Working from areas with tight security and behind firewalls which you cannot control can be very problematic. Some places the blocks are simply too clumsy, making internet connection almost useless. Even medical sites such as dermnet.nz can get blocked (skin tones=too much skin). Or using medical terms such as “Oral” too much. So safely log into your home computer.
The simplest and secure solution, that does not imply any hack, download or compromises the security of the work site, is to connect to your outside home computer using a web page, port 80 or better port 443 (https, encrypted). Those ports are never blocked. This method does not require ANY software installation at the work end. You are simply viewing a web page on any browser. You are not downloading or introducing anything of risk to the work system. No malware can pass.
The setup is to uses Thinfinity. This offer a fast VNC like connection to your home computer using a web page alone. Once installed on the home computer, at work just type in the URL or IP address of your home machine on the work PC’s web browser, eg https://10.20.30.40/ or something like https://myhome.mydomain.com
On your home router you will have to port forward port 80 or 443 to your home computer that is running the Thinifinfity workstation server, and that machine needs to be left on! Give it a strong long password.
The non-commercial single use workstation license is free.
That’s it.
You can then look at all emails, all files, one drive, dropbox, edit stuff and post to NHS email address, and even use WhatsApp messaging that is connected to the phone left in the car.
I set it is as a subdomain of my own domain, so it can share the site’s lets encrypt SSL certificate. You can use http, port 80, but it is not encrypted. Thinfinity have their own certificate system for https, but that requires connecting to their servers, which could get blocked, and the certificate did not work when I tried. Domains can be created for any home router using dyndns or similar products, but I feared such domains may be blocked, so I used my own. You could use the home IP address if it is fixed.
To untrained it could imply a security worry. From work, via this system, you can see on your home computer thus any site or file, such as time-wasting Facebook. But we are responsible professionals and just need access to all our clinical stuff.
There is no record on the work computer or knowledge what sites your home computer has been looking at. The work computer just sees the connection to a single domain or the IP address of the home machine as a single encrypted web page. All its doing is sending a screen image.
When logged to your home PC via Thinfinity in there is a hidden menu at the top middle: clicking on it you can scale the screen to fit the browser window. You may also need to hit refresh there if not seeing a window.
Gerry Bulger
Contact https://bulger.co.uk/message.htm
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