TOPIC: Computer help

So just a few minutes ago True Dungeon is showing up as blocked by my school district.

Any suggestions how to get around the block? The kids seem to have no trouble accessing other sites.

There are probably more commercial options, but if you are able to download and run "putty" (just google it) I could set you up so you can tunnel to my house through an encrypted channel.

Could try a proxy site like www.proxysite.com/

or

My personally preferred method, install remote desktop software on your home computer (I recommend realVNC or something similar) then just remote into your home computer and use its browser to open TD

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give them a try.

Considering the nature of my work and how sensitive we are to security, your school may have decided to block sites based on specific criteria. True Dungeon may have met this and by bypassing it, you may be violating your school's IT security policy.

Be sure you know what you are doing and carful you don't unintentionally open a hole in the school's network. Even a safe encrypted tunnel to an external machine may sound safe, but is the machine secure on the other end?

I don't want you to be brought up on disciplinary or criminal charges for something like this. Government funded facilities can be fickle about what they prosecute.

If your school has a guest network (could happen) you could connect via almost any smart mobile device, and wouldn't need a data plan. You can get a serviceable Kindle for $50 or less.

We are allowed to visit a lot of personal sites on our company laptops, but I always connect through our guest network from my iPhone. If I accidentally get redirected to a NSFW site from Facebook, I don't want to have to explain myself to my manager. And because she's a she, doubly so.

I had a coworker who was shopping for something, and tried to guess the URL for Dick's Sporting Goods. She got it so, so wrong.

I guess a different tack is to question why they did this. There isn't much of interest for high school students here. The material is hardly objectionable in all but the most strict views. Maybe someone just banned the word dungeon and they need an education about blanket censorship.

It seems like schools like to ban this or that and restrict what kids have access to, yet somehow want to expand their horizons. Can't expand your horizons looking through a keyhole. But even if they want to keep kids focused on certain educational measures, they should really have an adult override.

Not that you may be interested in championing any of that.

I think this came up in the past - TD was coded as a "game site" in some systems.

Can you load pages like blizzard.com

or

worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/

?

It depends on what they are using to block the site. Could be as simple as changing the dns your computer uses. You might be surprised how some systems "block" sites.

1. DNS?

2. I've been able to access it for years, and I visited the forum this morning, but at lunch I kept getting a blocked application message. Certainly don't want to expose the district to any issues, but of course there's no reason to block the site.

bpsymington wrote: 1. DNS?

2. I've been able to access it for years, and I visited the forum this morning, but at lunch I kept getting a blocked application message. Certainly don't want to expose the district to any issues, but of course there's no reason to block the site.

Maybe you can call IT and ask them why. They might think it's a BDSM site.

bpsymington wrote: 1. DNS?

2. I've been able to access it for years, and I visited the forum this morning, but at lunch I kept getting a blocked application message. Certainly don't want to expose the district to any issues, but of course there's no reason to block the site.

This happened with my board in the past. There may be tag words in it. You will have to contact the board and ask them to "unblock" it. They may be monitoring your usage, and if you are checking during school..