Accessing Racketboy Forums From Work

[racketboy]

So my site is blocked at work (along with any remotely popular gaming site).
I used to have a round-about way of posting to the forums that, while really inconvenient, at least worked when I did need/really want to post something.

However, now we've moved the site to a dedicated server that has it's own racketboy.com nameserver which breaks my little workaround.

So.... any ideas how I can access the site from work without being easily detected from work?

[RadarScope1]

Not the greatest solution but what about Web browsing on your G1? I hop on to this forum and NeoGAF on my phone when I really need to check something while at work.

[Hatta]

What I do is use 'ssh -D'. I install cygwin on my computer at work and use 'ssh -D portnum ipaddress' to log into my unix firewall at home. Then just configure firefox to use a socks proxy on localhost:portnum. In about:config, set network.proxy.socks_remote_dns to true to tunnel DNS traffic through SSH as well.

I've always used Cygwin/openssh to do this. If you can't install software, you can try Putty which should work but I haven't tried.

[racketboy]

Not the greatest solution but what about Web browsing on your G1? I hop on to this forum and NeoGAF on my phone when I really need to check something while at work.

Yeah I use it now and then, but I don't have 3G coverage and nothing beats actually using a real PC, ya know.

It would be pretty hard to keep up with the forum on the phone -- only good for posting urgent stuff.

[racketboy]

What I do is use 'ssh -D'. I install cygwin on my computer at work and use 'ssh -D portnum ipaddress' to log into my unix firewall at home. Then just configure firefox to use a socks proxy on localhost:portnum. In about:config, set network.proxy.socks_remote_dns to true to tunnel DNS traffic through SSH as well.

I've always used Cygwin/openssh to do this. If you can't install software, you can try Putty which should work but I haven't tried.

Not sure if that would vibe well with the proxy server I already have to use at work...
I'm looking into having a proxy server on my home machine and then can't I access it through my browser without having to change the actual browser settings?

[Inazuma]

Do you use Firefox? Check out this page for info on getting an extension that should help you.
http://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-web.html.en

[Hatta]

Not sure if that would vibe well with the proxy server I already have to use at work...

Yeah, depends on what they block. It's worth seeing if you can ssh back home though, they may only proxy HTTP traffic. Tor though, it's probably a little obvious. They can't tell what you're browsing, but they can tell you're trying to avoid detection. That's probably enough to get you in trouble. An SSH proxy would be a little less conspicuous, it just looks like an ssh session.

I'm looking into having a proxy server on my home machine and then can't I access it through my browser without having to change the actual browser settings?

Yeah, you might look into setting up a reverse proxy(at home) with apache's mod_proxy. Then you can just point your web browser at your home machine and read racketboy from there. I haven't needed to do this, so I can't offer any specific pointers, but howtos are readily available. Of course, you'll want to make sure you secure your apache installation well.

[corn619]

I bring my laptop to work and use my internet tethering ability from my iPhone. Theres a program you can use to do this free of charge "the name of it escapes me at the moment." I know you said you don't have 3G coverage at work, but it may work for other people with similar problems. You can do this with AT&T and T-mobile only though. As long as your not downloading huge files or nothing extra data charges shouldn't be a problem.

[racketboy]

Do you use Firefox? Check out this page for info on getting an extension that should help you.
http://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-web.html.en

Don't I need extra software installed as well? This would be on a company laptop without admin rights.

[Inazuma]

Do you use Firefox? Check out this page for info on getting an extension that should help you.
http://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-web.html.en

Don't I need extra software installed as well? This would be on a company laptop without admin rights.

I don't know. I don't have Tor or this extension installed so I have no first hand experience. However if it does require the separate Tor browser to be there, you can run that off of a USB thumb drive.

You could play around trying things at home and when you find a solution, set that up at your work.