Getting around university firewall
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Hello all,
So I am VERY new to all of this… still trying to fix my ratio count after i fucked up and let it get waayyy out of proportion. However, i've used the free leech downloads to help fix it somewhat. Anyway, now that I'm at a university, and living there, their firewall is blocking my torrent downloader. Can anyone help me, like step by step, to fix this problem? Thank you!!!!
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Look into subscribing to a VPN service such as Private Internet Access. It encrypts all of your internet traffic so their filters can't see what you are doing.
(Note: If you can't get something like this to connect, you can usualy change the settings so it will work. i.e: change the protocal to TCP on port 443 and it will look like normal encrypted web browsing)
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I strongly discourage the use of PIA… I've tried it, and I'm about to cancel my subscription. Their customer service is slower than molasses in February to respond to your inquiries, and their software leaves much to be desired. I still CANNOT get it to work correctly in Ubuntu. Not only that, but THEY tell YOU what port you must use for your torrents, and there's no way to change that. So on top of not being able to program their way out of a paper bag, if you ever need assistance for something, you had best be prepared to wait a few days for a response.
Also, on that note, I cannot recommend the use of PureVPN either. They too were a thorn in my side for some time. As is stands now, I'm looking for a decent VPN provider... YET AGAIN!
But yes.. a VPN should resolve any issues that you may be having.
EDIT: For the record, I am in the process of filing the paperwork to take PIA to court as I am writing this edit to my initial message. It seems that PIA has absolutely NO problem lying to their customers IN WRITING, then refusing to honour their word. Not only that, but their customer service from my experience is TERRIBLE, and is something you'd expect from an Indian or Chinese call centre rep who does not understand what they're doing, so being that they're an American company, they're actually an embarrassment to the United States. I cannot stress enough the importance to STAY AWAY FROM PIA!!!
I've had nothing but trouble with them so far, and there's nothing convenient or easy about their port forwarding feature. God forbid you want to run two different torrent clients, or you want to run two different things that require ports to be opened, because that's simply NOT going to happen. Not only that, but this whole waiting for god only knows how long to get an answer to your inquiry is not exactly my cup of tea. I hate to say it, but at this point in the game, PIA ranks right up there with PureVPN for garbage VPN services to STAY AWAY FROM!!! Both PureVPN and PIA lie through their teeth to gain customers, then stall them for 7 days so that they can't be refunded for their money. Once you do actually manage to get them to agree to cancel your service, they'll send you an email saying that it will remain active until the end of the billing period, but this is NOT THE CASE!! When you cancel, you cancel EVERYTHING effective IMMEDIATELY, including your login to their web portal, which quite frankly, is utterly useless.
Unless you're a technical god, neither PureVPN nor PIA are easy to setup and make use of, and both more or less require that you use their primitive software, or pay outrageous additional fees to make full use of their services. If you chose not to use their software, they simply won't care and will not support you and getting their VPN service to work.
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Just thought I'd chime in again… I have found a reasonable VPN provider... PrivateVPN. They're based in Sweden, and I can confirm that they work GREAT with GT.ru… There's only a couple of things to take note of...
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When you click the pay buttons on the page, it will seem that the page refreshes, but that their stripe script is slow to respond. Do not be alarmed when this happens. Just wait a few more seconds, and the credit card prompt, PayPal prompt, etc. will eventually pop up.
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If you're using Ubuntu 16.04, their Linux CLI app does not install correctly (at least not in Compiz, but I haven't tested it in Unity yet), and it can cause havoc by trying to incorrectly establish a TAP session when you login, which then cripples your internet connectivity, but nothing that cannot be fixed by deleting the .crt and .conf files from /etc/openvpn, then running the following command wont fix:
nmcli con down tap0
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They support both TAP and TUN connections, so it's important to note a few things. As a general rule, it is recommended that you use the TUN configuration, as this comes with a more stringent firewall, which prevents resources on your local interfaces to be shared with resources on the VPN and vice versa. That being said however, for use with GT.ru or any P2P that you want to be connectable with, you need to use the TAP method, since you will need your machine's local NIC to have access to the VPN's network resources. Unless you're concerned with being connectable for P2P, it is strongly recommended for tighter security purposes that you always use the TUN method.
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Although the TAP method will allow you to connect and reach the internet through the VPN just the same, not all of the servers have this option enabled on their end... So... Just be aware that if you're using TAP to be able to have access to incoming P2P, you want to use one of the following servers:
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Norway
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Germany - Frankfurt 1
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Netherlands - Amsterdam 1
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Sweden - Kista
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Sweden - Stockholm
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Switzerland
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Ukraine
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United Kingdom
Only these servers will enable port forwarding. Simply put, when in TAP mode on these servers, by default the firewall will forward ALL ports directly to your computer, even if you do not have the port forwarded from your router to your computer on your local network through the magic of VPN. If connecting to any of the other servers using the TAP method will render the same end-result as the TUN method on ANY of the servers…. Just keep this in mind.
Lastly, if you want assistance or more information with how to get it setup, I got it setup pretty quickly, using only the guides on their website. I've also been in touch with their customer service, and they're freaking awesome from what I've seen so far.
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Is there a free solution?
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There quite possibly is a free solution, however if there is, I am not aware of a free solution.
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Wait, you're at a Uni that censors you? A fucking University? Maybe you need to change your firewall rules? Your University? Something is messed up here. And I live in public housing and my (ultimate) ISP is the University of Texas. There's no restrictions. And a pretty nice connection.
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Yes… It is not uncommon for universities to censor certain content from their network. This generally consists of adult content, and websites that promote or are otherwise affiliated with criminal activity. I sort of get the reasoning behind it, but what they fail to understand is that at this day and age, there is no such thing as internet censorship. Simply put, internet censorship is a myth!
Also, it is not uncommon for universities (at least in North America) to attempt to censor P2P traffic from their networks, as the majority of (although not all) P2P traffic is illegal pirating. This is generally done as a legal precaution to attempt to keep the university out of trouble by blocking such traffic from their network.
EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention that PrivateVPN can be set to work on TCP 443, or if you want port forwarding, can also be setup to use UDP 53. TCP 443 is used by HTTPS websites, and UDP 53 is used by DNS, so blocking either one of these ports to filter content would render the internet itself useless. This is one thing that I like about them. This way, there really is NO network that you cannot bypass the censorship of, because even if they force all DNS traffic to their own servers, there's also the TCP 443 route, which cannot be blocked.
So… Unless they're blocking all DNS traffic except to their own internal servers, and they're domain null routing to bypass VPN providers specifically by domain, there really is no way to control what content can pass through a network.
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Yes… It is not uncommon for universities to censor certain content from their network. This generally consists of adult content, and websites that promote or are otherwise affiliated with criminal activity. I sort of get the reasoning behind it, but what they fail to understand is that at this day and age, there is no such thing as internet censorship. Simply put, internet censorship is a myth!
Also, it is not uncommon for universities (at least in North America) to attempt to censor P2P traffic from their networks, as the majority of (although not all) P2P traffic is illegal pirating. This is generally done as a legal precaution to attempt to keep the university out of trouble by blocking such traffic from their network.
EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention that PrivateVPN can be set to work on TCP 443, or if you want port forwarding, can also be setup to use UDP 53. TCP 443 is used by HTTPS websites, and UDP 53 is used by DNS, so blocking either one of these ports to filter content would render the internet itself useless. This is one thing that I like about them. This way, there really is NO network that you cannot bypass the censorship of, because even if they force all DNS traffic to their own servers, there's also the TCP 443 route, which cannot be blocked.
So… Unless they're blocking all DNS traffic except to their own internal servers, and they're domain null routing to bypass VPN providers specifically by domain, there really is no way to control what content can pass through a network.
I've found such software for my Android phone..
What about my Windows PC?
Which software should I try firstly?
