tips for accessing vpn at public library

[eli2k]

The libraries I'm talking about are in Orange County, Huntington Beach (at least those are the two I've been to). I access my university VPN through a PPTP connection. At the public library, I can't seem to connect at all, not sure if they are blocking VPN connections or not. At home I can connect fine. I know they filter out certain classes of websites. But their wifi connection is unencrypted. I'm wondering what I can do to have at least some form of protection when working online, otherwise I'll have to just not do anything online that does not send data in encrypted format.

- Eli

 

[Emulex]

use an ssl tunnel if they don't pass ipsec/gre

 

[JackMDS]

If the University system is set to VPN how ssl s going to help?

 

[drebo]

The library may not allow PPTP passthrough. If this is the case, you will not be able to connect to the VPN. Perhaps you should talk to the people who run the library and make a request that they enable PPTP passthrough. That's really your only option.

I suspect, though, that they will be hesitant to do that, as any traffic that goes out through a VPN will not be subjected to their filters.

 

[eli2k]

So I haven't had a chance to go back there yet. But what I've done is set up my own SSH server on a computer I have somewhere else, running on port 443, and that seems to be working (the SSH and http proxy tunneling) from home. Do you know what I can do to see if the traffic is actually being encrypted over the VPN? And do I have to use a second computer to check the traffic, or can I do this straight from my computer that's using the proxy?