See also: Sheepsafe. http://github.com/nicksieger/sheepsafe ... it's a simple Ruby script that automates setting up a SOCKS proxy for you on untrusted networks. I think it's only setup to work w/ OSX right now, but should be pretty simple to adapt to other unixy OSes.

It seems like public schools everywhere (up here in Maine, U.S. anyway) still use Netware for everything. I've always thought it would make sense for Novell to migrate them to a Netware/SuSE solution. The kids would win, because (hopefully) a Microsoft-free solution would be a lot cheaper for the schools, and Novell wins by keeping customers who will otherwise inevitably leave their platform as it ages.