Bypass the corporate proxy

I worked for 12 years at corporations and I’ve seen it all. One of the worst inventions was the corporate HTTP proxy, which is introduced with good intentions — to harden the company’s security position, to monitor your activities, to block data exfiltration and so on.

In this post I’ll show you how to bypass the proxy to gain unfettered Internet access without censoring. I’ll also cover some of the common issues such as blocked ports, LDAP authentication and tools of the trade.

Pictured: a “corporate build” Mac, complete with censoring HTTP proxy and LDAP authentication

The risks and rewards

Follow this guide at your own risk, and if you attempt to circumvent your company’s policy, then you may be in breach of your contract, or worse get dismissed.

If the risks are so high, then why am I showing you this approach?

• Not every proxy you find will be at a corporation, you may find that a coffee shop, hotel, airport, or guest WiFi blocks sites you need to access.
• These policies often leak into networks that have little risk to the company like guest/visitor and BYOD networks.
• Your government, or university, or another institution may be blocking your access to certain news or social media sites.

What are we dealing with?