A Matter of Ports..?

[AYHJA]

Guys, I am having a brain fart...This is something that I think I should know, but for some reason I don't...Let me tell you what's up...

Every now and then, I head to the coffee shop on campus to get me some T1 lovin'...600 MB files uploading in 15 minutes, type lovin'...But anyway...

I can only access http on the campus WiFi...I can go to any site I want, but FTP, SSH, even trying to connect to my newsgroup will fail...I haven't tried torrents though, but will remember to the next time I go out...

My guess is that anything not having to do w/http traffic is denied to prevent people from using file sharing sites on the network...If this is the case, how can I check this out to be sure..? And of course, the next question is how to get around it if there is a way..?

[namehunter]

Your assumption is correct.
Site administrators can easily block any content they deem as un-acceptable @ the router level of the network.
8-)
As to how to get around it...
While I am sure there are ways...there are always ways it seems.
Short of kissing the admins ass, I know of none

[zaphodz]

Yeah many places I've worked at lock down everything except port 80 for basic web browsing.
I haven't port scanned in ages. Utilities that ring a bell for investigating network traffic include wireshark and ethereal. I'd have to fire them up again to work out which one does what...

[AYHJA]

Would there be a way to tunnel any traffic or disguise it you think as web traffic..?

[zaphodz]

When you have restricted ports or communication protocols or both - you are a bit stuck.

Effectively what this means is you can't take advantage of the uni's fast internet for anything other than what you are already able to do, i.e. http webtraffic.

The computer you want to talk to has to support the protocols/ports you have available. You can setup a pc at home and allow ftp or ssh on a specific port. Or you can install vnc on the pc and log into it via http from anywhere and use it as if you were infront of the keyboard. However, clearly you are basically just remote accessing your own pc with all its bandwidth limitations, i.e. its limited upload and download relative to the uni's.

You can tunnel various protocols over http:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_tunnel_(software)
but the computer you are connecting to has to have the same software on it to complete the transaction.

Most places do this deliberately to prevent leeching or network hogging.

One thing to remember is logs are kept of everything so be careful if your access is tied to your student or work number. If they allow anonymous access then that is harder to follow up. Every place I work in logs all internet activity by your work number. Subsequently I don't use the internet much.