Guess what happened today (03-15-2001), the N2H2 company, makers of the Bess filtering proxy software used in schools finally caught up with Everything2. For as long as i can remember everything.blockstackers.com has been blocked, now they appear to have realized that it doesn't exist anymore.

Why did they block us? We talk about sex, drugs, and how to bypass bess.

We sell t-shirts which talk about drugs. We swear. We vote. We don't censor content.

We are also smart. We are the geeks and the scholars of the world. I write this today from my machine at school. http://127.0.0.1:81/index.pl?node_id=365128. SSH is how i do it, and how you too can do it. SSHd comes standard with a not-as-well-as-it-should-be known feature called port forwarding.

How it works:
  • Setup a port forward from port 81 local, to www.everything2.com, port 80.
  • Login, authenticate, get a shell.
  • Now in netscape or IE, configure it to not use the proxy for addresses starting with.... 127.0.0.1
  • connect to http://127.0.0.1:81/
If it doesn't work quite right, click the E2 logo, and it should.

In SecureCRT, go into the advanced options next to the hostname, and click on port forwarding, hit new, enter the data, hit save, (re)connect.

Node type: idea.
Warning: Student having own thoughts.
Action: Bess Can't Go There.

Remind you of a simpsons episode? The Simpsons are one big political cartoon. Alot of people don't know that.
So far (i.e. until Bess wizens up further) you can circumvent her and get here much more easily. Go to Google (this may work on other search engines as well), search for "everything", click on the result. Voila, you're here, you can cut class and node again (I am).

UPDATE: I tried this trick again and..."Bess can't go there". But this time I successfully accessed everything by clicking on the link in the daily update email you can subscribe to (it's there in your preferences). She's foiled again, but next time, we'll see.

UPDATE 2: Nope, the link-clicking doesn't work consistently anymore. Only sometimes, but I haven't detected a pattern. I actually emailed the Bess review board about everything, a few days ago when I needed to access it during school to do some research, and this is the reason they gave for blocking it-
This site offers access to on-line chatting. We have categorized this site as CHAT. Many chat sites do not adequately screen out vulgar or offensive language. Due to this risk, your server has been configured to filter out these sites.

We do appreciate your feedback. Please let us know if you find any other sites you think may be incorrectly rated by Bess. Thanks.

- The N2H2 Website Review Team, reviewme@n2h2.com
You caught that email address right? Good. Do with it what you may.

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