[PLUG-TALK] Three ways to get the BBC streams of the olympics

[Paul Heinlein]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2012, Michael Rasmussen wrote:

> https://gist.github.com/3195652
>
> Short - get a UK based VPN and reel in the goodness.

If setting up a VPN isn't to your liking, an SSH-managed SOCKS proxy 
will come to the rescue! You can tunnel all your HTTP traffic via an 
SSH session to Galois or your own server:

    [you] <- encrypted tunnel -> [UK server] <- plain HTTP -> [BBC]

I keep three browsers on my Mac. I use Safari for day-to-day business 
stuff, Chrome for testing and sensitive connections, and Firefox.

I found that I didn't use Firefox for all that much, so I've dedicated 
it for SOCKS proxy sessions.

There are two things you need to do:

   1. Set up the SSH tunnel
   2. Configure your browser to use a proxy

Here's the ssh invocation I use on my laptop to establish the tunnel. 
It will set up a proxy port on localhost:1080 (the standard SOCKS 
port).

    ssh -C -D 1080 your.remote.co.uk

In Firefox, the configuration will take you a few layers deep in the 
menu structure:

    Preferences -> Advanced -> Network -> Settings...

Specify a "Manual proxy configuration" and set the SOCKS host to 
localhost port 1080. Make sure you're using SOCKS v5, not v4.

Once Firefox is configured like that, it shouldn't be able to get to 
*any* web site until you launch your ssh tunnel.

It's also a good setup for anyone in an untrusted airport/hotel/coffee 
shop -- to protect against someone who's running Firesheep or a 
similar sniffing tool.

In the standard SOCKS configuration, however, a sniffer will be able 
to see your DNS requests, so they'll be able to know what sites you're 
visiting. If that, too, is something you'd like to keep secret, you 
can tell Firefox to proxy its DNS requests as well:

1. In the browser location bar type "about:config" and press Enter.
    This opens a different set of Firefox preferences.

2. Where it says ‘Filter:’ at the top, type "network.proxy.socks"; the
    list of preferences will automatically change to show your proxy
    preferences.

3. Highlight ‘network.proxy.socks_remote_dns’ by clicking it only
    once. Then, right-click it. This opens a small pull-down menu.
    Select ‘Toggle’ from the menu to change its value to true. This
    adds privacy by preventing DNS queries from leaking. This is the
    reason why Firefox is recommended over other browsers for using
    this service.

4. Close Firefox and restart it.

A SOCKS setup doesn't offer the same sort of protection as a VPN, but 
for redirecting HTTP requests, it's a much simpler solution.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/