Breakaway From The Corporate Proxy Server

It has been a very busy week lately. However, that doesn't stop me from being idle. When you work for a company, you can't really work throughout the whole 8 mandatory hours, it is advisable to take a short break. What normally what happen is that break becomes a long break where for most PC workers would wander around in Cyberspace. That's when it affects the productivity of a company. I am guilty of doing that as well but eventhough it is unethical, I kind of redeem myself by not claiming for overtime hours when I come home late so that it is fair for both myself and the company. I think everybody do this type of thing, I even saw my superior got caught by me in the act.

Because of that reason, unlike home network where all the network ports are accessible directly to the internet. The IT department in my company deploys a proxy server and a dedicated network port for accessing the internet. To make it more comprehensible, here's a diagram taken from "Punching Holes into Firewall".



The reason of this deployment is because:

1. To prohibit the idling staff to surf time wasting websites such as blogger.com, friendster.com, youtube.com that can eat up a lot of your office time thus reducing your productivity


2. Instant Messenging is blocked because it is also considered time wasting as well. Think about it, which one do you spend more time on, chatting on Yahoo Messenger or calling people up on the phone?


3. These kind of social networking activities can consume a lot of bandwitdh and bandwitdh is expensive (except if you have chosen an unlimited plan). For critical moment, these activities can clogged the router's performance (if proxy server is not installed) and affects your internet connectivity


4. To prevent intruders/hackers from entering the network from outside of the domain beside protecting the network from any harmful viruses, malware or network attack


5. Why are you doing personal stuff on the internet during office hours? You are breaking the agreement you have signed when you were employed, right?

All those reason are so valid. I must say that I can even get fired almost everyday if I get caught of doing personal stuff during working hours but then again, as human we are not robots. We need some loosen up a little so that we can cope with the busy hectic environment or the quiet idling moment.

Luckily, Google Search website is not being restricted. This is where creativity take place. Using a combination of the right keywords, I found, "How to Bypass Most Firewall Restrictions and Access the Internet Privately aka The Surf At Work Page". I find the page to be quite technical and time consuming for me to understand how the method is. I saw an advertisement on the page and soon downloaded a software called HTTP Tunnel. Now this is what I am looking for all along, a simple Windows-based software that I can install and easily configure.



I wasn't happy about the restriction especially being blocked from Youtube. Using this software, I can now watch Youtube eventhough the corporate network has blocked the website. At first, I used the free server to connect but it was painfully slow. I wanted to pay the High Bandwitdh Subscription using my Public Bank Visa Electron but accidentally paid it using my Paypal credit. Oh well, it's only USD4.99 a month. Doesn't burn a hole in my pocket though.

Voila..I can now watch my favourite Youtube videos and my company wouldn't know what my online activities are. Although it says high bandwitdh, it is still limited to the internet connection my company subscribed from the ISP which in this case, TM Net Streamyx. I can now access Meebo, Friendster, Youtube and Blogger without fear of being blocked. The only problem right now is my Yahoo Messenger client program wouldn't work even after using this service. I then learned that the port for Yahoo Messenger is being blocked so I can only access the web-based Instant Messenging service such as Meebo. Oh well, that's not so bad.

It is good to know that there is no boundary what you can do over the internet. You just need to be a little creative and a little work to find the solution that you need. Happy proxyless surfing everyone!