[clug] secure remote access method [SEC=PERSONAL]

[jm]

Luckily I don't work in such a place either. But I have in the past and 
will in the future. Actually, at the place that I'm refering to in the 
past I was there when the group doing the network of the corporate 
network changed. It went from open we trust these people, hell most of 
them are network engineers, software engineers, etc anyway to you 
shouldn't be using anything other than the M$ office tools that we 
installed. Needless to say that productivity went though the floor and 
fun out the window. You couldn't even look at http://www.virginia.edu/ 
and when I complained I was told I need to state a business case. A 
business case to look at a university's website ?! By that time I'd 
already resigned so I decided not to bother. ( You should be able to 
guess what brain dead method was being used to block that website).

Anyway, I've been looking for a solution to this problem on and off over 
the years as I know I'm going to face it again and I know others face 
the same issue so there should be a solution to the problem out there. 
You may not always be lucky enough to be in a position to choose your 
employer that carefully.

Jeff.


David Tulloh wrote:
> I think there are two things here, the first is that the internet 
> becoming less open is only really happening in short sighted 
> workplaces.  The real solution I see is to either not work there or 
> change the policies.
>
> The other thing is you are looking for a general solution to lots of 
> different problems.
> I don't have to deal with silly blocking at work, I just run normal 
> ssh on a port other than 22.
> If they blocked non-standard ports, use one left open (imap for example).
> If you can only get out through a http proxy, make it look like http.
> etc.
>
> Personally, I would probably be looking for another job at around step 
> three on that list.  Pedantically blocking everything seems like a 
> whiff of a much bigger stench.
>
> I don't think there will ever be a general 'this is the way we avoid 
> stupid work restrictions' because a week later that's exactly what 
> will be blocked.  The better question is why are they blocking stuff?
> If it's a good reason why are you trying to get around it?
> If it's a bad reason why are you still working there?
>
>
> David