sneaking onto gmail from work

HotDamnImAPhiMu · #1 01-24-2005, 03:08 PM

So I got into an argument with this guy, Brent, about gmail.

His work *just* blocked it. One of those workplaces that blocks sites like hotmail, yahoo, etc. so you can't waste time while you're there. Ideally. But they hadn't caught onto the gmail concept, apparently.

I have a theory that there are probably sites out there that are kind of "portholes" to things like that. Brent says I'm on crack.

Obviously, I'm no kind of expert -- I can type. Most of the time. And that's about the extent of my computer knowledge. But it seems like it'd be easy to set something like that up -- you go to one website, and that website allows you to go to others. But if your computer has blocking software on it, the computer doesn't realize you're going to the secondary websites. It just registers that you spent an hour at the first website.

Does that kind of thing exist?

Lil' Hannah · #2 01-24-2005, 03:22 PM

You can ping the IP, and then put that into the address bar. I'm really not 100% sure how to do this, but my friends used to ping IPs for sites, then you put the site's IP in the address bar and it takes you there. If his blocker blocks IPs though I guess he's screwed.

HotDamnImAPhiMu · #3 01-24-2005, 03:28 PM

See, I figured there was some technical way to do it. (Technical =
"anything other than just typing the address into the bar".)

He works for the gov't so they probably figured the IP thing out.

Maybe not though if they just figured out they should block gmail as of last week.

Lil' Hannah · #4 01-24-2005, 03:40 PM

Yeah my friend's place has the words in the address blocked, but not the IP address, so if you just put in 123.45.678.90 or whatever the IP is, it would take you there.

AGDee · #5 01-24-2005, 11:46 PM

It depends on what they're using to block it. My work uses metaframe tags, which are like descriptions of what is on the web site. I was trying to find the Hostess (King Dons, Ho Hos, etc,) site at work and googled on Twinkies. I found a cool web site by a former marketing agent for Twinkies and tried to go to that site. I started laughing hysterically because Websense blocked it for "Tasteless". I guess the site said that Twinkies have no taste and tasteless would be related to porn or something.. I dunno. But I can't read about Twinkies at work..LOL.

However, as a LAN System's Analyst, I can tell you that it's not all about "wasting time" but about using excessive bandwidth, increasing exposure to viruses, and other security problems more than being worried about wasting time. Our corporation keeps increasing bandwidth every six months or so and it's always totally saturated at lunch time and on Friday afternoons. People are forever downloading all kinds of spyware and adware and it can take hours to get a machine clean again, which uses up a lot of corporate resources when you have 19,000 computers.

Dee

Rudey · #6 01-25-2005, 12:00 AM

If they're stupid, then yes lil' hannah's way would work and you can mess with the hosts file on your comp to allow/ban addresses. I used to use this when Napster was first banned on our university servers.

The easiest thing to do is to use a proxy. Good ones are hard to find and drop like flies. Some folks have success with anonymizer.com but it doesn't really work and many networks ban it.

-Rudey