tech question

[juldea]

If work has blocked a website from viewing, would it still be ping-able from the work computers?

I can't connect to AIM through any AIM program I've tried... but the server that Trillian says it can't reach, login.oscar.aol.com, I can ping and traceroute to fine. Hrm. I'm wondering if work has blocked something so AIM can't be used from the computers here...

Comments

[diego001.livejournal.com]

You can block port access to a particular site and the site would still be able to be pinged.

It could be that they're blocking AIM...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

AIM runs on a different port than web browsing; it is easy enough for them to block the AIM port, or to block all non-port-80 traffic if they are feeling really mean. You can often get around this using AIM Express or one of the other web-based clients.

Or ask them. Sometimes the IT guys will be willing to set up a proxy to allow IM to make it out while simultaneously allowing them to secure the rest of the network.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I have tried Trillian, regular AIM, AIM Express, and Quick Buddy. They all cannot connect.

[pezzonovante.livejournal.com]

I've used GAIM from work on occasion... I tend to tell my AIM client to connect to AIM on port 13 to avoid port-blocks at work.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Hm. Changing to port 13 didn't help. (it was on 5190...?) Nor did asking AIM to auto-configure itself... it said it can't be reached.

Guess I'll try GAIM, too...

[juldea.livejournal.com]

GAIM will not connect either.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I assume this as well, if that is what happened, and then I will be grumpy about my lack of AIM but I won't at all blame them for it.

But whether or not this HAS happened is
what I'm trying to confirm.

[skybabie.livejournal.com]

Did it work okay yesterday? Most likely that is what happened then, DH here is the MIS/IT etc guy at a big co downtown and they even have websites that play games blocked (pogo etc) all MSN and IM type things etc, sounds like that is what they did - granted I find it pathetic though he still muds from work and other people can't even get a website open to find a stock quote on lunch break.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

It has worked for a year and suddenly stopped working yesterday.

[skybabie.livejournal.com]

Anyone else you can ask if they have problems with it (that you trust anyhow) sounds like that is what they did - may have to wait until tomorrow though just to see for sure if it works or not, granted a friend of mine in FL does know how to get it to work through a web based way if you want I can email him and ask him how to go about doing it, that way it's open through a website and it wouldn't be an actual application on the desk top - assuming he still has the ability to do that.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I have tried two different web-based AIM clients and neither of them has worked.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe, yeah. *ponder*

Try this:

[princess-muffin.livejournal.com]

http://www.aim.com/get_aim/express/

It's a web site that runs AIM as straight popup windows in IE;
less glamorous than the full AIM software, but it gets the job done.
I can't have AIM on my computers here because it doesn't play nice
with our configurations... this is how I get around the problem.

Re: Try this:

[princess-muffin.livejournal.com]

or, if you can't get to aim.com at all, there may be another site
out there that does the same thing... thus circumventing the port
issue if your work is in fact blocking the actual AIM software from
running (it will look like any other IE popup window to the network).

Re: Try this:

[juldea.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

As I already said: I have tried AIM, Trillian, AIM Express, the old Quick Buddy, and GAIM. None of them work.

Re: Try this:

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I believe it's supposed to be an AIM client that works for Linux/Unix/etc systems as well as Windows and Mac.

[gaffman.livejournal.com]

quick test to see if the ports are blocked would be to try telnetting to those ports and see if it connects or not. If the connection times out theyve most likely firewalled the connection. A lot of places only allow outbound access thru the proxy server so you can only get outbound web access, and if thats the case they can configure theproxy server to drop connections to specific sites like aim.com or whatever.

You could try using http tunnel (http://www.http-tunnel.com/) which is a program that sets up a SOCKS proxy on your local machine then encapsulates the aim or whatever traffic in http packets and sends them to a 3rd party server which unencapsulates them and sends them to the destination host...its a bit slow and unreliable but better tha nothing...

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I hope I don't have to go to those lengths... thanks for the ideas though. *snug*