Well I only got a note back from RMIT ITS stating that they had assigned my question to a particular person, so I don’t know if I will get a reply from them or not. So I am working on getting around it. It seems that there is software which can tunnel through a http-only firewall and let me get to my computer at home. I have found two pieces of software called corkscrew and http-tunnel but I am not sure how they will go. If it requires a client on the RMIT side it’s unlikely to work, but if I can find one that loads a java app from my server it might work. I was looking around elsewhere and it seems like Adrian has also discovered the wonders of a restrictive IT policy. Perhaps with staff a formal petition could be made to get access for the computers in our lab. We can’t do studies of media and communications if we can’t do what the average net user can. This is not too dissimilar to the NAT modem-router problem that many broadband users have, but at least in that situation outgoing traffic is allowed and traffic returning in response is allowed.