Beating Firewalls

[pjb89]

G'day Sim

I have to get around a company firewall in order to gain access to the chat room. Historically I have been able to gain access via the website http://cgiirc.otherwize.co.uk , however, I notice now that the connection is dropping out very quickly (sometimes only 30 seconds).

Can you pls explain whether or not my problems are related to the web site that I am using or whether it is those sneaky IT boys that are kept down in the dungeon, stopping my non-work related access and pulling the plug on my efforts to chat to like minded investor folk.

I have also tried another web site, but I find that my 'live' time on the chatroom has also dramatically decreased to only 20 seconds or so before the connection is dropping out.

Note that all other 'normal' internet access to sites etc seems normal.

PS...sorry for dropping out on the chatroom a few minutes ago..

Peter

 

[Sim]

Unfortunately you using a protocol (HTTP) which is designed for simple request/response type communications between a web browser and a web server. It is not designed for long running connections between two applications like you are trying to do with CGI:IRC.

It's a similar problem as what you would get with mIRC if you attempted to use HTTP tunneling to get past your firewall (as I have attempted to do at work in the past - with rather unreliable results).

The only reliable way to get through firewalls and such is to use a network connection protocol specifically designed for such things - this is what the socks protocol is for.

The actual problem with the connection is a time-out issue, where the IRC server doesn't respond quickly enough to keep the connection open - the proxy server thinks the connection has finished (because there hasn't been any data for a while) and so cleans up.

I'm not really sure there's much you can do about it.

CGI:IRC and HTTP tunneling is a nice idea - but is never going to be as reliable as a purpose designed protocol.

If you could find out whether there is a socks server at your office that you could use, then I think you'd have a lot more success (but you'd also need mIRC).