How to conditionally tether my cellphone?

3

I can do tethering with my cell phone.

Where I work, certain sites are blocked (gmail, yahoo mail, etc...). Is there a way to tell windows to go through the cell phone on certain sites, but for all others, to go through the regular network card?

AngryHacker

Posted 2010-02-24T23:54:36.490

Reputation: 14 731

Who blocks gmail? – Josh K – 2010-02-25T00:19:19.440

Interesting Handle. – Xavierjazz – 2010-02-25T00:24:37.430

1@Josh, a lot of financial companies block webmail, forums, etc because they are required to keep records of all messages flowing in and out of the firm, which is not always easy to do with websites. – dsolimano – 2010-02-25T02:07:12.253

Answers

3

If you don't use a proxy, you may need to do this with the windows routing table. By default the machine routes anything not on its local network to the internet through the preferred gateway. You can set up rules that force certain interactions to go through the network adaptor and its associated gateway set up when you tether your phone.

It's not trivial, but it's possible.

Adam Davis

Posted 2010-02-24T23:54:36.490

Reputation: 4 327

1yeah, that was my thought. possible, not trivial. ....oy. – quack quixote – 2010-02-25T01:42:28.750

3

I would guess that your workplace will be less than pleased with you if they find out that you're tethering your phone, effectively bypassing any protections that have in place.

That said, you can do this through your browser proxy settings. They differ slightly by browser, but effectively, you can point specific addresses, or ranges of address, or names, to a different proxy. Create a local proxy that points to your tethered phone, and set up your browser to use that proxy for the addresses or names you specify.

Nerdfest

Posted 2010-02-24T23:54:36.490

Reputation: 808

You'll also be creating a path to the internal network that's not protected by the corporate firewall/malware scanner. Don't do it. – Chris Nava – 2010-02-25T06:29:19.287

@Chris Nava. Let's say I want to get my gmail at work and it is being blocked on the internal network. I can already get it on my iPhone at work. So if the purpose of the block is to prevent me from receiving/sending out unauthorized emails, they've already failed. Just the fact that I want to look at my email on a company issued computer vs a company issued iPhone, makes no difference at this point. – AngryHacker – 2010-03-09T00:41:33.237

It's a TCP/IP connection not just an "email" connection. Any network traffic can traverse it. – Chris Nava – 2010-03-09T04:03:13.823