The Alternate URL Trick

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[update 10.19.2006]

Hi folks,
my proxy has been gone for a while, but I had been keeping placeholder pages there. However, I have recently switched servers.

Now all of the links in this article are either broken or go to brickballs.net.
The actual content, however, is still useful and accurate to the best of my knowledge.

Enjoy it!
-brick
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This is a guide on how to beat URL filters by using a different url that goes to the same site! It only works with some sites, but when it does it works very well!

A couple of examples are getaroundthe.evilfuckers.org for my (now disabled) proxy site and ag.servegame.com for Albino Black Sheep. (ag doesnt work anymore)

In this guide I explain how to register a free url that goes to the site you want to visit with the assumption that that site is either blocked, or may become blocked soon.

The usefullness of this is two-fold:
First, if only you use your new url, it is less likely to get noticed by the blockers and therefore less likely to get blocked.
Secondly, if the origional site has not already been blocked, it makes less traffic appear to be going to that site than realy is and again, it makes the origional site less likely to get blocked.

We’re going to use proxy.brickballs.net as the site that may be blocked and phproxy.servebeer.com as the new url to go to it.

The first step you have to take is to find if the site can even be used by an alternate url. To check, you ‘ping’ the site to get its ip by doing the folowing:

  • Click Start, click Run…
  • type in cmd and click ok. (If you are using an old version of windows, you’ll have to type in command.com instead.)
  • now type ping and the name of the site you are trying to get to, in this case proxy.brickballs.net
    • Note: proxy.brickballs.net is _NOT_ the same as brickballs.net. try it and you’ll see that they have slightly different IP’s

  • Now, it should spit out a few lines of text, but you interested in the IP address. It’s written as 4 numbers with dots in between them. for proxy.brickballs.net, the IP is 64.111.96.113
  • Now type that IP address into you browser and hit Go. (you can’t copy-paste it, don’t ask me why.)

  • If the homepage* of site you are wanting shows up then GREAT! the alternate url trick will work!
  • If the site you want does not show up then it can not be used for the alternate URL trick.

*I tried this with orkut and an orkut page came up, but not the home page. The Alternae URL Trick does not work with orkut.

!!WARNING!!

DO NOT JUST START USING THE IP ADDRESS TO ACCESS SITES! That will not only cause the filters to block the site, IT WILL ALSO BLOCK THE ALTERNATE URL TRICK FROM WORKING!

Now that we know the trick will work, its time to use it.

Register for an account at a site that provides free subdomains. no-ip.com and freedns.afraid.org are two that I know work because I have used them. In this example, we’ll use no-ip.com although I encourage you to try to find other sites to use as well. dmoz has a good list of likely candidates. oth.net has a list, but it seems to be a bit outdated.

!!WARNING!!
Do NOT give out real information about yourself!
Email: They all require an email address. I use mailinator.com because they do not require you to sign up to use their email service
ZIP Code: If they check that your zip code matches the state that you selected the go back and choose California (CA) and use the zipcode 90210.


You may have to click an activation link in the email, then go and log in. Your looking for ‘Add Host’ or ‘Add Subdomain.’ On no-ip.com, click Add on the Hosts/Redirects menu at the left.


For the hostname, use anything you want as long as someone else hasn’t taken it.
The host type should be A, although that’s almost always the default.
The IP Address (This is IMPORTANT!) should NOT be whatever is in the box by default. It should be the ip you got back when you pinged the site. (64.111.96.113 for proxy.brickballs.net)

Now click “Creat Host” or just hit enter. It may take a few hours for the site to become live. However, for no-ip.com sites it takes less than 5 minutes.

Now go ahead and browse with your alternate URL all you want - its probably not going to get blocked very soon.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 October 2006 )