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Help With Proxies?

divisiontendivisionten
edited November 2010 in General Chat
I'm terrible with computers, and I need a little help.

I go to a rather religious Buddhist university that has free internet wifi- but a really strict firewall system. I can understand blocking illegal or obscene content, but it also blocks GAMES.

Like, it prevents me from even going to Kongregate, Jay is Games, use Steam or play Starcraft 2 (somehow, Telltale's website is immune, but I have to manually unlock my games and when I go to play a Telltale game, it thinks I am offline even when I'm not). In other words, even games that I own like Portal and SC2 are rendered unplayable because they require online checks or constant access to the internet.

Frankly, it's irritating, and with the fact that TF2 is Mac-available, I've wanted to buy and play it for quite some time now. But I can't even open Steam to use it. Is there any kind of proxy I can use to bypass the system, and if so, how does that work? Are they illegal? I really don't like resorting to this sort of thing, and if it is really illegal, I'm not even going to try.

Comments

  • Giant TopeGiant Tope
    edited November 2010
    Go to an internet cafe or somethin.
  • jp-30jp-30
    edited November 2010
    Do you have a laptop? If so why don't you just go to an off-campus hotspot (library, starbucks, ???) and dl / activate your software there?



    Edit: Damn it.
  • divisiontendivisionten
    edited November 2010
    Starbucks does not offer free internet in Japan, and the nearest library not on campus is about 1/2 hour away by bus. Ditto with the nearest internet cafe. I may live in Tokyo, but I'm as far away from the city center as you can be without not actually being in Tokyo (ie, the view from my window is a farm).
  • Giant TopeGiant Tope
    edited November 2010
    Ah. Wait til you go out to a city center and then do it then. That's what I did.
  • FitzoliverJFitzoliverJ
    edited November 2010
    divisionten wrote: »
    Is there any kind of proxy I can use to bypass the system, and if so, how does that work? Are they illegal?

    Even if they aren't illegal, using one would probably breach the agreement that allows you to use the university computers.
  • divisiontendivisionten
    edited November 2010
    Internet breach? I didn't sign any sort of agreement when I came to this university. I also have and use my own laptop, but if I were to bring it to a internet cafe to buy TF2, I would not be able to play it on campus or in my own dormitory. I can't play any of the games I already purchased on Steam before entering the university.

    I can play them when I go back home using my own internet, but that's not going to happen again until July of next year.

    (PS- Thanks for all your suggestions so far. Sorry for not having been clear in some of my explanations)
  • jp-30jp-30
    edited November 2010
    Maybe you should buy disc versions of the games you want to play? I know it doesn't help with TF2 - though maybe you could play against others on campus (I have no idea if you can have on computer as the local game server host).
  • GuruGuru214GuruGuru214
    edited November 2010
    Other than TF2, you can solve your Steam issues by taking your computer somewhere with unblocked internet, starting Steam, and restarting it in Offline mode. Once you do that, Steam will continue to start up in Offline Mode until you switch it back. You'll be able to play all of your Steam games without having to connect to the internet.
  • divisiontendivisionten
    edited November 2010
    GuruGuru214 wrote: »
    Other than TF2, you can solve your Steam issues by taking your computer somewhere with unblocked internet, starting Steam, and restarting it in Offline mode. Once you do that, Steam will continue to start up in Offline Mode until you switch it back. You'll be able to play all of your Steam games without having to connect to the internet.

    I love you. I totally did not know that.
  • ElvenmonkElvenmonk
    edited November 2010
    divisionten wrote: »
    Internet breach? I didn't sign any sort of agreement when I came to this university.

    If you're at a Uni. yeah you did. Even if you didn't sign something whenyou applied you agreed to follow all their rules. And usually paperwork you do at the start ofthe year do the same. Trust me, as at my school I'm not allowed to do anything remotely illegal with computers due to my school's close ties with MS. If it gets out you downloaded a song you're booted from school and all grades are either voided or "f"s for transcript purposes. And they'll work to make sure you don't get into another school. As for the legality of it? I can't give you an honest answer as I don't know Japan's laws.

    Also with SC2 you need to be online at all times to play single player, as a heads up. And with "start in offline mode" every two weeks ( I think it is) you need to go back online and re-verify the games.

    Ont he subject of proxy, it wouldn't really fix this. Especially seeing as they more then likely might block proxies. And if you got a proxy to work it's not worth it as you get like 10kb connection.

    Also the block on games makes perfect sense. Games eat massive ammounts of bandwith, especially now adays when most games are P2P instead of P2Server. Like my Uni they blockyour account from being able to go online if you use too much bandwith and then they'll investigate it. Which is how they get people who use torrents on campus (don't know why they think going through proxies makes them immune to uni moderating) and if you're playing games online you usally get disconnected after a while due to the high bandwith requirement.
  • divisiontendivisionten
    edited November 2010
    Elvenmonk wrote: »
    If you're at a Uni. yeah you did. Even if you didn't sign something whenyou applied you agreed to follow all their rules. And usually paperwork you do at the start ofthe year do the same. Trust me, as at my school I'm not allowed to do anything remotely illegal with computers due to my school's close ties with MS. If it gets out you downloaded a song you're booted from school and all grades are either voided or "f"s for transcript purposes. And they'll work to make sure you don't get into another school. As for the legality of it? I can't give you an honest answer as I don't know Japan's laws.

    Also with SC2 you need to be online at all times to play single player, as a heads up. And with "start in offline mode" every two weeks ( I think it is) you need to go back online and re-verify the games.

    Ont he subject of proxy, it wouldn't really fix this. Especially seeing as they more then likely might block proxies. And if you got a proxy to work it's not worth it as you get like 10kb connection.

    Also the block on games makes perfect sense. Games eat massive ammounts of bandwith, especially now adays when most games are P2P instead of P2Server. Like my Uni they blockyour account from being able to go online if you use too much bandwith and then they'll investigate it. Which is how they get people who use torrents on campus (don't know why they think going through proxies makes them immune to uni moderating) and if you're playing games online you usally get disconnected after a while due to the high bandwith requirement.

    Thanks for the help! At least I can still play my Telltale titles. Oh well. But the only thing that surprises me is that the system almost indiscriminately block things with games- somehow Telltale and downloading games/movies from iTunes is OK by the firewall but the TF2 site, many game blogs and even some news stories on Yahoo related to games get the boot.
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