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Free ISPs for Linux?
Rob Gibson asks: "I have heard stories of people using free ISPs under Linux to connect to the internet, and was hoping to do so myself. Many of them have slow connection speeds or bad support. Almost all have ad banners. The one that I love under Windows is Worldspy.net, which offers fast access and good coverage with no banner ads. However, I am digressing. I called Worldspy's tech support number, and they are not giving out any information as to how I could connect in Linux. Has anyone had success using Worldspy's access? Any free ISP using the MicroPortal technology?
One thing that would be helpful in my attempts to figure this out is some software that would passively monitor the modem/COM port for incoming and outgoing data while in use with another program. Does anyone have suggestions for Linux or DOS/Win?"
FreeI can be used in Linux by logging in using your normal username and password at the local dial-up number. Juno provides free Internet access. A PPP session in Linux can be initated using the password and login stored in \Juno\User0000\Juno.ini:
[Variables]
login=iukm7
password=mcxvofvb
hostname=m7.jersey.juno.com
port=1793
inetport=1794
Of course you need to have Windows to install the software and register, but after an account is created it's easy to connect using PPP.
Yup, it works - however, the speed isn't exceedingly amazing (it may connect at 45-48kbps, but upon large downloads I get on average only 2.8-3 kbytes/s), ant their news server, news.freewwweb.com, plainly sucks big time: for instance, I haven't been able to connect to it for the past 48h. But, hey, it's free beer, so.. (note to self: quit whining).
Ok, heres the deal with netzero. They encrypt your password on the fly on the CLIENT side. The server side expects the encrypted name and password. Ie. In linux you would put 0:mynick for your username, and password 0xfddssaa (these arent real) and then it would work How do you get these values? First go ahead and make an official netzero account. its easy, go to thier web site. Then download all the legit software on someones windows machine, and install it. Log on for the first time with the ads running. Next (while still logged in) go ahead and switch to your dial up manager, and right click on the connection, and select its properties. Somewhere in there you can monitor its network connection (I think its called logging). Log it to a file. Disconnect from netzero, and then log in again. Now, go check the log file that you just created. Within it are the cleartext "encrypted" usernames and passwords. You would want to plug these into your linux username and password exactly as they appear. I recall that either the username or the password start with a 0: make sure you include that.
I've used portmon from http://www.sysinternals.com/ to do some of this. They also have a nice registry and file monitor, along with lots of other great NT and 95/98 tools.
Some of them even include source.
At one point I had found an EXE for Windows that will translate your plain text password into the scrambled one the Netzero server is expecting. Give the login name as your email address, give the password that the exe gave you, and use whatever PPP capable OS you want.
I've been able to do this also, and have had similar experiences. The way I figured out my REAL username is this: turn on the autodial feature in Windows and then start Netscape. The autodialer will prompt you for your password (which is the same as you enter in their funky-ass Java dialer) and your real userid will be right there. It's most likely in the form v25305gj13b5t@microportal.com (that's just an example, not my real ID :)
/var/log/messages...It makes the connection OK but then I see a problem:
BUT...
Lately (last 2-3 days) it's been impossible to connect to Worldspy in Linux. I put ppp in debug and watched
Unknown protocol received: 0x0c29
It then terminates my connection. Has anybody else run across this? Seems to coincide with the release of Worldspy's 2.0 dialer....
Freewwweb works great (I am currently using it). The setup was prety easy. There is a page on how to do it under linux, but if you follow the "quick " setup instructions on their web page. The only stipulation is that they want you to set there page as your home. Not a big deal for a free service. Service is prety zippy, at least compaired to what I'm used to (school dialup). Netzero also works, but is a bit more tricky. You have to find a program to encript the password before it will work. Freewwweb seemed much more reliable, that is why I am using it right now, that and I am not outright violating their usage policies>
What i used to get my netzero password (and then connect from linux, and windows with no ads and no hokey software to kill the ads either) was get a program to use network modems, then use a program to log network traffic, and a network modem server
the later two i made myself in *gasp* vb, so they aren't too hard, and better written ones should exist somewhere, however the network modem driver i had to use somebody elses shareware for
if your need more infromation, send me an email
Need a Catering Connection
There's a couple of these in the UK.
Try Care4Free or Waitrose.
Waitrose gives you a choice of a few charities, i think, but i don't know how Care4Free works.
No idea how Linux friendly either of these are, either, i'm afraid.
PigPog.
I'm currently using freewwweb until Cable comes to my area, but the most glaring problem I have with them is a few weeks ago they put up a firewall that blocks port 25 to anything but their own smtp server. I use qmail and mutt on my laptop to send my mail, and for most people running sendmail and most unix MUA's, it tries to use the sendmail binary for mail, instead of opening an SMTP connection outside. I don't want to switch mail clients just to do mail, I finally have it setup the way I like.
I asked their tech support about this and they replied (it seemed without even reading the message) that they do not support Linux and their policies are not debatable.
True, I'm still using them, but I'd like to find something better yet still free and workable with UNIX. I don't have a windows partition so installing a windows client isn't an option. Anyone have any suggestions?
Dave
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WWGD? (What Would Goku Do?)
Not a charity, but One Tel Net UK is a free ISP that only costs 1p per minute to dial into, any time of day, and works absolutely fine with Linux.
Better throughput than another 'free' ISP (local call rates, which is a lot more than 1p per minute!).
You also get discounted phone calls as you sign up with One Tel phone co. [no, I have no affiliation to them].
Jeremy.
--- cut: Eat well, exercise, die anyway.
Although i do not know about any software solution for a 'modem sniffer', but! it is posible to sovle your problem with a external modem (barow an old one...) and a 3 way serial splitter, a second computer helps, but you can do loop back to your own computer. I used this when a client need to do a direct cable connect from windows to freeBSD, and it was simple to sniff the way the win direct cable conect authenticates it's sel to program the fBSD side.
Hope this helps.
Seany
"Where ever you go, there you are"
What would be best is a "free" (dial-up charges only) ISP which donates any and all profits to the campaign for unmetered calls! What the heck is up with per-minute charges for local calls in this country??? As if the weather wasn't enough reason to be depressed! :-)
Here's another thought.
Install Windoze 95 onto your old 486-33 boat anchor.
Plop in a network card and a modem, go get pppShar or other lightweight freeware Windows proxy.
Plug the two computers into each other with your handy-dandy ethernet crossover, get Windows talking with your real machine.
Presto, you're done. In my instance, the banner ads and stuff run all over my Windows computer's monitor (off), and your Linux box is up and running. The fact that my main machine is no longer wasting overhead on decompressing ad banners more than makes up for the small proxy and ethernet lag.
And you're insulated in a layer of mediocrity, just in case you have any worries of a free ISP sneaking around in your system. It's also great for anonymity. Just remember the gaping hole in Windows file and print sharing security.
As an addred bonus, install Windows 95B instead of the more common Windows 95A or upgrade editions, and you might only have to reboot your proxy machine every 2-3 hours. {bitter grin}
BigBlockMopar
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
http://www.uklinux.net/ is a free ISP specifically aimed at Linux users; in addition to not charging users, any profits made are donated to open source/free software groups. Truly useful. :)
(It still amuses me that my sister's machine, which runs Windows, still helps Linux by using UKLinux as the ISP...)
In Washington and Oregon you can connect free and anonymously thru nocharge.com which is an up and coming free dial up service. No need to use a propriatory dialer so you don't waste time and screen space with ads. They even have linux specific instructions. Now there's a first!
On that note, what are they tracking? The nice feature of nocharge is that there is no account to setup (username: guest, password:password). But do they really intend to make money by selling a list of anonymously hit websites/downloads? I don't think many people are going to be calling the 1-900 number for tech support at $x.x per minute. Doubt it offsets the cost of running modem banks in every major city... But maybe so.
"I have a cunning plan..."
Have you checked out Freewwweb ? I remember using this once or twice with my Apple eMate. The service seemed OK. There are no proprietary dialers, banner ad apps, etc., so it should work fine with Linux (it worked on my Newton, after all). Check out these detailed setup instructions for more info. About the only drawback I see to this service is the damn name, which is next to impossible to say. (Free WUH-WUH-WUH Web?)
For linux instructions, check out this link, just one of several revealed in a quick google search: teledyn.
I would like to second the request for some type of "modem sniffer" program. Several times I have been faced with the task of making a dialup connection that worked under windows work with linux; often these had been set up by a program distributed by the ISP and it was difficult to figure out what it did; a modem-logger type of program would have been very useful. I just spent fifteen minutes searching freshmeat and other places which have network sniffers, but I didn't see anything that looked useful for debuging the initial part of the dialup connection.
I am using Worldspy right now, and it works in Linux. They won't tell you this, but I will. ;)
As long as you can connect with Windows, you're in luck. I still use WorldSpy 1.0 and I won't upgrade as it's perfect the way it is now. Connect to the internet with it, then disconnect, then open up your Dial-Up Networking properties. Somewhere in the mangled world of Windows menus is an option to prompt you for information before dialing out. Find it and make sure it's checked. Next, start up the Worldspy software and when it loads, it should list your encrypted username. Oddly enough, your password isn't encrypted. Write down that username and you've got a fully functional PPP internet account which works with Windows and Linux! It may not be fast (I get connected around 31.2kbps), but heck, it's free! Hope this helps.