Forum reading from blocked location.

[mcb]

Well, no luck with https or proxies. All are blocked. SSH tunneling may be risky, I will need to really think through. We no have no vpn or desktop and you tube is also blocked ( band width conservation) . What we have is virtual desktop with no downloading capability.

Large companies can be juicy targets, and it make sense for them to lock things down. Social networking sites present significant risks, which is why even my present employer was blocking them for a while, even though they actively make use of social networking to reach out. Allowing remote access presents even more risk of things bridging from the Internet to the internal network.

Back when I last worked for a large company, I had two notebook computers, mine and theirs. When I traveled, I took both (so that I could provide support if something important went down). It was cumbersome (and heavy), but that is what worked. While I was in the office at work, I didn't as a rule access personal websites -- I knew that they used monitoring and logging rather than simply blocking certain sites, and it wasn't worth the risk. (And I worked like a slave until they finally dumped me.) Fortunately I was able to work from home nearly all the time most of the years I was there, and other people took over most of the server support toward the end (a sign to the slave that the job is coming to an end).

 

[Voyageur]

Most often i'm offsite and connected by VPN through their server; does this then apply too?

It depends on how it is configured. In a "split-tunnel" setup only traffic for your company would get routed over the VPN, and everything else will go to the Internet. In this way, the VPN server pushes routes for their internal network down to your machine, pointing out the VPN tunnel. This is the recommended way, because it reduces bandwidth usage on their end.

A down and dirty way to check this is to be disconnected from the VPN and go to site _cmyip.com. That is the public IP address you are getting from your ISP. Then connect to the VPN and refresh that web page. If the IP address changes, the chances are good all traffic from your machine is being sent over the VPN.

Thanks, will test this and also ask a few question of one of the IT fellows i know; see what he says. As Megan said, when having to be at the main office (requires hotel stay), the tendency is just to bring a second computer and leave well enough alone.