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.
- Sign up for Digital Ocean.
- Get the cheapest VM (called Droplets on DO) you can get.
- Install Ubuntu on it.
- SSH into it and open a SOCKS proxy (
ssh -D 8080 <yourdropletip>on Linux, use PuTTY on Windows). - Configure Firefox to use
localhost:8080as a SOCKS5 proxy. - 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.
Highly identifiable. Do not do this. Will it get you through the firewall? Yes. Will it get you in trouble when they see all your traffic going to one place? Also yes.
It’s an open WiFi network. They’re probably not even able to identify which device is used by which person. Even if they could, why would they be monitoring everyone’s traffic looking for users who only visit one resource? That’s an extremely unlikely scenario.
The worst they’d see is that this device is using a lot of SSH traffic. There’s nothing suspicious about that. SSH is perfectly normal.
There’s nothing suspicious about that. SSH is perfectly normal.
In a business? Sure.
In a school? Not so much.
Again these are all assumptions. These are risks that do not need to be taken when there are better methods.
