[lug] Can someone explain this?

[Jim Buzbee]

I've got a network problem that has me a bit stumped...

I'm on a Linux box inside a firewall here at my company.  A couple of days
ago some sort of change was made in the firewall policy that is causing me
problems.  Previously I used my web browser, ftp, telnet, pop3, etc. without any
proxies, now I must use proxies within the browser. That I can deal with... 

The problem is with ftp, pop3 and telnet.  These apps, no longer work.  I'm
assuming that the new proxy policies have affected these apps but I'm not
sure. A traceroute shows my packets leaving our firewall, but "hanging up" way,
way  down the line.  

Now here's the _really_ strange (at least to me) behavior. If I fire up vmware
with windows 95 on my Linux box, telnet to the "outside" works. This is
embarrassing.  I have to use Windows in order to do a telnet or ftp? Anyone have
any idea what going on?  The windows users around here don't seem to be much
affected by the change. I'm assuming that the common NT domain login fixed
things up for them (and me when running vmware). Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Jim Buzbee