Playing Behind a University Firewall that Chokes Traffic

[LuckyStrike]

I'm in a bit of distress right now. I started playing poker online this summer. Currently, I'm grinding my way up through the microlimits at Pacific. I came back to the dorms a couple days ago and found that I can no longer play at Pacific because the university firewall restricts traffic so badly that I frequently time out when the action is on me.

So, my question to you guys is: has anyone ever defeated a university firewall for poker playing purposes? I've been reading up, and it seems like I have two choices: begging the network admins to open up the port that Pacific uses or doing some arcane HTTP tunneling crap. Can anyone even tell me what port Pacific and most other gaming sites use for a starting point?

[Nemesis]

get a dial up connection or move off campus

[MiloBloom72]

The port is probably already open. If they were blocking the port, you could not get on at all.

They are most likely restricting bandwidth to the dorms in some way. This may be a blanket cap on all bandwidth coming from the dorms--in which case your problem is being caused by your cohorts sucking up all available bandwidth--or they may be using what is know as "bandwidth shaping" to prioritize traffic at different levels. You may or may not have luck with talking to them exactly what they restrict. Have you tried other sites besides Pacific?

[RiverMel]

Two years ago, I had the same problem with Planet Poker. I would time out quite often, but the access wasn't completely blocked.

As another poster surmised, the port is not blocked because if it were you wouldn't have any access at all.

I never found a solution to this.

[daveymck]

Do the other sites time out?

If not then the simple solution is change sites and go back to pacific once you move off campus.

[NLSoldier]

I ran into the same problem, but it is a little wierd becuase up until yesterday i could play just fine(with only the occasional timeout problems), but then yesterday all the sudden i couldnt log in at all and neither could any of my fellow players on campus. Im wondering if they just now blocked the portal or whatever possibly because they could see all the bandwith we were taking up(i refered almost every person on my floor /images/graemlins/cool.gif) Anyways, ive got the biggest computer junkie i know working on it and im hoping he can come up with a solution. He mentioned something about making a website from your internet connection at your house that will run the poker application for you or redirect you to it or somthing like that. I also plan on talking to the university tech guys or whatever but i dont thnk they will be too simpathetic.

[MiloBloom72]

I admit I haven't examined it but I'd be surprised if an internet poker client used very much bandwidth at all. I assume there's only a minimal amount of information being passed to tell the client what to show you. ("Player at seat #9 bets $5" "Player at seat 3 mucks" etc.) All the graphics and animations ought to be pre-loaded on your computer when you install the client software.

Or at least that's how I'd do it.

[NLSoldier]

[ QUOTE ]
get a dial up connection or move off campus

[/ QUOTE ]

Is dialup sufficient speed for online poker? i havent used dialup in a long time so i have no idea, but if dialup would work that would be a definate option, and it would aslo be nice to know so that i could get connected at my cabin in the summer. Does anyone on here play with a dialup connection?

[NLSoldier]

does anyone know what time the new player freeroll tonight on party will be taking place, cuase i was planning on playing like 5 seats (for some of the guys i referred) but we still cant get through the firewall. Would anyone be interested in taking one of the seats...i think there was some decent prize money, like 25k total if i remember right.

[esknights]

You plan on playing all 5 seats by yourself?

[NLSoldier]

no, just advising/playing for my newbie friends /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[LuckyStrike]

Yeah, it's definitely not blocked completely, just restriced. So far, I've tried two other sites: Poker Room (downloaded client, not the web client) and FTP. Poker Room had the same thing, but FTP ran just fine. Unfortunately, FTP doesn't have a whole lot that appeals to me right now.

I'm still trying to figure out what port Pacific and other online sites use. I was using IRC the other day as well and it was painfully slow, similar to the poker sites. IRC uses ports in the range of 6887-6889, I believe. Perhaps they run on the same restricted port. Right now I'm trying some HTTP-tunneling. If it works, I'll be sure to report back. I may have to get a cheap dial-up connection if I want to play, like someone suggested, but I don't really want to do that because I'm playing .25/.50 and dial-up fees might be more than my winnings.

And to whoever asked, yes, online poker works fine with 56k connections. I used one all summer to play.

[Schneids]

I know as of the summer time, Nate played on a dialup. I know this because I remember ripping on him multiple times for it. So yeah, if he four tabled with a dialup, it's possible.

[Your Mom]

I play with a dial up. It works fine.

[mushi]

It turns out the problem is not only the proxy but mainly the firewall so here what you do:
1:YOu download the software from http tunneling
http://www.http-tunnel.com/html/solutions/http_tunnel/client.asp
2:You download the SocksCap
http://www.socks.permeo.com/Download/SocksCapDownload/index.asp
3: When you install your SocksCap you set it up to
SOCKS Server 127.0.0.1 port 1080 (which is the http tunneling software settings)
4:You add the Party Poker Icon (or any other poker site) and TADA it works remember you need first to use tunneling then the ScoksCap then connect

I just love it

Dont say this forum is not helpfull eh

[NLSoldier]

Ok so i did all that and i even paid the 5 bucks for the "high speed" connection. And it does allow me to access the poker sites now. But its still too slow to use and i time out everytime i try to play, what can i do to speed it up?

[bicyclekick]

My internet connection is so bad here at U of MN:morris taht I ordered wireless internet from a local company in town. It's 256k/256k for 45 per month. Far cheaper than the 100's I was losing per day because my connection would drop.

If I need to do any super transfers i can switch it real quick because it's still a faster connection it just times out from time to time.

I'd look into something like this NLsoldier.

[jaguar]

The http tunneling site seems to be down, can anyone confirm this since it may be my university firewall blocking access to the page. If it is down do anyone knows of an alternative provider?

[mushi]

No I think its your server b/c I can access the web page no problem, mayb it was down for a while try later sometimes it happens

[BradleyT]

You could always approach the Uni IT department and tell them you're having connection problems. It would be my guess that it's an actual problem that needs to be corrected. They have the port open but the data shouldn't be that slow unless they have something configured wrong.

[whiskeytown]

or a port mismatch...if you're set for auto auto and the university hardcodes to 100/full, even that can cause problems, not to mention duplex mismatches and speed settings being off.

RB

[JAque]

In most companies this is enough reason for termination. I don't know what University rules are regarding bypassing security measures.

JAque