Company installed freaking Websense and I can't access any of my internet based e-mail accts because they are filterd. I was able to get around that by using various webaddresses that the filters didn't screen but alas those eventually were blocked. i primarily need to access gmail. Any way around this?

I would even set up another e-mail based acct if it is not on the websense filter and have my mail forwarded to that address.

Suggestions?

While back, I obtained a list of free proxy servers (just do a search). I used these proxy servers to get to sites like Yahoo mail and hotmail. Because they are free, some servers are better than other in terms of speed. That's why I maintained a list of them.

I'd be VERY VERY careful about doing end runs around Websense. In some cases, you could be terminated over it. Talk to the IT department and ask if there's a policy against accessing those Email accounts. If not, ask for them to stop filtering it. If so, assuming you have XP Pro at home I'd set up Remote Desktop on my home computer and do my Email checking and browsing through there. You don't need much bandwidth for it to work well, 256k upstream should be enough so if you have broadband you should be set. Just set up a DynDNS client on the computer and register a DNS name, that way you can always find your computer. That also will allow you to browse as you please, since the traffic will be between your IP address at the office and at the house and won't be traceable or filterable from work.

Be careful to check that your company allows outbound Remote Access sessions, however. They occur on a specific port so it is easy for the IT department to set up an alarm when that port is used. Many IT departments see outbound Remote Access as a security threat both because a virus can use it as a backdoor and because employees can use it to circumvent tracking and web blocking systems the company has put in place, as described above.

Since Websense is made to NOT get around, the IT staff are your only hope. Messing with it is not a wise thing to do.

You need to check out Knoppix. It's a bootable CD that has everything you need to get on the Internet. Since you boot to it, it bypasses everything that's installed on your hard drive.

http://www.knoppix.net/

The great thing about this... Once you take out the CD and restart your PC, all of your browsing history is gone. It's not stored on your PC.

And how will that help get around a firewall? Websense isn't installed on the PC, it is a device on the company LAN so unless he also has access to a non-firewalled network connection (which would kinda defeat this entire thread) then Knoppix ain't going to help at all.

My bad... I assumed he/she was on a laptop and traveled around like the rest of us. Forced to log into a Company VPN, etc.

Websense is hooked in at the perimeter firewall level, usually. The firewall inspects http requests and sends the url to the filter server farm and then either allows or denies the connection. Websense does support exclusion lists, but, your admin would have to add you to that.

Various methods I've seen folks use to get around it include ssh reverse proxying to your house, remote desktop to the house, an http proxy, vpn to the house. All are trivial to setup, just be careful that you're not violating osme company policy in the AUP you probably signed when you were hired.

Maybe see about accessing gmail with your data plan on your phone? I believe they have a 'small-HTML' version for phones. But I use my Treo 650 with Versamail to avoid using my work laptop for that.

When I had my Samsung a500 phone, I paid $2.19/month for a simple pop3 email program for it, not through the microbrowser but through Verizons get it now functionality. It was great for reading text-only email, I could reply if I really had to (but it was a pain), but most important it let me at least know the subjects of my email.

Just use Outlook Express and you can check it using the pop settings. i think you can even do this thru your outlook.

GMAIL is the only free POP based email i am aware of....

Yes, but, if his company is blocking access to web based email systems, it's highly likely they've shutdown outbound POP, IMAP, and/or SMTP access on the same firewalls that run websense.

The suggestion to use his phone was because the phone does not use the corp internet connection to download mail.

Gmail uses a nonstandard pop port.

First let me say that if your company has installed a filtering product, you place yourself at risk of reprimand or termination for violating the filtering policy. Be it on your head then if you choose to take the following advice:

1. Use pop. Gmail supports pop access and if the only thing the company has deployed is websense, then pop access will remain unblocked.

2. Use a tunnel. Configure an ssh and proxy server on your home machine. Establish an ssh connect from your work machine to your home machine, forwarding all web connections through the tunnel on the port the proxy server is listening.

3. Use an out-of-band network. Depending on the location of your office, or your commitment to access. You might be able to utilize an open wireless network in another building/area that is not websense filtered. Alternatively you can utilize a blackberry device to pop your email (both from the device and via a serial connection to your work machine). Alternative to this would be to buy an EDGE card and plan from one of the cellular provides and access the network through this.