Printable View
I am at my college and they seem to have some sort of a firewall blocking ports. and not allowing me to do such things as chat with you all or use any sort a chat program. So if some one could steer me into the correct direction. So that I may increase my learning by talking to you.
-MrBert
Thanks.
Your best bet is probably a polite e-mail to the admin asking the reasons for the restriction and explaining the problem it's causing you. The fact is, it's the school's network and it's their perogative to decide how want to use their bandwidth and what their acceptable use policy is. If they aren't willing to allow the kind of traffic you're needing, I don't advise trying to sneak around it because you could find yourself in some hot water very quickly.
It may be that you could find a cheap local ISP for chat and such things. That's what I did in college because the university's network resources were overloaded.
Remember when explaining to them why you want to be able to chat here that you explain this is a security site, rather than have them misunderstand what this site is all about.
Unfortunately sometimes AO gets a bad rap because people don't understand what we are really about.
one legal way of doing it would be to find a computer outside the network, who's owner would be willing to set up a re-director to take input from port 80 or 21 and send it out to 6667. there's one, oddly enough, called redirect
You know its not a better suggestion, but it is a simple way around it. You could always use dial up for certain tasks.
Honestly, to me, it does make perfect sense that such "uneducational" activities would be blocked. Not necessarily blocking specific sites, per se, but blocking ports to prevent access to chat clients, IRC, P2P networks, etc. is actually a good way of (in a limited way) keeping the systems somewhat free of virii and trojans. Many infections occur through these mediums, and by limiting access to them, the admins will likely prevent the majority of infections. Also, I'm not sure what sort of policies are in place at your campus, but it is also a means of keeping students from installing various programs (such as chat clients, etc.) which may either carry infections or cause other system problems. My recommendation... if you want to access sites or participate in other online activities which are restricted by the admins, take it home. I wouldn't want to do anything like that from a campus system anyway, considering the logging features which many networks have. Just do it from the security and privacy of your own home...
AJ
Unless, of course, he lives in the dorm. That's the impression I got, but maybe I imagined it.Quote:
Just do it from the security and privacy of your own home...
I would personally go for the redirector! How many of us here can say that we haven´t installed a IRC client or so, where it wasn´t allowed? I would of course start with the polite letter, but that probably won´t work! IRC isn´t something that takes up a whole lotta bandwith... But always ask before you venture into unknown waters!
Good point... I didn't think of that, problemchild. In that case, if you are in a dorm, I would do as Joey_Batch_File suggests, and use dial-up for such features. If dial-up is too slow for you (I know I can never go back... I hate when I'm on a trip and have to use my cell phone to connect my Pocket PC or notebook to the Internet to check e-mail, stocks or something else), you may want to consider investing in some sort of broadband (either DSL or Cable) for your dorm room...Quote:
Unless, of course, he lives in the dorm. That's the impression I got, but maybe I imagined it.
AJ
As far as I know, I do not think Broadband internet access is available in the dorms. I had two friends look into it. One attending Florida State and the other attending the University of Connecticut. These two were told it was unavailable in the dorms according to the phone company and had nothing to do with the colleges guidelines/restrictions.Quote:
Originally posted here by avdven
you may want to consider investing in some sort of broadband (either DSL or Cable) for your dorm room...
in england over here we also have satalite broadband (i assume u have it there as well)
i dought it if they'll let u put a satalite on campus but its worth asking,its quite small so... :D
but if all else fails and u need to get past there blocks, lies, cheat, steal and be disonist.if your willing to take the risk that is.
Well at my university, they wired up all the dorms to the University network. At first, they relied on a firewall at their gateway to protect from the outside world; however, they started to experience problems of 'insider threats'. Curious students or even some outright malicious ones that were using their network connections to attack or take advantage of trust relationships inside the university network to hack into devices. Which predictably was resolved by installing a firewall at every dorm that had a massively restrictive ruleset (no more dialpad, no more IRC, no more naptser, etc).
I would suggest that you talk to your University's IM shop. They probably already have a policy produced that outlines conditions of use for your network connection. There are of course ways around firewalls (like the aformentioned redirection; however, IMHO, you are only inviting the firewall admins to tighten down further). If you make an appeal to them to open something and are denied, unless it is specifically denied by your use policy, use a modem and dial up to a local ISP to get those services (like IRC)...
Good luck,
neb
You have received very good advice here. The old adage that it is easier to get forgiveness than permission does not apply to most large institutions. Even back in the dark ages when I went to college there was an incident where students were poking around and setting up links to different locations and functions they had found. All of this was in a large configuration file shared commonly with about 200 students (I was offered it but turned it down since I prefered doing things my way and shortcuts meant I didn't learn the system). It ended up that one of the links was to the universities grading system. All 200 students got banned from the network pending the investigation. Most professors did not cut them any slack so if they didn't turn in their homework they were still docked. A number of my friends were part of the booted crowd. When they came to me to use my account I refused until after I had talked to the head of the CompSci department to verify it was ok. He released a notice that those banned from their accounts could use other accounts that did not have the config file.
The outcome of this was that two students were expelled for the semester (but were allowed back in the following semester) and a number were very inconvenienced. Security was tightened, and privileges were removed. All because two jokers (one whom I knew well) thought it would be fun to get around the system. Please note, neither of them were being malicious, neither exploited their findings, but many paid a price.
As an NSO I would not hesitate to remove permissions or even pursue dismissal of employees that did the same thing at my work that these two did at the college. As a security person I have almost 0 tolerance for anyone who threatens my data and my job.
direct PC satalite connection coud be your answer. i know students are straped for funds, but if you could get a few people inside your dorm to split the charge, and set up an internel network, wireless or otherwise....it could work out. satalite is a bit more expensive than cable or dsl, but if you distribute the cost, its still in the ball park.
Well, ya know... most security policies have a lot better reason for denying certain access and/or protocol other than just bandwidth intensity. I think it was problemchild who said it best... if it's against their AUP, then, you either live with it or you live with it or you live with the consequences when they find out you're violating it.Quote:
Originally posted here by retoor
I would personally go for the redirector! How many of us here can say that we haven´t installed a IRC client or so, where it wasn´t allowed? I would of course start with the polite letter, but that probably won´t work! IRC isn´t something that takes up a whole lotta bandwith... But always ask before you venture into unknown waters!
If you want something changed, send a polite email to the admin requesting certain access and understand that, if they deny it, it's their network and their responsibilty. They often can't (or won't) open access for individual users simply because the maintenance for individual per-user rules would quickly become prohibitive and, mostly, because certain protocols have certain insecurities or abuses associated with them or with their presence on the network. Since IRC servers and the networks they sit on are frequently the victim of DoS attacks, some admins would rather take the heat from killing a service as "guilt by association" and deal with the complaints than to open it up and worry about the possible "bad apples" out there (and the repercussions on both sides from such incidents).