Re: Remailers: The Next Generation

[Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>]

>There's also the hybrid issue, where you tunnel IP across whatever
>transport medium is available - there are some people doing this over telnet,
>and it would be a convenient way to do things like get IP service
>from a flat-rate dialup access provider without paying $2/hour for SLIP, etc.

Indeed. I've been threatening to do this for some time. Define a
SLIP-over-Telnet protocol that encodes packets as lines of ascii
characters (one packet per line). Then login to your local public UNIX
system and telnet from there to a cooperative server somewhere on the
net that will turn your asciified packets back into real packets and
put them on the net. You'd have an IP address that belongs to the
server's net. One such server, well connected to the backbone, could
support quite a few users all over the world.

As far as the local UNIX host is concerned, you just spend all your
time telnetted to some random host on the net.

Although this could easily be done in my NOS code, I haven't actually
written it because a) it's an inelegant kludge, b) I have lots of
other active projects, and c) I had hoped that merely the threat of
doing so would shame the dialup SLIP/PPP service providers into
dropping their prices more into line with what they now charge for
UNIX-with-Internet-connectivity service. SLIP/PPP service should
actually cost *less* than interactive service to a public UNIX system
on the Internet because it uses fewer resources per unit of connect
time.

Phil