Day Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Bob raised a lotta threads; this one struck me first.
Hope it didn't leave a mark! > Since platforms are being thrown away or available so cheap, why would > you risk a Linux platform from being damaged by lightning or whatever > on the 56k modem line? [...] Well, I'm operating under the assumptions that: 1. You want to get on line. 2. If the "Linux as DOS Gateway" approach is of interest, it's because you're having troubles using your previously existing setup, so you're going to use SOMETHING. If that's dial-up, well those are common risks. The important thing is to de-link the connection to the ISP (be it dial-up, wireless or whatever) and the DOS apps. > That modem is the only thing between the power grid and the telco wires, > and you never know if your surge protection is good enough. I'm pretty sure there's SOMETHING in between there! :) But yeah, if there's a strike, the modem itself probably won't stop it all. Then again, that's "out of scope" for the gateway effort. > Another thing about the 486, is that if what you want to do, is put > up a system online 24/7, you want it to use as little electricity as > possible [...] 24/7 is not a requirement for the gatweay, but a lot of people do leave systems up (me included.) I've looked into using laptops, but sadly they remain VERY expensive compared to regular desktop systems, even used. > [...] > There are some AT/ATX motherboards out there with socket 7 and 72 pin > dram that you could run Linux on, that could run off one of these > laptop power supplies. But now the wattage runs 30-50 watts. John Oram is the low-power PC guy here. He's got some seriously interesting links if you're seriously interested, not to mention some fun ones where people have built hi-horsepower systems into old chassis. > But did I understand correctly that what he had in mind was a BBS on > the 486 cabled to a Linux ISP or high speed terminal? I'm basically configuring a Linux box to be a gateway BETWEEN DOS/Win3.x systems and the Internet (ISP) for cases where connectivity is becoming difficult/impossible due to ISP requirements. If the gateway is going to actuall RUN DOSemu (the "one box" solution), then it'd probably have to be something beefier than a 486, but exactly WHAT runs DOSemu well I haven't tested. > [...] I am in email with another guy in the Ozarks, both of us swamped by MS spam. > Looks like our local isp server has gotten infected and is generating > 100 + fake MS patches every day. Those are the results of a well-known infection making the rounds. It may be that your ISP is infected, but more likely they're just receiving bogus messages being randomly generated to you. If it's a problem, I'd ask them about putting up some sort of mail/spam filtering. The Linux gateway box certainly could do some email retrieval and filtering, but that won't help your ISP connection times since it can only do so reactively -- after downloading it all. But it could be configured to dump bogus stuff, and make your reading experience more pleasurable. > Both of us think lots of mail is bouncing because of the spam clogging the local servers. Very likely. It's becoming quite a problem lately. The spammers are becoming very aggressive, and will attempt to take over any system for their purposes. > There are only 3 ISP outfits in this rural area, all of which run win xp and MS-CHAP. OK, that's EXACTLY the situation the gateway is meant for. It'd connect to your ISP, taking care of the complexities of PPP, MS-CHAP or whatever else is required. Then you could use your DOS software of choice for actual net access. > I have seen some other threads and websites nosing around about an > alternative email network, like the old BBS nets, where there were no > anonymous sources that could clog the bandwidth. The more spam there > is, the more we need high speed bandwidth, the more they make, the more we > havta buy. Enuf already. Fortunately, some of the anti-spam measures are providing some recourse. But the spammers are highly aggressive as well. It's an ongoing battle. Again, my little gateway setup might help a little here, but won't fix the spam issue. > But somewhere on my, or your, local grid, there hasta be a machine to > logon to with dos, that can give you your email, and nothing but > *your* email, as matched with a list of sources which you select, That would be something your ISP would best be positioned to provide. You could also get another shell account somewhere that you could use to do the filtering etc. of email, then have it forward only "real" stuff to your "real" email account. Otherwise, you still have to download the crap to sort through it. I still want to set up that forwarding arrangement (sorry Heimo, got busy!) as a test. Too little time for all these projects, I'm afraid! > and then offer to transfer you to the net for anonymous surfing thru the Linux > server. Which can generate fake id to the sites trying to collect > cookies on you and me. I do have my Linux box setup to do filtering (reactively) of email all the same. Anomy Sanitizer strips active content, and spamassassin at least keeps the porn and other garbage out of my kids' inboxes. A *nix box can certainly be used to anonymize web surfing, and several packages are available for exactly that purpose. They'd be an added bonus of the gateway, now that I think about it! - Bob To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
