the cloak...

Johnny_the_fox

I was reading a computer mag -

it mentioned a website called "the cloak" - which allows accessing sites which are blocked by a firewall....

is it legal? - i mean - if your company has blocked the use of a site on firewall and you use this site to access it....

the cloak

i think it could come in handy for some people...

seamus

It's perfectly legal.

Basically, what happens is you put in your starting URL, and a script on the-cloak.com goes and fetches the page, and then parses the page, changing hyperlinks, and other assorted tricks. Then it gives that page to your browser. All of the links have been changed, so now every page request you make is actually given to the-cloak.com, instead of to hotmail.com for example.

It's a pretty big job, and they seem to have a sizeable list of 'x doesn't work with y when using your site', understandably.

It's not a proxy server. Your work proxy can still see you making page request to the-cloak.com, and if they're really interested in what you're doing, they can follow some of the links themselves.

It's useful for people where sites like boards.ie are blocked, or if you're really interested in browsing porn at work.

I was thinking of writing a similar site myself, but decided that I had no real use for it at the moment.

Capt'n Midnight

it is almost certainly against company policy to use these sites
and a possible security risk, not to mention the legal implications of copyright violations / kiddie porn.

Many companies spend more on things like surfcontrol / antivirus / firewalls than they do on internet access and email licenses.

If I find any of my users at that - they'll be told to go to the local library - ( free net access ) - in their own time....

The more of this sort of stuff around the more likely IT are to resort to white lists for general users or ask staff to sign forms making them liable for all and any costs incurred when they break IT rules..

Mixie

Isn't it possible to do this just using Babelfish?

eddhorse

it is but then u have to know another laguage dont you?

milltown

Babelfish will happily translate any webpage, even english ones, into english. What it won't do is disguise the hyperlinks on the translated page.
TBH I can see that Cloak site being used more by paranoid conspiracy theorists than Arthur "quick ham shank at lunchtime" Officeworker.

uch

we used to use the cloak in Fás years ago to look at some female ggodies because it was all banned there and if you were caught on the internet logs looking at dirt you were in serious ****.

Kali

http://www.anonymizer.com/ is another one.
But thats still gonna show up on your logs.. and a wise-admin would notice it and just block access to those type of sites

Spunog UIE

mmm a new one to try out.

http://www.anonymizer.com/ was indeed blocked in our college. Have to try out this new one, just wish they didn't say all that stuff on the home page "anonymizing proxy" maybe if ya go straight to the surf page it won't pick it up.

Gid.

seanos

WebSense = Hell's Spawn

Cgi:Proxy is best way to bypass i find - it'll handle cookies + is Open source.
Only problem is most cgi:proxy hosting sites dont have SSL installed ; so no ssl sites ;(
....also very few advertised sites w/ it running - so best bet is to host it yerself