OSDev.org

My internet has a content filter, and I can't access sourceforge. From the page, http://wiki.osdev.org/UEFI, is there another way/place to download the sourceforge links? (gnu-efi and OVMF firmware) I googled for mirrors, but realized that I have no way to know if those are modified, and I'd prefer to use the vanilla source while learning.

Use a proxy.

I recommend that you don't have your internet filtered. This problem is completely imaginary.

Love4Boobies wrote:Use a proxy.

That'll get me completely locked out.

sortie wrote:I recommend that you don't have your internet filtered. This problem is completely imaginary.

I don't have any choice. My school is the only place I can get internet access. I live in a rural area.

Go bitchslap those silly tech guys, then.

Griwes wrote:Go bitchslap those silly tech guys, then.

Or bring them some beer.

If you can't proxy and you can't remove the filter, you're boned unless you can bribe the sysadmin to help a fellow tech guy out.

Combuster wrote:Sourceforge runs pretty much on mirrors for downloads

Thank you very much.

Here's a good tip to download anything you want (the contents are up to you):
Take a website that allows you to test JavaScript code. Write a short script that downloads what you want using an XMLHttpRequest, and populates the page with the values of each byte in hexadecimal (e.g. 0x90 0xAA 0x55...). Copy and paste that into a text file. Then, once you're at home, write a little program that takes that as input, and generates the corresponding binary file.

One drawback of that method is that it generates files four times bigger than the original, but there is no way to trace what you downloaded (it just looks like any website downloaded it, in the webmaster's logs). Another solution is to get a remote server to serve you the file as hex representation. That way, it's the server downloading it, and it is not restricted at all. Look for free servers accepting PHP code.

Why not stream the actual binary then?

@AbstractYouShudNow: You realize that making an HTTP request from JavaScript, even reflected off of a "JavaScript tester" site, is just making a normal HTTP request from your browser, right? JavaScript runs on client side. That technique accomplishes exactly nothing from the perspective of an outside observer (or filterer), except making it hard to download files.

m12 wrote:My internet has a content filter, and I can't access sourceforge. From the page, http://wiki.osdev.org/UEFI, is there another way/place to download the sourceforge links? (gnu-efi and OVMF firmware) I googled for mirrors, but realized that I have no way to know if those are modified, and I'd prefer to use the vanilla source while learning.

Maybe you could use Tor Browser Bundle to pass through the filter, being that connections through Tor are heavily encrypted; and from the GUI, while running, set Vidalia to use bridges for more encryption and potentially a bit less of blocking.

For bridges, you should see:

https://bridges.torproject.org/

AbstractYouShudNow wrote:Here's a good tip to download anything you want (the contents are up to you):
Take a website that allows you to test JavaScript code. Write a short script that downloads what you want using an XMLHttpRequest, and populates the page with the values of each byte in hexadecimal (e.g. 0x90 0xAA 0x55...). Copy and paste that into a text file. Then, once you're at home, write a little program that takes that as input, and generates the corresponding binary file.

One drawback of that method is that it generates files four times bigger than the original, but there is no way to trace what you downloaded (it just looks like any website downloaded it, in the webmaster's logs). Another solution is to get a remote server to serve you the file as hex representation. That way, it's the server downloading it, and it is not restricted at all. Look for free servers accepting PHP code.

To make it better, you would be much better off using Base64 (using btoa to code into Base64 and atob to decode it back), so files are only around 30% bigger, and in plaintext format, which you then need to convert back to binary. It is much more "professional" than using plaintext 2-byte hex codes.

Better yet, you could write a simple (Firefox) extension for more privileged, less restricted XMLHttpRequests.

If you used Tor Browser Bundle along with this, it would be better, but more certainly not required.