[MustGoFastR]

Got into work this morning and I can no longer access ANY automotive website! FA, My350Z, Edmunds, Carmax, any manufacturer's site, nothing!!! Zero, zilch, nada! All I get is this:http://10.254.1.204:15871/cgi-bin/blockpage.cgi?ws-session=1409298739

Luckily, I can still get on this site for some reason, for the time being, but WTF is going on?!

I work for a school dist (teacher) and we got a memo yesterday that our bandwidth was running short due to people downloading music and streaming video, niether of which I do, but WTF is up with blocking ANY page that has to do with vehicles?! I teach all day and get my job done; what I do on my allotted free/break time should not be regulated. I'm not eating up bandwidth by being on forums! I'm freakin' pissed!

 

[MustGoFastR]

Crap, the link doesn't work now. I'll copy and paste what I see into a post in a minute.

 

[MustGoFastR]

Here's what I'm getting:

WEBSENSE
Enterprise

ACCESS TO THIS PAGE RESTRICTED AT THIS TIME.

Reason: The Websense category VEHICLES is filtered.

Options:

Click more information to learn more about your access policy.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To view sites in this category you must use quota time. You have 60 minute(s) of quota time remaining. Click the Use Quota Time button to start a 10 minute session for viewing this site and other sites in quota-limited categories.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Click Go Back or use the browser's Back button to return to the previous page.

QUOTA TIME?! You've got to be freaking kidding me! Big Brother can suck my sweaty nut sack! :evil:

Anybody know how I can get around this? I've found that I CAN get to the FA forums, if I have a direct link or bookmark to the forum, but I can't access Freshalloy.com, itself. I have a bookmark to the forums index of My350Z.com, but still can't get there, let alone ANY automotive site, including auto mag sites.

 

[FXLENT]

They may be monitoring your usage. Be careful.

 

[MustGoFastR]

They've monitored our usage for years, but never regulated it to this extent. They block porn sites and such, but that's just common sense in education. They send monthly usage reports to all of the principals each month; no doubt I am one at our school with the most hits. She has said she doesn't really care how we use the internet as long as it isn't affecting our job. I teach a computer technology class that is very self-directed once started, so I oftern have time throughout the day to keep an eye on the forums and such. Of course, according to district policy, usage should be limited to educational purposes, but educational to whom? I find my web activities very educational to me; God forbid I learn something at school as well. As long as i'm not eating up bandwidth, I can't see any reason they should filter any site that has to do with vehicles. I can't find any mor info. on this "Quota Time" either, regarding how it is used up or how often it renews (daily, weekly?). It's likely only a matter of time before this site shows up on their radar as well.

I need to figure out a hack; any ideas? I'm tempted to jack into the phones and tie up one of the lines all day with dial-up; nobody could track my usage or block anything then, but they'd likely figure it out here at the building before too long as we only have 8 lines.

 

[kcrudup]

****, man- I feel for ya. I run Linux, and I paid extra for a higher-upload on my DSL line specifically so I can run my own caching proxy server over an encrypted connection; when I'm at the office, or at Starbucks (I have a wireless internet account thru T-Mobile there and hackers can sniff wireless) I surf this way- nobody can tell where I'm going at all, 'cause all the traffic really comes out of my home DSL connection, and is routed thru the encryption (SSH tunnel, for those who care).

 

[LibTech]

Can you use a web based proxy, like http://proxify.com/?

 

[particlefx]

I found a thread that might help. Essentially it mentions using babelfish to get around Websence (Websence is what your school appears to be using):

http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?thread=140732&forum=31&message=385510

In case you can't reach the thread, here is the text:

For quite sometimes I use babel fish translation site. Go to "www.google.com" then search for babel, it's the 1st result. Babel fish is an online translation site, the only thing is that when you "translate" a website, it takes as babel's internal page, therefore hide the address from websense. Works pretty well see if that would help ya, hope one day someone will defeat da evil WEBSENSE!!!

If you are not familiar with babelfish, it's here:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn

 

[MustGoFastR]

You guys are geniuses! ****, Kenny, that's pretty hardcore; I'm not sure I even understood that. The stuff I teach is a bit more basic and I'm a bit more into cars than computers in my personal life, though I did build my own beast at home. I need to learn more about networking.

Proxify.com does appear to work for just about everything, though It wants to make me pay for a subscription to be able to get on the forums of My350Z.com. I can still get here (thank God this site hasn't gone too mainstream yet; any way to keep it from showing up on Websense?) and to the FA forums from my bookmarks (since the adress is forums.freshalloy.com, I guess Websense doesn't catch it), so Proxify looks good unless they block that site at some point. I'll try Babelfish next.

How do I get access to a link that someone has posted, though, if it doesn't show the full address in the post, like on FA?

At any rate, this is at least a start. Thanks alot; I was feeling like a limb had ben severed there for a while.

 

[particlefx]

How do I get access to a link that someone has posted, though, if it doesn't show the full address in the post, like on FA?

Not sure what you mean so I'll make a wild guess:

Are you wanting to get the full url from a posted link that looks like this: cool website

If so (and if you are using Windows), right click on it and choose Properties. The full URL should be shown in the popup dialog and you can copy the text and paste it later. But then again, is that what you really wanted to know?

 

[MustGoFastR]

Yup, that was it. I kind of figured I should be able to do that; just hadn't tried it yet. Thanks. If a link provided in a post went to a site this Websense thing won't let me access, I would need to do that and access it through Proxify.

 

[LibTech]

Glad proxify is working for you - Babelfish is really doing the same thing (acting as a proxy) but they probably don't restrict the forum sites - You still run a high probability that the thought police will just add proxify (and maybe babelfish etc) to the blocked list - Just start up a debate about free speach and ask where the school stands on it!

Just out of curiosity, can you access the sites via the IPORT address like http://66.155.69.119:80/site/home.asp I would think they include the IP in the blocked list.

 

[particlefx]

Using the IP instead of the name is a good idea, however as soon as you click on a link on the target site, it will sometimes use the name again and you will be blocked.

 

[MustGoFastR]

How do I see the IP address for where I want to go? I also thought of e-mailing myself a list of links to my Hotmail address and accessing the sites through there. I think it'll do the same thing that Babelfish does.

 

[MustGoFastR]

OK, this is really wierd. I just tried the IP link above and confirmed that the browser DOES switch back to the regular addresses when I click a link, but the page still came up. Seeing as how it shouldn't have, I tried to acces a previously blocked page directly and it worked. Seems I have full access back; wonder what's up?

 

[particlefx]

Not sure what the easiest way to get the IP address is but I know this works:

1. Go to the Start menu and select "Run"
2. Type "cmd" into the dialog, press OK
3. In the console window, type "ping freshalloy.com"
4. It should then display something like: Reply from 66.155.69.119: ...
5. Drag over the the ip address to hilite it and press the enter key.

The IP address should now be copied and you can paste it where needed.

 

[LibTech]

What he said, or from command prompt type:
nslookup http://www.url.com

This will return IP and name, and will work in reverse too (i.e. with IP address as the input you get the domain name).

I don't think Hotmail will give you what you want.

Regarding access: maybe it's on a time based blocking e.g. 9:00am to 4:00pm?

 

[MustGoFastR]

Regarding access: maybe it's on a time based blocking e.g. 9:00am to 4:00pm?

Posibly. We don't get out until 3:45 but the high schools get out at 2:30. I checked it around 3:00 and had access. It may be set up to kick in when traffic on the network reaches a certain load as well. Or, they may just be experimenting at this point with different things to manage the network. I'll keep an eye on it and try to figure it out.

What's the deal with pinging? I seem to recall that my user agreement with my home Earthlink cable ISP prohibits pinging.

 

[LibTech]

What's the deal with pinging? I seem to recall that my user agreement with my home Earthlink cable ISP prohibits pinging.

I would not worry about it, I think it's an old hangover from the dial-up days when you keep a session alive by pinging the server before your idle time ran out. Although if you wrote a program to constantly ping, they'd be none too happy!

Do the kids comment on your FX?

 

[MustGoFastR]

Do the kids comment on your FX?

Yeah, they think it's pretty "tight". They don't quite have the same appreciation for it as they did my riced out Del Sol, though. :roll: