Nottingham Uni situation

[old.Muz]

As posted in the news. Us quake peeps at Nottingham uni have had a bloody great firewall slapped on us

The situation is this: All connections to student bedrooms no longer give direct access to JANET. To access the internet we must go through a web cache in which ALL port numbers have been disabled, so this not only affects quake, things like ICQ, yahoo pager etc. wont work either.
If anyone has any clan members from Nottingham uni, then PC's in public user areas aren't firewalled, but playing games on those machines can land you in a heap of trouble. So they're a bit screwed!

If anyone knows a way round this, then please help!
Also, if anyone knows of any decent chat programs which will work through a firewall (not one where you can put the firewall settings in, cos we dont know them) then please also get in touch.

....and the comp centre has the blatent cheek to tell us to use modems through our phone sockets to access ICQ and games.....at a nice rate of over 8.6p per min!!!!!!!!!

 

[old.Trojan1]

Oooo - Ouch!

Your Quaking days are numbered methinks

 

[kryt]

SHIT! Tell those a***holes at Nottingham uni to sort themselves out, stop being pricks and give you some form of real connection!
That aint fair, tbh its taking the piss
If i was there, sad as it seems, i would make sure i move to a real uni


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| |KrYt3N| |
redalert@barrysworld.co.uk
Q2BattleUK Admin and IRC Co-Ordinator

 

[old.[GA] Shovel]

^^^^ Kryten - the master of subtlety.

Erm - I know you can find IRC proggys on the net - java ones. but not sure how durable they are - or if even they will work through a proxy.

Erm - nor am I sure quite where you can find one... oh well. Hopefully this will jog someones memory. :/

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Shovel shovel@q2battleuk.com
Grey Area
Q2BATTLEUK

 

[DApea!]

Nope, most firewalls dont support Java.


Mine dont

If it does, there is a chance you will be able to run a Q2 server, but if they esp stopped UDP, then u f3k0r3d.

try http://irc.barrysworld.com
(too see if urs lets Java stuff through)
Quite usefull.

 

[old.acker]

>me crosses notingham off my ucas form!
>begins to write another dammed one!

 

[old.Trojan1]

LOL! According to a m8 theres already a note flying around one of the Worcester colleges about the Uni firewall. Amazing how news travels.

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Regards From Trojan1

 

[old.s@xon]

Heh. I wouldnt come to SouthBank Uni either. They've had a firewall up for years and they dont provide access from Halls anyway. You can dial in using their PPP software but they only have 30 lines (and 16,000 students)

Welcome to HPW-VILLE

 

[old.[GA] Shovel]

Regaridng the 8.2/min prices - ouch!

However - why not use something like ClaraCall and use the free access? Or use Bt and stay connected all week!

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Shovel shovel@q2battleuk.com
Grey Area
Q2BATTLEUK

 

[old.Muz]

cos all our phones are on some crappy ntl card sceme where you have to use pre-pay cards to phone externally. you have no choice about it - its either use them phones or take your pc to the nearest bt phonebox!!!

bah!

 

[old.Delboy]

I'm split down the middle on this one.

In one sense I'm thinking "Thank f**K for that!"

Having Janet users suddenly arrive in amongst a game full of modemers is bad enough. (Ping of 23 versus ping of 200)

Certainly cuts out on SOME ppl sitting at terminals all day downloading warez and prAwn, meaning there might be some bandwith for any of us who use the same internet Pipe.

On the other hand, having that sort of connection free is great for many students.
It's all part of their education and leisure really.

I'll have a ferret around and see what the situ is with other Uni's. Could be a worrying trend right across the UK.




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[old.Monyet]

you mean they let you play from the halls before? crikey must've been damn NICE to have those openGL graphics and fantastic ping

most unis firewall off the accommodation network stopping UDP and all other games/chat related stuff.

just play from the public machines

most students do these days (that's what it's like here and at imperial and most unis)

as for IRC and ICQ :-
IRC you can use a bouncer - which will just bounce all IRC things off whatever webserver (like the webcache server or something)
i had one somewhere.....

and for icq........i've seen ppl using the linux version - open up an X session on a remote linux box and run some icq clone

i think there's also a java version of icq you should be able to run on a linux/unix box.

 

[reubs]

Monyet mate,

if you 'find' how that IRC trick with the 'bouncer' works, mail me the details will ya?

If anyone out there has come across a decent, relatively simple to use

destop or browser app that can 'proxy' IRC, mail me the details also.

I'm aware of most of the 'IRC in a browser' solutions, ActiveX and Java, but they don't address the firewall issue, an effecient HTTP based app polling a serverside proxy on port 80 anyone?

Mail me at Reubs@barrysworld.com and we'll see what we can sort out for everyone...

cheers

Reubs

 

[old.Cheesebury]

btw they probably didn't stop it to be malicious and just piss students off, more likely is that they got the bill from JANET and thought "oh dear" and decided they better do something about it.

 

[DApea!]

Errr, no..


Like most fast connections JANET is a flat-rate deal, as in.

Pay £15,000 a year.


no bills.

 

[old.Muz]

not entirely true - as of last year JANET introduced on line charges for all transatlantic net traffic. Which is probably why they cut off ICQ. (they still could've left us with the UK quake servers tho!

( )
I am interested in this "bouncing" program, I've heard about some people using them for ftp o get past the firewall, if they can be usedfor ICQ, and someone knows how to set em up then get in touch!

btw: if we're caught playing games on the pubic comps, (they have cctv in the comp rooms) you get a severe bollocking, and you can get kicked out of uni for it!!

 

[old.Monyet]

www.symbiosys.org

Go to the downloads section you should find ircBounce there

you should be able to bounce IRC off the firewall - this one even managed to let you receive DCC (albeit a bit slow)

-Mon

Reubs - i've no idea how it's done but i'll ask my friend who knows the guy who wrote it

 

[old.taBOO(take2)]

Help!!
I'm on that shitty ntl card scheme thing too from Christmas and i know nothing about it. Can i use an 0800 dialup or do i have to pay through the nose in order to satisfy my habit. Thanks for any help you can give me.

ben.

 

[old.[LSoG]YeLLoW]

I was in halls last year at Manchester Uni (although the hall was UMIST run). Great connection - I'd reccommend it for any quakers, except that they've recently started charging residents for transatlantic traffic.

A little ping program showed me that JANet often routes via New York to get to BW, so as I understand it, Q2 could get very expensive very quickly

Dunno about other servers, but if you can't play on the best.......

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LSoG]YeLLoW
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Lava Seals: HOO-YAH!
www.lavaseals.freeserve.co.uk

 

[old.CrimsonHaze]

To chat through a firewall you can use an ASP based chat. There's an example at http://www.roweb.co.uk/forum (look in the top right corner for chat link)

Problem is works on a server refresh so there's a bit of a pause. However there are better ones around (( but you need to pay for them).

If you want a copy of the chat code let me know and I'll email it to you)

Luck 2 u !

CrimsonHaze
ICQ 374128

 

[old.The_Fury]

Monyet, IRC Bouncer is a nice program - I don't suppose that you know of any "bouncers" to connect to?

John.

 

[old.Cheesebury]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>A little ping program showed me that JANet often routes via New York to get to BW, so as I understand it, Q2 could get very expensive very quickly<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Listening ChronicBob?

(sorry argument we had about this very thing)

 

[old.Monyet]

erm - we used it to bounce off our webcache/proxy server....

errr.....just bounce it off the proxy you use to browse the web - it's damn impressive