Firewall

[cyprus mac man]

Hey guys. I come to my local library a lot to use their fast internet (faster than mine at home) and I wanted to download some things from P2P (peer to peer) programs. The problem is that none of the programs work, and they say I might not be connected to the internet, or I am behind a firewall. Now, I know I am connected to the internet, and I have closed all firewalls on my mac, but could I still be behind one? And if so, how do I know, because there are numerous wi-fi connections and I dont really wana walk around opening the programs again and again.

I am running Mac OS X 10.4.5 and soon to be running 10.4.6. I am using the P2P programs L#### and A####

Thanks all

 

[ScottW]

Aside from the potential illegal aspects of P2P sharing, there are legal purposes and this question can be applied for other uses and as such, I am leaving it in place.

That said...

While you might be able to find a Wi-Fi connection that is not behind a firewall, chances are they probably all are. The firewalls are between the internet connection and your wi-fi connection, thus you have no control over those firewalls.

While solutions do exist for bypassing firewalls with the use of SSH tunneling, that will not help you out in this situation.

Scott

 

[cyprus mac man]

thanks. oh and I did see one person in the place actually using limewire. could it be that he was able to somehow bypass it?

 

[Damrod]

You could ask the guy using it.

*shrugs*

But like Scott said, the library probably has their firewall set up so people can not use P2P.

 

[sourcehound]

Aside from the potential illegal aspects of P2P sharing, there are legal purposes and this question can be applied for other uses and as such, I am leaving it in place.

That said...

While you might be able to find a Wi-Fi connection that is not behind a firewall, chances are they probably all are. The firewalls are between the internet connection and your wi-fi connection, thus you have no control over those firewalls.

While solutions do exist for bypassing firewalls with the use of SSH tunneling, that will not help you out in this situation.

Scott

SSH tunneling will work with a product called proxytunnel. You can also set up a SQUID proxy on the open ports and redirect your traffic through that. As long as you can get to the internet from your location through port 80 or 443 you'll be able to make it work as long as you have a server you control sitting on the Internet.