Running steam on VPN?

[LordRascus]

So my situation is that I live on school campus and I enjoy playing games in my downtime. But of course my school enjoys blocking everything including steam. Now I am aware that there are strict restrictions on disguising your location with steam, and it could result in a permanent ban. So would I be able to make a new account, family share my games, and use that account instead? Or would that somehow still get my main account banned? Thanks!

 

[photonboy]

I don't think this will work.

I'm assuming you can only use a specific e-mail address, so that one will have to be the one you use for Steam.

Your bandwidth usage would be a known thing so even if you somehow find a way around this (unlikely) some red flags will go up especially if you have a bandwidth cap.

*In short, MAYBE but I suspect a high chance of getting caught.

It depends a lot on how good the school system is, and what restrictions you are under but I wouldn't risk it.

 

[LordRascus]

I don't think this will work.

I'm assuming you can only use a specific e-mail address, so that one will have to be the one you use for Steam.

Your bandwidth usage would be a known thing so even if you somehow find a way around this (unlikely) some red flags will go up especially if you have a bandwidth cap.

*In short, MAYBE but I suspect a high chance of getting caught.

It depends a lot on how good the school system is, and what restrictions you are under but I wouldn't risk it.

Sorry I'm unfamiliar with terms "bandwidth", The internet at this school is actually very good, my friends always play games like League of Legends on it. The only times I really play is when it will be virtually unused by the 1,500+ people it is designed to support. But I really wouldn't know. So who would I be caught by, the school or Steam?

 

[LordRascus]

Anyone else? D:

 

[bill001g]

If the school is smart you will not get a vpn though. So I will tell you how I block vpn and if they do similar you have little hope. First you block all the common vpn protocols like IPSEC and pptp. So now the smart guys say use openvpn because if runs a number of ports including 443 which is used by https (ie ssl). Problem is openvpn is not actually SSL so it does not follow the standard pattern to negotiate a session. This pattern it uses it well known and many firewall directly reconsider this pattern so you can block openvpn.
You are now stuck with only a tiny handful of vpn clients that use actual SSLVPN. You need to make sure you get SSLVPN not OPENVPN. These you can not detect so I go to the backup plan. I block all web sites that provide vpn services. Many firewall this is as simple as clicking on a box that blocks what are called anonymizers which blocks proxy and vpn.

So now the 1 way left is to put up your own vpn hosting center using SSLVPN. You can put it in your house if you have the bandwidth or rent a server in a hosting center. This method is almost undetectable.

If you use it very little you will get away with it. But like most admins they likely look at the top 10 or 20 bandwidth users to see why they are using so much. If they see long term open SSL session transferring lots of data they will strongly suspect you are running VPN. They will just come ask you what the hell you are doing. You best have a good lie to explain lots of ssl traffic to a random ip address that does not resolve to well known high volume sites like netflix.

Steam will only care if your goal it to bypass a security restriction on a game. It is very common for streamers to use VPN when they plan most games to avoid the idiots who will DoS them. It would be tough to use vpn for only some of the traffic.

 

[LordRascus]

If the school is smart you will not get a vpn though. So I will tell you how I block vpn and if they do similar you have little hope. First you block all the common vpn protocols like IPSEC and pptp. So now the smart guys say use openvpn because if runs a number of ports including 443 which is used by https (ie ssl). Problem is openvpn is not actually SSL so it does not follow the standard pattern to negotiate a session. This pattern it uses it well known and many firewall directly reconsider this pattern so you can block openvpn.
You are now stuck with only a tiny handful of vpn clients that use actual SSLVPN. You need to make sure you get SSLVPN not OPENVPN. These you can not detect so I go to the backup plan. I block all web sites that provide vpn services. Many firewall this is as simple as clicking on a box that blocks what are called anonymizers which blocks proxy and vpn.

So now the 1 way left is to put up your own vpn hosting center using SSLVPN. You can put it in your house if you have the bandwidth or rent a server in a hosting center. This method is almost undetectable.

If you use it very little you will get away with it. But like most admins they likely look at the top 10 or 20 bandwidth users to see why they are using so much. If they see long term open SSL session transferring lots of data they will strongly suspect you are running VPN. They will just come ask you what the hell you are doing. You best have a good lie to explain lots of ssl traffic to a random ip address that does not resolve to well known high volume sites like netflix.

Steam will only care if your goal it to bypass a security restriction on a game. It is very common for streamers to use VPN when they plan most games to avoid the idiots who will DoS them. It would be tough to use vpn for only some of the traffic.

Thank you for the informative answer!