Blocking Hopster

i'm facing problem with student (at hostel) bypassing our firewall..
their using hopster software..
how to prevent them from using this software

Hopster is a bit tricky to block. It works by running a SOCKS proxy server locally and tunnelling all requests through HTTP to Hopster's servers. Therefore if your corporate allows web (HTTP) access, Hopster will work.

1. If you've got control over your users' desktops, you could lock them down to prevent the installation of unauthorised software.
2. Hopster first of all makes a plain HTTP connection to an external server. You can monitor this IP to see if different ones are used and you can build up a list if necessary. Also, you can monitor the text in the connection request to see if content filtering is possible. You will need to install Hopster and use Ethereal to obtain the above info. You can then block the IPs at your firewall.

Hi,

Depending on the firewall you use, you could block all traffic to the Hopster servers.

Greetz,

Stefan

what is hopster server address?
that mean i have to block all ip's related to hopster
is it?

Hi,

You could start by checking your firewall logs when trying to connect to hopster. Note the IP's and try to block them.

The problem migth be that the application starts using alternate ports when it sees that the ports it used before are blocked.

You migth look for a certain connection string and block that.. if your fwl can do statefull application filtering you should be ale to block the strings.

Good luck,

Stefan