How To: Access Blocked Websites at Work or School

Ok, I work hard to break stupid rules that the school district has in place for all of the elementary, middle, and high schools in our district. One rule that I love to break is going to blocked websites. I understand why they have to block sites with explicit content, and I almost understand blocking Myspace, but why do tech blogs such as Engadget, Gizmodo, Techcrunch, Lifehacker, and UneasySilence have to be blocked. My opinion is they don’t, and that is why I go out of my way to access the blogs, and Myspace at school. These tips may also help people who cannot access some websites because of restrictions put in place at work. The list follows after the break.

School Blocks, Website, Work

First I tried proxy websites, because they are easy and there are plenty of options out there in this field. All you have to do is do a Google search on web proxy servers. These work… But after a day or two of using the same site, and as people see the site and use it also, these sites are blocked.

The next thing I found was pinging websites through the cmd prompt in windows. This will give you the ip address of the website which you can put into your browser and sometimes it will allow you access to the website. The problem with this way of accessing the sites is that if you have a good IT guy they will probably block this too.

Next I found portable Tor and the Torbutton extension for Firefox. All of these programs can be run off of a flash drive. This worked really well and was fairly easy, you can get guides for all of the steps through a google search. I would actually suggest you try this method, because the likelihood of this being blocked is slim to none. The only reason it doesn’t work for me anymore is because my IT department blocked portable Tor as a virus. It is not a virus but they don’t want it run on their computers.

Now that I have a Mac I have a new way to break through the blocks. It can be done on windows too but it is much easier on a Mac. It involves setting up an ssh server on a home computer, leaving that computer on while at work or school, and using a program on a flash drive to connect to your server from your school or work. Lifehacker has a fantastic post on how to set up an ssh server here you can take their advice and use WinSCP or Putty. I suggest Putty because it can run off of a flash drive. By the way the Mac directions are almost at the very bottom of the page.

How do you get around blocks at work or school? Be sure to mention any ways I may have missed in the comments.

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