Software for the net-censored
Perl is needed for much of the software below. For Windows, get it from here. A nice Perl tutorial is here
proxyTools is an archive containing the whole series of proxy tools I've produced.
- findProxy scans through a proxy list provided by a URL (http, ftp, or local files) to find proxies which work where you are. There is a speed measurement, dupes are removed and IP address and name resolution (forward and reverse) is output for each working proxy. The output can be saved in a file and rechecked periodically. It can also check the proxy.pac file format I posted here before. New: I added command line options for those who don't like to edit the text and CONNECT capability. The CONNECT capability means you can test the proxies which were previously blocked to you from home (see my 'checked public proxies' list). The URL 'counting' function allows checks of all messages in mailing lists, message boards etc.
- sortProxy will merge local files containing lists of proxies and sort them by IP address, find their fqdns, removing duplicates. Fast and handy.
- statProxy diagnoses a proxy (or a list of them) you feed to it. It will tell you if they are alive, what type it is, whether it is a working web proxy at all, and the CONNECT options it allows. If no port is specified it will scan the proxy using a list of ports you (may) specify in the configuration file. It has a safe mode (one port scanned per host, Craig Carey's 'address purification rituals' applied) to stop beginners getting themselves into trouble. Use localProxy (or HTTPort) to set up a local proxy to make use of the results to bypass your censorship.
- localProxy is now completely rewritten. It starts a local proxy for you, using a local port you (may) specify, the proxy host:port to use to CONNECT via, and a remote proxy (or service like web servers, Usenet news etc.) host:port to CONNECT to. It's very nice now, and even tunes itself to your web browsing speed. It's used the same way as HTTPort, but it's written in Perl, and integrated with the other tools.
- findProxyVlad scans through virtualave proxy logs to find proxies which work where you are. 00/11/6 - Vlad's site is back, for use without payment on the old (pre Oct, 2000) data.
redir binary for nether.net only!
netcat (binary for windows) is the best all-round network utility for learning and quick tests.
netcat (source for *nix) has the source code, a good manual and some scripts - all of which are not in the windows version
Perl redirector/relay/bouncer/repeater. This puppy should be able to run just about anywhere (where Perl is installed); any ISP, win9*, winNT, win2000. You should be able to run it and play with it on your home computer and then ftp it to an external account when you're confident you know how to make it work. It can be used to redirect TCP connections on any port past port blocking via an open port. It can even be used for web browsing, but in that case it's a bit slow (like using a slow proxy) and it doesn't handle the multiple rapid connections made by your browser loading a complex web page, so you lose some of the small images etc. I'm working on that.
anonymous Perl proxy. A forking Perl proxy which runs almost anywhere (needs LWP). Contains some basic code to remove identifying info from your web browser.
preforking Perl proxy. A Perl proxy which preforks some slaves to ensure it's response is fast and reliable. This guy works well. Good for heavy-duty browsing on any port you want to get through your firewall blocking. Anonymity code could be easily copied from anonProxy.pl. Update 00/8/25: The new version now includes this by default - set the $ANON variable to 0 if you don't want it (for example, to browse sites which need cookies).
proxy autoconfiguration file. An automatic proxy config file for IE and Netscape for the UAE (but easily modified for other countries). It does automatic failover from a speed-ordered list of proxies, some ad-zapping, and ensures a specified proxy is selected for Outlook Express use when downloading hotmail (to ensure use of a proxy which understands PROPFIND).
Points to note:
- change the country at line 5 if you need to. Note that the script is not fully parameterized. For example changing this will not change the list of usable proxies wherever you are :-)
- change the number of proxies at line 4 to match the list further down.
- ad zapping takes place at line 16 - add your own URL fragments. This allows you to specify pattern matches for the requested URL to ensure that the most common advertisements don't get downloaded by your browser.
It's a bit ugly this way and is actually slow (a better way to do this is to have a dedicated proxy running on your own computer which only serves an 'ad-zapped' icon/page/image, but doesn't get pointed to for anything else).
- proxy selection for PROPFIND (hotmail for OE) is at line 27. It ensures that a proxy which understands PROPFIND is selected, no matter what's in the list further down.
- you can feed this to your IE 5.1 or better as file://c:/proxy.pac (adjust the path to wherever you save the proxy.pac).
- i haven't tested the proxies for a long time - the order is probably bad, and I suspect some don't work at all any more.
- the worst thing about these is that if you make changes, and introduce a syntax error in the script, your browser probably won't tell you and it will then ignore the script and try to get everything directly - that will just time out for all the UAE, KSA users. Hard to debug. Be careful.
dual non-anon/anon proxy autoconfiguration file. An automatic proxy config file for IE and Netscape for those who wish to run two proxies (one anonymous, and one non-anonymous allowing cookies). This one has been trimmed to the minimum code to do the job; it doesn't include the code to handle ad-zapping, direct connections etc. The idea is that (in this demo) it looks for requests to egroups and makes the browser use the non-anon proxy to send and receive cookies. For other requests, it uses the anon proxy.
Stone 2.1a is a redirector, proxy, encrypted tunnel etc. The build instructions for use on a Unix shell are here.
teraterm pro is a good, free telnet client. I believe the ssh plugin is also good, so this combination is a suitable free replacement for secureCRT. Another free possibility with ssh is puTTY. Speaking of secureCRT, I didn't say this, but I've heard that deleting HKLM\Software\Van Dyke Technologies from the registry resets the 30 day demo and all.