Monday, May 15, 2006

Bypassing Filters - Using Google

I found a way to bypass school filters Yesterday, using Google!

Google Proxy
Access restricted web sites using Google language tools service as a proxy.
Originally written by: bigthistle

OK, let's start from the beginning. We all know that Google is more than a search engine; we do use it as provider for email, mapping, news and many other services. Google is now also a free proxy service. Proxy is a device that stands between a PC and the internet, providing all the connections to the world wide web. What a proxy does is to receive all data from a requested site, so when you access that web page all the data comes through the proxy rather than the site itself.

What's the purpose for Google as a proxy? We often use office/school/university connections, usually those services are set to provide more safety, blocking the access to undesired web sites (the "black list"). What you can do now is use Google translator service (language tools) as a proxy to bypass the restrictions set for our connection!

You just need to type the following URL:

http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=URL
(URL being the website URL you need to go to.)

What you'll get is the translation (English to English!) of the page you want to see... your connection is directed to a google.com page so this page won't be blocked (would be blocked only with google.com on the black list), no matter what the content is.

Notice that the URL has been altered because the parameter "langpair" is set to "en|en" (English/English) so the page is processed by Google but you can keep the original language of the page (no need to translate!). If you need another language, for example, french you just need to set the parameter langpair to "fr|fr" and you'll be able to read french pages in french!

Last but not least: if you use this trick, you will not be sure to protect your privacy, this kind of connection lets you see blacklisted pages but doesn't hide your IP address.

This tutorial was not written by me, all credit goes to bigthistle.

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