October 30, 2000

Important Announcement

My e-mail addresses are changing.  I just got connected into Sympatico's High Speed Edition and I will be dumping my two current e-mail addresses.  So at the end of November, fcaron1@attglobal.net and milnoc@attglobal.net will no longer exist.

My new address is already active and it is milnoc@teksavvy.com.  My existing user ID is so unusual that it was available when I signed up.  There is a definite advantage in inventing a name...

Zzzzoooommm!!!

And if you're wondering if Sympatico's High Speed technology actually works?  That's a definite "Yes".  The special Alcatel modem plugs directly into your existing phone line and it's signal behaves like a hidden "second" signal which your existing phone equipment can't recognize.  So your existing equipment continues to function normally regardless if you're connected to the Internet or not.  The only "modification" you need to do is plug in line filters between your existing phone equipment and the phone line, a ten second operation.  Another advantage which is often overlooked is that the included access management software can be set between full manual and full automatic mode.  So the software doesn't completely take over your computer or make it do any funny stuff as long as you follow the installation instructions.  Also, you are not obliged to install the supplied versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer which is good if you're the type of person who upgrades the software on your computer on a regular basis.

Disadvantages?  First of all, you will need an Ethernet card.  But if your computer is fairly recent, your computer might already have Ethernet capabilities.  If not, you will need to purchase the card.  But then, this is no different from buying a modem for a dial-up connection.  Total throughput itself comes close to 1 megabit per second, but that's about 800 Kbps download speed and about 200 Kbps upload speed (I average about 550 Kbps download speed).  If you often upload huge files, the process will be a bit slow.  Another disadvantage is with a notebook computer; you can't simply go to another phone jack without having to drag the modem along with you.

Any bugs?  Yes.  Sympatico uses what's called a proxy server to speed up communications with other Web servers.  It acts a bit like a cache and a switching station all wrapped into one.  But what it also does is screw up a few key communications and security features with some Internet retailers.  I couldn't place a single DVD order with Express.com via Sympatico, but I could with my old AT&T Global Network dial-up connection.  The AnimEigo and Barenaked Ladies Web sites are totally inaccessible via Sympatico, but perfectly accessible with the dial-up connection.

There have been complaints about these types of problems on Sympatico's own newsgroups.  Supposedly their "transparent proxy" has been behaving this way for over a year.  These problems don't occur with all Web sites, but they do happen on a regular basis.  If you must access a problem site, you must reboot your machine and use either another service provider or Sympatico's own dial-up service (10 hours of access time per month are included with the High Speed Edition) to get around the buggy High Speed Edition proxy server.

But hey.  For about forty bucks a month, what used to take about an hour to download with my 56K modem now only takes about five minutes with this thing!  And many high bandwidth RealPlayer and QuickTime files come down the line faster than they can be played back so the players start up almost right away!  This is much better than suffering through long downloads of low bandwidth files just to watch a slide show.

Either by cable or by phone, high speed Internet access is definitely worth the price.  Now if they could only fix the proxy bugs...

November 4, 2000

Sympatico Update

Remember the bugs I mentioned last week about certain Web sites not being accessible?  Well there's another bug and it's a biggie!  Your total throughput may not be at it's maximum potential.  With a simple tweak, you could double your line speed.  My own throughput jumped from 550 Kbps to a whopping 975 Kbps, almost the full bandwidth of the service!  And this tweak is not limited to Sympatico.  It will also work with other ADSL based connections and maybe even with cable modems.

So what is this miracle cure?  Well I'll tell you.  But you must assume all responsibility for any consequences that may arise from this tweak.  If you're used to making adjustments to your computer's registry from time to time, this particular tweak qualifies as a very easy and routine adjustment.  The example provided is designed to work under Windows 98 only.

First, connect to Sympatico as usual so we can find out what is your current throughput.  Go to http://fastweb.sympatico.ca/test/quebec/en.html or http://fastweb.sympatico.ca/test/ontario/en.html depending on your home province.  Try out the test a few times and mark down the average result.  Now disconnect from Sympatico, start the Registry Editor and locate an entry called DefaultRcvWindow.  The current value will most likely be in the 5000 range.  Change this value to a much higher number, say 32767, and exit the Registry Editor.  Reboot your computer to activate the change, reconnect to Sympatico and try the speed test again.  If the speed goes to "infinite", clear your browser's cache (for Netscape, shift-right click on "Reload") and try the test again.

See a big difference?  If so and your new speed is almost at your service provider's maximum capabilities, then there's nothing more to do.  You may want to try a DefaultRcvWindow size of 65535 just to see if there are any major speed differences between this larger buffer size and the smaller one.  If you notice no significant difference, put the window size back to 32767 and leave it alone.

For more information on all of this, go to the sites http://www.dslreports.com/stest/0 and http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks/Windows which contain a more detailed speed test tool, detailed explanations on the tweaks themselves, and ready-to-use registry files for all flavours of Windows.  You can also get more information at the Sympatico Users Group at http://sympaticousers.org where you can follow the progress being made by Sympatico subscribers at getting Bell to fix their highly buggy proxy server.

What's really annoying is that based on reports by other users, Sympatico's support staff doesn't seem to know anything about the tweak or the proxy server bugs.  And yet, that one tweak to DefaultRcvWindow can literally double the performance of your connection.  This doesn't make sense.  Doesn't Sympatico want us to have the best possible connection speed?

November 13, 2000

High Speed Internet Security

Another discovery while evaluating my Sympatico HSE service.  Your computer may be leaking out way more information than you'd care to allow which may make it susceptible to virus attacks without your knowledge.  Even with the e-mail and browser applications closed, a hacker could just "walk into" your computer and either destroy the contents of the hard disk or even worse install a time-delayed virus which will do who-knows-what at the appropriate time.  One excellent example of this phenomena occurred when major Web sites such as CNN and E-Bay suffered denial-of-service attacks a few months ago.  The victim sites were hit with so many bogus TCP/IP requests, legitimate requests could not be processed at all.  And all this was caused by some smart hacker who was able to install a time-delayed virus on a huge number of unsecured computers.  All the viruses attacked the target sites at the same time, flooding them with bogus requests which could not be processed properly and halted all normal transactions.

To verify your computer's security, go to http://grc.com and follow the SheldsUp links.  The applications located at the Web site's server will do an invasive but non-destructive test of your machine's security features.  Don't be too surprised if the Web site responds back with your machine's name along with a sample of your directory listings.  Windows 95 and 98 have a nasty habit of opening up your computer to the world without your consent.

So what can be done about this?  Surprisingly, you may not need to purchase a firewall application.  It is possible to fully secure your computer without the use of any specialized software applications by removing certain bindings and communications protocols in the network configuration.  The Web site explains how to accomplish all of this properly.  After installing any kind of network software (including dialers), you should try the ShieldsUp link again to make sure your computer is still secure.

Do take the time to verify your computer's security.  Even after I forbade access to the files on my machine a long time ago, my machine's identification was still available to anyone who asked for it.  Once I understood the exact cause of the security leak, it only took a few minutes to correct it.

Don't open your computer to strangers.

November 20, 2000

More Internet info, part 1

So now I have my high speed Internet connection, I improved the performance with the help of a few tweaks, I locked out all possible intrusions from the outside, so I'm pretty much done.  Right?

Not exactly.

Even though everything is locked out so that nothing from the outside can get inside my computer, there's still the possibility that a program already inside the computer will try to communicate with the outside world.  And if you're wondering exactly what kind of programs are doing this, it's often so-called "legitimate" programs such as RealPlayer, Netscape and even Windows, or even worse, Trojan Horse programs you may have downloaded from some obscure site.

The http://grc.com Web site did a comprehensive investigation in the matter.  They discovered that many popular download helper applications are reporting back to their own servers the files you are downloading along with key information about your computer.  This process is basically known as "Spyware".  Without your knowledge, certain programs are reporting back what you do on the Internet.  How this information is exploited is completely unknown.  And what many dubious programs may do to your machine could be even worse.

The best way to find out and if necessary prevent what is going on while you're connected to the Net is to install a firewall.  This is a special application which places itself between your computer and your connection to the Internet.  It's the "border guard" of your connection, keeping a close eye on all the connections being established.

The first thing a firewall normally does is "hide" your computer from the outside world.  Even if another machine tries to communicate with your machine via the commonly available access ports, not only will the firewall detect and stop these communications from being established, it will not even acknowledged the failed attempt to the remote computer.  As a result, the rogue computer trying to break in is sitting around waiting in vain for your computer to respond back.

But the second and more important feature is that the firewall will also catch any application in your computer trying to communicate with the outside world and even catch applications trying to set themselves up as a server type applications waiting to be contacted by external processes.  The firewall has basically blocked all communications going both ways.  A good firewall package will allow you to grant certain programs authorization to go through this invisible barrier and block out all other unauthorized programs from gaining such access.  The trick hers is how easy the firewall application allows you to manage these authorizations.

One program recommended by a co-worker and the GRC Web site is ZoneAlarm by Zone Labs (http://www.zonelabs.com).  This is an excellent firewall product for individuals since you don't need to do much work to set it up properly.  In it's default mode, the firewall blocks all communications and reports what happens afterwards.  If another computer tries to access your computer without prior authorization, that communications link is simply dropped. When a program residing on your computer tries to establish a communications link with a remote computer, a pop-up window will appear and ask you if you want to grant or deny the program permission to go through the firewall and complete the connection.  You can even save the answer permanently so that access is granted or denied automatically the next time the applications tries to establish another communications link.  As a result, you don't need to create an access profile up front.  All you need to do is wait for a program to do it's stuff, be caught by the firewall, and decide at that moment how the firewall should deal with the request.

ZoneAlarm's best features are that it's free for individuals, it's very easy to use, it does a better job than a lot of firewalls that aren't free, and it doesn't even affect the performance of either your Internet connection or your computer.  Once you load it, you'll be surprised how many times other computers are trying to break into your machine.