Hi everyone,

I’m currently facing some frustrating restrictions with the public Wi-Fi at my school. It’s an open Wi-Fi network without a password, but the school has implemented a firewall (Fortinet) that blocks access to certain websites and services, including VPNs like Mullvad and ProtonVPN. This makes it difficult for me to maintain my privacy online, especially since I don’t want the school to monitor me excessively.

After uninstalling Mullvad, I tried to download it again, but I found that even a search engine (Startpage) is blocked, which is incredibly frustrating! Here’s what happened:

  • The Wi-Fi stopped working when I had the VPN enabled.
  • I disabled the VPN, but still couldn’t connect.
  • I forgot the Wi-Fi network and reset the driver, but still no luck.
  • I uninstalled the Mullvad, and then the Wi-Fi worked again.
  • I tried to access Startpage to search for an up-to-date package for Mullvad, but it was blocked.
  • I used my phone to get the software file and sent it over, but couldn’t connect.
  • I searched for different VPNs using DuckDuckGo, but the whole site was blocked.
  • I tried searching for Mullvad, but that was blocked too.
  • I attempted to use Tor with various bridges, but couldn’t connect for some unknown reason.
  • I finally settled for Onionfruit Connect, but it doesn’t have a kill switch, which makes me uneasy.

Ironically, websites that could be considered harmful, like adult content, gambling sites and online gaming sites, are still accessible, while privacy-tools are blocked.

I’m looking for advice on how to bypass these firewall restrictions while ensuring my online safety and privacy. Any suggestions or alternative methods would be greatly appreciated! (If any advice is something about Linux, it could be a Problem, since my school enforces Windows 11 only PC’s which is really really igngamblingThanks in advance for your help

edit: did some formatting

edit2: It is my device, which I own and bought with my own money. I also have gotten in trouble for connecting to tor and searching for tor, but I stated that I only used it to protect my privacy. Honestly I will do everything to protect my privacy so I don’t care if I will get in trouble.

edit 3: Thanks for the suggestions, if I haven’t responded yet, that’s because I don’t know what will happen.

  • RegalPotoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    109·
    25 days ago

    Obligatory “read your schools’ computer use policy before you get yourself in trouble for evading the firewall”

    • subignition@fedia.io
      42·
      25 days ago

      Yeah, you probably don’t want to risk getting caught for that. There is a possibility you could be criminally charged (regardless of how stupid you might think that is, it happens) when the school finds out what you’re doing. And if you’re using school-issued hardware they’re very likely to find out what you’re doing.

    • Decency8401@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      23·
      24 days ago

      I don’t know where to find the policy regarding the network. The computer isn’t school property, I own it which is more frustrating because I have to uninstall (Just disabeling it and the Killswitch won’t work) any VPN to start using the network.

  • ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.mlEnglish
    563·
    25 days ago

    Here are some good rule of thumbs for work and schools:

    • do not connect to their networks with your personal devices, ever.

    • Only use work/ school devices on their own network.

    • Do not do anything personal on those networks. only do work/school related tasks. This means don’t log into any non school/work accounts.

    • If for some reason they don’t have a device for you but require you to use their network, then leave your personal devices at home claiming you don’t own one and make them accommodate you.

    You cannot expect privacy in these situations, and by going to the extreme lengths to try to get it then you will ironically just paint a bigger target on your back if any network admin cares. In some cases this can cost you your job or get you in trouble with the school.

  • Charger8232@lemmy.ml
    291·
    25 days ago

    Hi! Back in high school, me and a few close friends formed a small hacking group aimed at hacking the school WiFi. We succeeded, and reported the vulnerabilities we found along the way to the school. Our school had a policy where students who managed to hack something would be let off the hook if they reported exactly how they did it. I managed to land a job for the school district as a result of our fiasco. I don’t recommend anyone do that, but I managed to get lucky.

    Anyways, once we had access to the WiFi we wanted to get around the network wide filter. Proton VPN worked for a while, but quickly got blocked. Dual booting into Tails on school computers didn’t work until the 6.0 update. To my knowledge, it still works.

    However, for our phones, the thing that worked was changing the DNS. We found out the network wide filter the school boasted so highly about was only a DNS filter that resolved hostnames to a “blocked” page. Find a good PRNS and change your device’s DNS to match. If you want a search engine, try to find an unblocked SearXNG instance.

    Good luck!

    P.S. Don’t forget: Tor is portable on Windows devices :)

    • InputZero@lemmy.ml
      8·
      25 days ago

      This is the best answer. You didn’t go charging through their system with complete disregard. You made the IT staff like you first, then broke through their system. That’s social engineering at it finest here people, and is the first skill any great hacker needs to learn. Please do good with this skill.

  • Steve@communick.newsEnglish
    281·
    25 days ago

    Have you tried the “Stealth” protocol option ProtonVPN has?
    It’s intended to bypass VPN blocks. Sometimes it works.

    • scarilog@lemmy.world
      2·
      24 days ago

      Windscribe has a Websocket tunnel option. Haven’t been on a network that’s been able to block this mode yet.

  • eco_game@discuss.tchncs.de
    23·
    23 days ago

    What worked for me at my old school was using a ShadowSocks proxy. Basically what this does, is it takes all your traffic and just makes it look like random https traffic (AFAIK). ShadowSocks is just a proxy. The description fits the Cloak module, mentioned below.

    I believe multiple VPNs support this, for me with PIA VPN it’s in the settings under the name “Multi-Hop” (PIA only supports this on the Desktop App, not on mobile).

    This technique is pretty much impossible to block, unless you ban every single VPN ShadowSocks Proxy IP. If that is the case for you (chances are practically 0), you could also selfhost ShadowSocks in combination with the Cloak module, however this method is a lot more complicated.

    • hperrin@lemmy.world
      2·
      23 days ago

      Shadowsocks doesn’t look anything like HTTPS traffic. It looks like a bare stream cipher over TCP connections to one host with bursts of traffic. HTTPS starts off with a TLS handshake (a client hello, a server hello, the server certificate, then a cipher negotiation and key exchange) before any ciphertext is exchanged. Shadowsocks just starts blasting a ciphertext stream. Even if you run it on port 443, it looks nothing like HTTPS.

      Without any sort of cipher negotiation and key exchange, it’s obvious that it’s a stream cipher with a pre shared key, so this would be automatically suspicious. There’s also not really any plausible deniability here. If they probe your Shadowsocks host and see it running there, that’s all the proof they need that you’re breaking their rules. With a VPN, you could at least say it’s for a project, and with SSH, you could say you’re just transferring files to your own machine.

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
    232·
    24 days ago

    You’re going to get in trouble and it’s not worth it.

    Don’t do personal stuff on their network. What are you even trying to look at via the school network?

    If you’re concerned about privacy while doing school stuff, use another device, or maybe a VM. Do they provide computers for students?

    You might get off with a warning because you’re young (I assume you’re like 16), but bypassing network security stuff as an adult at work will often get you fired.

  • refalo@programming.dev
    21·
    25 days ago

    If it’s any school like mine was, where people actively look at all the traffic going through their network, it’s a losing battle. And I say this as both a huge privacy advocate and a long-time network engineer.

    Anything even remotely resembling a tunnel, VPN or proxy is going to make you stand out in their monitoring, because they will see constant traffic between you and the same host on the other end… traffic that practically never stops. In my day the school even force-reset SSH and RDP sessions after a while (or maybe it was actually ALL tcp sessions, not sure).

    It doesn’t matter what protocol or technique you use at that point because they can either block whatever IP/ports you use, every time you change it, or threaten/shut off your service.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      24 days ago

      There are tools that can reasonably get around that technically. You just need to make it look like https traffic.

      I say this as it is possible to bypass the great firewall in China which was likely build on a much bigger budget

        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
          11·
          24 days ago

          It wouldn’t be that much traffic. It would just be https going to random IPs which looks like regular browsing. If you start blocking thing you will create lots and lots of issues plus angry users.

          I also doubt they have some guy watching every connection for an entire school.

  • brainw0rms [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    17·
    25 days ago

    At the risk of sounding contrarian/lame, you should probably not be doing any of this especially if you don’t own the hardware you’re using (as mentioned by another commenter).

    You don’t specify if this is university or middle/high school, but either way you are not entitled to and should not expect any privacy on a network you don’t control. Even if you are able to set up a VPN to mask your internet activity, your school’s network administrators almost certainly can tell that you are using a VPN, which itself sounds like it would be a violation of your school’s network policy and will most likely land you in trouble. Indeed, your repeated attempts to access blocked sites have likely already raised some flags.

    Even the workarounds that others here have mentioned (like routing VPN traffic over port 443) are inadequate for a network that is being actively monitored. Believe me, it is very easy to tell when someone is connecting to a VPN this way.

    I would quit while you’re ahead until you can afford your own hardware/internet connection, and then maybe worry about any notion of privacy. Use your school’s internet for what it was intended.

    • Decency8401@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      2·
      24 days ago

      I have gotten in trouble for using a VPN I’m the past but it was just a little talk and then they were cool with it. The thing is, that it is my device and at the school I don’t have a strong enough signal for my phone. So I can’t just make a hotspot and use that as WiFi. I need to use the WiFi to get my things done but I will not use the WiFi if I can’t protect my privacy. I know that this sounds pretty stupid but I won’t comply with my school.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    182·
    23 days ago
    1. Sign up for Digital Ocean.
    2. Get the cheapest VM (called Droplets on DO) you can get.
    3. Install Ubuntu on it.
    4. SSH into it and open a SOCKS proxy (ssh -D 8080 <yourdropletip> on Linux, use PuTTY on Windows).
    5. Configure Firefox to use localhost:8080 as a SOCKS5 proxy.
    6. Win.

    Bonus points if you set up Cockpit to manage everything over the web (localhost:9090 over your proxy), that way you don’t need to learn all about sudo apt whatever.

  • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.todayEnglish
    13·
    25 days ago

    You’ll need to download the client off-network (have you tried the local library for that?) and put it on your PC. If you know how to use docker, you could set up the client via docker and dockerhub which I doubt is blocked, but you’d need to set docker up on windows which I have no experience with.

    You can also try wireguard on a non-standard port if there are further blocks. OVPN can also go over 443 which might help.

    Really though, it depends on how they’re blocking them. They could be blocking the protocol based on port or deep packet inspection, or they could just be blocking a list of VPN hosts. They could be doing both.

    If they’re just blocking hosts, you could set up a vpn relay on a host somewhere else, but that won’t help if they’re blocking the protocol.

  • Tinkerer@lemmy.ca
    10·
    24 days ago

    If you try to browse to the tailscale website does it work?

    If it does you could setup tailscale with an exit node at your house and tunnel your connection that way? Everything would then be coming from your home internet. I have had good success with tailscale being able to punch a hole through some pretty filtered firewalls.

  • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
    9·
    24 days ago

    Sounds like DNS blocking. Use DoH, won’t be as good as a VPN but it will stop the sniffing which allows them to block domains

    • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
      5·
      25 days ago

      Which means the mobile data plan, which doesn’t sound that easy anymore. Where I live (EU) mobile data plans are either quite limited in data cap or expensive, and for a lot of years now they are just shutting it down when yours ran out, instead of slowing it down.

    • Decency8401@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      2·
      24 days ago

      I tried this but my signal isn’t strong enough to get thorugh the walls. In some classrooms it works, but it’s more like a 50/50 chance to stay connected.