Reply to: hotmail through the firewall?

[Viktor]

Setup your home/hotel PC as a Terminal Server...
RDP connection from client site (can be on different port if they block RDP 3389)...
Voila...

[kramer]

Flubsters right. Your client does this for a reason and you should respect this. If you need access to hotmail then you should open your own channel to the interweb entirely off the clients infrastructure...

behave

[Flubster]

You mean tell the client: no internet, no deal?

Eggsactly!

[expat]

Or use some foresight and get this sorted before you go to client site...

You mean tell the client: no internet, no deal?

[Flubster]

OK if you're working in your country of residence. Otherwise you'll need an unlocked phone (costly) and a pay-as-you-go SIM (subscriptions only available to residents in most countries) which is also costly for data.

Or use your hotel's wifi...

speaking of which, does anyone know a good site that lists hotels with free wifi, in EU countries? Many hotels say on the web "internet access" but it means 12.50€/day. Or pay by credit card at 5€/half-hour. Last bastion of we've-got-you-by-the-short-and-curlies.

Or use some foresight and get this sorted before you go to client site...

[expat]

Get a smartphone to browse internet. Nokia N80 is good choice, but I'm waiting for the SE P990i which is about to get released in the next couple of days...

OK if you're working in your country of residence. Otherwise you'll need an unlocked phone (costly) and a pay-as-you-go SIM (subscriptions only available to residents in most countries) which is also costly for data.

Or use your hotel's wifi...

speaking of which, does anyone know a good site that lists hotels with free wifi, in EU countries? Many hotels say on the web "internet access" but it means 12.50€/day. Or pay by credit card at 5€/half-hour. Last bastion of we've-got-you-by-the-short-and-curlies.

PS agree with Ratewhore, subverting the client's firewall policy is not merely a technical issue.

[ratewhore]

Flubsters right. Your client does this for a reason and you should respect this. If you need access to hotmail then you should open your own channel to the interweb entirely off the clients infrastructure...

[Flubster]

Get a smartphone to browse internet. Nokia N80 is good choice, but I'm waiting for the SE P990i which is about to get released in the next couple of days...

[DaveB]

ok gents loads of good ideas but not much i can do right now on site and three days from home visit...
Anything more immediate i can do?

Use an internet cafe?

If you can get to hotmail some other way outside of the office you could set it up to forward all your hotmail mail to an address you can actually get at.

If there is someone at home that you trust to give access to your hotmail account you could get them to do it or just forward anyhting outstanding to you manually.

[kramer]

ok gents loads of good ideas but not much i can do right now on site and three days from home visit...
Anything more immediate i can do?

[ratewhore]

I find that knowing the domain admin passwords can be useful :P

Ah - in which case you need a security professional to create the holistic security architecture. I'm available for a costly fee, after all, security is where it's at...

[Ardesco]

I find that knowing the domain admin passwords can be useful :P

[DaveB]

Yes that's true, but where else would you want to go??? It's not like you have time to read and post on forums when you are working at a clients site is it.....

Well for a start you could see all the piccies in Test Please Delete without them being blocked

Of course the other sure fire way around it is to be the security manager responcible for configuring the firewall etc in the first place and have a few little backdoors in place for specific internal IP addresses. Not that I would do anysuch thing you understand

[Ardesco]

Yes that's true, but where else would you want to go??? It's not like you have time to read and post on forums when you are working at a clients site is it.....

[DaveB]

make sure you have a webmail front end as well then, or open a non standard port, etc.

I'm not saying that companies can't shut it down, just that if you have your own one the chances are they won't have locked out every avenue of access and it is unlikely to be blacklisted by thier firewall software automatically.

Sure, but he wants access to hotmail and not his own domain. If you want to got o the expense of setting up your own domain and hosting it at home thats fine but setting up a proxy is a lot faster and easier than building a reliable mail server and web front end. having the proxy also lets you go to all those other places the co. doesnt want you to as well as hotmail