How to get around web filter?

Question

Please don't say proxy! My system admin at school has talked to my dad, whose another system admin for a larger school district, and all proxy sites are blocked, psiphon and google cache's and site's loophole doesn't work, I have no access to command prompt, and our school filters out political blog sites to push there own intentions on us (that's what i believe, anyways). Currently working on downloading tor and trying to sue it, but is there anyway i can mess with the web address to get around the filter? Whenever i try, this pops up in the address bar;

http://10.100.4.103:81/cgi/block.cgi?URL…

along with this annoying thing;

ACCESS DENIED!
Internet access to the requested website has been denied based on your user profile and organization's Internet Usage Policy. If you believe this is incorrect please contact your Technology Coordinator with the applicable information.
User/Machine:
Pembroke_AD\M86-SrHi\17yodera
IP:
10.207.6.62
Category:
R Rated
Blocked URL:
www.normalsitethat'sharmless

For further options, click here.

I've tried almost everything, including copy pasting the ip address, it's still blocked. My dad knows I'm good with computers (when you're the daughter of a system admin, it's expected) and won't help me at all. PLEASE HELP!

Answer 1

Well, believe it or not, you're going through a proxy which is filtering your requests with that denial message. It's pretty tough to get past those -- the only option would be to inject a VPN service onto a school PC -- that is if the VPN IP's are not blocked. You can purchase a VPN service, put it on a flash drive, take it to school and install it (if you have admin rights). If you do have admin rights, perform the full install of the VPN program and make a connection out to your VPN service provider. Once you're connected to them, you should be able to browse past the proxy..



Now since I work for the technology department of a whole State which includes managing over all the schools in the state, I can say they are more than just proxied at the edge. You'll need to get past their firewall as well that is probably blocking well known VPN ports for your school's subnet.





That's about it. Otherwise, they have it locked down pretty well. Use your smartphone to browse the net and not the schools computers :)



So to draw out how your connection goes is this:



School PC > MDF Closet Switch > Main School MDF Router Edge > School District Data Center > Internet



The Data Center is where the IDS/IPS, FWs, and Proxy servers sit.

Answer 2

if you have the ability to run programs via a flash drive, then you could use a portable edition of firefox on the drive:

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable



and putty to set up an ssh tunnel through the school's proxy:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/



You'd also need another pc to connect the ssh tunnel to which will actually process your web requests and send the info back to the portable firefox browser. Ideally, you'd set up your pc at home with a ssh server and then leave it on, so that you'd be able to connect to it.



There are some concepts you'll need to learn to pull it off, but it is doable with the right tools:

http://chamibuddhika.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/ssh-tunnelling-explained/

Answer 3

I endorse employing http://www.vpnpower.net to be able to unblock web-sites. I have been using them since 4 years.