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Date: Sat, 22 Jan 94 12:25:24 CST To: com-priv@psi.com From: walkerl@med.ge.com (Larry Walker) >From: Bruce Gingery <lcbginge@antelope.wcc.edu> >I've recently been made aware of the following >which could be existing facilities quickly adaptable to "universal access"... > > 1. The 90's version of the video parlor with a seat, a > PC or Workstation on a WAN with a LARGE variety of > software available. Any reason why these cannot > provide the equivalent of "Pay Phone" access to InterNet. > Sounds like Ted Nelson's Zanadu... > 2. Modular connectors at actual Pay Phones. If a modular plug > can be added for modem use, and sufficient networking enabled > for voiceprint identification of the telephone credit cardholder, > why not also pre-arranged connection to an InterNet POP, and/or > a "standard" telephone number posted next to the number for > directory assistance (or integration with directory assistance) Now this is an idea I've also toyed with since wandering the streets of Amsterdam last year looking for a phone connection. I was staying at a very inexpensive hotel with no PBX. After an abortive attempt to reach my email server in the US via their fax line, I finally decided to upgrade to a business-class hotel. In the meantime, I had been riding the tram into the Leidseplein and saw a corner "phone parlor". It looked rather like what's called a currency exchange in US older cities: plexiglass cashier's booth across the back of the storefront building, but in this operation there was a row of phonebooths along each side wall. None had a phone jack available, so I gave up and changed hotels. It got me thinking how silly it is to struggle with access codes to a US long-distance provider, bounce 1/3 of the way around the world on the Public Switched Phone Network, into a corporate 800 number, do a PPP login, and then go via IP packets the last 8' to my POP mailserver!?! How much more sane to have public phone terminals that would allow me to plug right in and dial a local phone number to a PPP login on a local router, and go Internet around the world to my email server! The particular problem I run into with that idea (aside from the lack of a network of local Internet PPP providers) is that my mailserver is on a corporate private IP network, which sits behind a firewall from the Internet proper. I think the real challange is how to utilize the convenience and sensible-network-usage traits of public IP services while addressing the very real security issues of direct connection to the global IP network. Do you really want your desktop PC sitting "unprotected" on the Internet while you are traveling with a notebook PC that needs to get files from home? If you are already doing this, please share with the rest of us the nitty-gritty details of how you address the security issue... Larry Larry Walker System Architect email: walkerl@med.ge.com GE Medical Systems phone: 414.785.8262 P.O. Box 414 / NB-902 fax: 414.785.4331 Milwaukee, WI 53201 dialcomm: 8*322-8262
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