Hmmm. I ran across this page, but I don't think it will work based on the bolded caveat below, which is true for the onsite gig:

If any of the following are true for you, you probably can't use this method successfully;

* You can not access any external Internet websites; only internal websites or none at all.
* You can access a few specific Internet websites, but no others at all.

Can you carry a laptop with a wireless dial or satellite connection so you don't use the company's network?

If you have windows at home you can run Remote Desktop Protocol and then use the RDP client on any machine to surf wia your own web browser at home as long as port 3389 is open.

Or use VNC, for that matter.

RDP is faster than VNC for windows over windows.

WebSense is often set up to deny access only to classified sites (e.g. entertainment, news, etc.) and so using a proxy such as your home machine can work, since WebSense is unlikely to classify a system it doesn't know about.

It can also be set up whitelist-only, but that's prohibitively labor-intensive for a lot of customers.

So I'd at least try doing it that way. FoxyProxy is an add-on for FireFox that might help (I haven't tested any of these myself though).

If your employer is freakishly paranoid about web usage, though, you'll still have to be careful in social terms.

Via RDP your employer will have no idea of your web habits and they can't block sites. You are surfing from the remote computer. The only way for the employer to track you would be for them to track ALL clear text on IP communication over UDP and IP and reasemble and scan.

Thanks, you guys.

stilicho - yeah they are super freakish paranoid. it's a company that handles an enormous amount of personal data, and they have very deep pockets so my guess would be they have all holes plugged. You do have a point on the social angle of it - since I'd be contracted to a contracted firm, I really don't want to damage my client's relationship with theirs.

As far as the laptop / satellite solution, that's a possibility - but I don't want to sneak off to my car once an hour. This one would definitely crimp the social aspect.

There is a possibility of VNC access from outside, but it's not fine tuned. I'm trying to push that with my client.

Part of me feels like a whiner: it's good money, it's for 2 months, suck it up. But I'm an adult, I am responsible for my work and I honor my contracts - I don't need to be policed. *sigh*

footnote: my client told me yesterday that their onsite client is going through contractors like water - they advertise the position as coding, but when they get them in there, it's text edit maintenance. So misrepresenting the position combined with outside shutoff makes for not an easy job to keep someone in.

It's a bit tricky to set up if you're not technical, but the Peacefire Circumventor works pretty well. You set it up as a website on your home PC, and then access the web through it from work.

There are various sites that email out lists of new proxies, but I've found they're banned almost instantly by Websense and others. Might work if the blocking software isn't very good.