My school restricted the schools access to NESdev for an unspecified reason, which I don't understand why, considering that this website is suprisingly educational! I don't know, I'd just thought I'd mention.
Is only access from classroom buildings blocked, or is access from student dormitories also blocked?
Classroom buildings, we don't have dorms.
The company I used to work for back in 2008 blocked Nesdev and classified it as a "gaming website".
The company I work for blocks it as "browsing/other." I can access the site by appending /?at.com to the url.
never-obsolete wrote:
I can access the site by appending /?at.com to the url.
What does that do? (Aside from changing the text of the URL.)
Passes in an unused argument to a web page, and apparently defeats a horribly designed web filter that doesn't know how to properly parse a URL.
rainwarrior wrote:
What does that do? (Aside from changing the text of the URL.)
I'm not sure. You can do it to any site that's blocked. It's tedious because you have to copy-paste each link you want to click on and add that string.
Sounds like a good time to learn how to make a Userscript for Greasemonkey or Tampermonkey, or at least a bookmarklet that will edit links.
Probably the bookmarklet would be a good start. It begins with "javascript:(function(){ YOUR CODE HERE })()" If you've never used javascript before, start with "var links = document.getElementsByTagName("A");"
I knew there had to be a way to automate it, thanks for the info.
What happens if you access the site over https?
https://forums.nesdev.com/
I can think of three ways for school to block that workaround: block all sites on the same IPv4 address, watch the ClientHello for the cleartext hostname in the Server Name Indication field, or route all HTTPS traffic through a man in the middle and require all clients to install the school's internal CA's root certificate.
But because it affects only classrooms, not home, I imagine it shouldn't cause quite as much of a problem.
Had this happen to me at a coding jam. A CODING JAM.
You could try getting a VPN so the school doesn't know what sites you visit. That or set up your home router as a a VPN server so you can connect through your home network while at school.
DementedPurple wrote:
It works, thanks!
I'm glad you managed to bypass the block.
Technically, if learning about NESdev isn't related to any of your school work, then your school is perfectly entitled to block access to it - they'd probably prefer that you spend your time at school doing school work and do your other stuff at home*. High speed internet connections are expensive, after all.
The exact same thing applies to workplaces, and it's more relevant because they're paying you to do work, not to surf the web. Granted, many employers, especially in smaller companies, won't block stuff like that (in order to boost morale), but they are under no obligation to allow it.
In either case, actively circumventing such blocks is only going to get you in trouble, so it's probably not worth it.
* Obviously, if you're living at your school (e.g. university dormitories), then things are a bit different since you're effectively forced to use their network during your personal time. When I was in university, the only thing I remember them blocking in the dorms was Bittorrent, and only because it was a huge bandwidth hog.
DementedPurple wrote:
My school restricted the schools access to NESdev for an unspecified reason, which I don't understand why, considering that this website is suprisingly educational! I don't know, I'd just thought I'd mention.
NESDev has always been blocked at my school for "games". GitHub on the other hand is just fine.
VPNs are your friend.
Not NESDev specifically, but at my college, Romhacking.net gets blocked for "hacking". I think when it's blatantly wrong it doesn't matter if you bypass it.
Edit: apparently it doesn't anymore?