying to circumvent your school's firewall would probably get your account at the university yanked. Not to mention the school's traffic likely passes through only a handful of connection points to the outside world, so there isn't really a way to get around the firewall.

Thanks for the replies, I will probably just have to wait it out till I move out and get a real connection. They technically can't yank my connection though since the fools never gave us a TOS to sign, the most we have is that we pay them and they provide service; as long as I am not doing anything illegal they can't do squat.

Firewall piercing (Don't do this): http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/H ... rcing.html
Or you can just hook up a modem and connect it to your phone line (assuming you have one)

None of those tricks will work against a totally blocked firewall with a transparent proxy running.

Pu-239 wrote:Firewall piercing (Don't do this)

Why not? Is it illegal?

Luke Starkiller wrote:Thanks for the replies, I will probably just have to wait it out till I move out and get a real connection. They technically can't yank my connection though since the fools never gave us a TOS to sign, the most we have is that we pay them and they provide service; as long as I am not doing anything illegal they can't do squat.

Um, you might want to track your TOS down and read them. The first line of ours says we agreed to it when we accepted our university place.

As a final year student, I'm going to interject here about the morality of using your university computers for things like IRC. Some people actually need the computers for research and writing up essays, and there's nothing more annoying than standing waiting for HALF AN HOUR for a useable computer when there is a deadline, while people use the college computers for IRC and posting onscience fiction message boards. College computers are there as vital learning tools.

Luke, look around you, is there anyone waiting to use a computer for actual bona fide college work? If so, then bugger off and let them use yours. You have paid for your education, not unlimited internet entertainment.


--edit--
I've just realised your talking about your personal access in your room, not a public cluster room, but I'm still posting this so that it can be read by anyone else using university computers.

What you might want to do is track down the network admin and ask him/her nicely to open up the ports necessary for your IRC program. (usually 6667, 7000, or 6699.)

Try playing a game like Counterstrike, which uses ports in the 27000s, IIRC. If you can play that, then they're only blocking a specific range of ports, like say up to 8000s.

Man, the University of Tennessee has it good. They dont give a rats arse as to what we do...

innerbrat wrote:As a final year student, I'm going to interject here about the morality of using your university computers for things like IRC. Some people actually need the computers for research and writing up essays, and there's nothing more annoying than standing waiting for HALF AN HOUR for a useable computer when there is a deadline, while people use the college computers for IRC and posting onscience fiction message boards. College computers are there as vital learning tools.

Luke, look around you, is there anyone waiting to use a computer for actual bona fide college work? If so, then bugger off and let them use yours. You have paid for your education, not unlimited internet entertainment.


--edit--
I've just realised your talking about your personal access in your room, not a public cluster room, but I'm still posting this so that it can be read by anyone else using university computers.

I just use my own dorm computer. The public comps are always crowded and slow as Christmas

Hey man, which UT campus do you attend? Martin?

Northwestern University didn't really care what you did, but they had packet shaping hardware to make sure all of the P2P apps weren't sucking up the bandwidth. Unfortunately, they shut down the OpenNap server on campus

Here at USF, their restrictions seem more lax, and they appear have unrestricted Internet2 access for the students