This is my third talk today.
So I'm a little bit tired.
Hello, everyone.
My talk is about dial-up connections, basically,
why it's needed and how to run an Opschool ISP at dial-up ISP.
So who am I?
I'm Ozjam from Free Software Association in Turkey
and Hector Space Stumble as well.
I'm from Stumble, I live in an Istanbul.
And usually, I'm working on free software activism
and professionally I'm a software developer.
But I like Tinkering and try to hack things.
And this talk aims to cover the basics of dial-up connections.
What's the nature of it?
Why do you need dial-up connections in 21st century?
And I also set up your own personal dial-up ISP.
So what was dial-up?
Actually, it was funny for me to write this slide
because I started using internet with dial-up connections,
but there are a younger generation.
So so many people have no idea about non-Broadband connections
like dial-up or ISDN.
It was like the fact that the main method
to connect to the internet in 90s and early 2000s,
especially in Turkey, I don't know, about the world,
but until the ADSL era, some places like Romanias,
which just to fiber, but stories can differ.
And it uses the Play-Nol telephone network
to carry the signals.
And you need a model to turn the signals into data, basically.
And voice.
And there is an advantage here,
like dial-up connections need only a telephone line.
Everything goes within a phone call.
So you don't need any additional infrastructure.
That's why in the early stage of the internet,
we were using such methods to connect to internet
because it was a new technology.
And there was no big investments from governments
or companies to the internet.
So there is a phone line.
We have phones for the case at 90s.
So we have a fully-verked, fully-verkin infrastructure.
So we just utilized it.
And in some cases, even a subscription was not required.
There was a service in Turkey.
I don't know about the world,
but it was 1.46.
It was a phone number.
If you call 1.46, you will get the internet.
It was expensive.
But if you don't have subscription in advance,
you can connect anytime.
And the 1.45 was the subscription one.
So you can just connect anonymously, basically.
But this also means that providing internet to people
have the same prerequisites because if you have phone lines
enough, you can provide internet to other people.
You don't need to dig up holes like these streets
and install cables there.
If you have phone in your office,
you can provide internet.
And there were startups like that during the.com bubble.
But there are issues.
That's why we are not using it right now for daily use.
Low bandwidth, basically.
It's very low if you compare to 2026.
And it cost a lot.
The theoretical highest bandwidth was 56 kilobits per second.
We have gigabits in our home street,
well, Wi-Fi would.
And like 56 was never a real number.
You usually got around 40.
And the problem is you have to pay to the ISP for the internet's
connection.
And you have to pay also for the phone call.
Usually, because you call a number.
And it's a phone call.
So you usually charge twice for it.
That's why back then, being online at all times
was not a thing.
You call your dial, get online, get the info,
or get the web page, whatever, then hang up.
So the connection is over.
And there comes the decline of this thing.
Starting from 2000s, the broadband connection
replaced dial-up.
And you know, you are probably still using one of these DSL
cable or F-fiber to the X, fiber to the home, fiber to the building.
And of course, mobile broadband connection in our mobile phones.
So that's why most of the countries have
shut down their dial-up services in early 2010s,
including Turkey.
When I checked out the AOL, American online,
it was the biggest ISP at the time.
Shut it down on the four months ago.
In November, so, and while more than 150,000 people
were using it at the time.
And in most places, even PSDN is in decline.
So why do you need it in 2026?
In the 21st century, since this is the retro computing
era, you probably may have retro devices that
have RJ11 ports on it.
So sometimes it's the only way to connect your old devices
retro devices to the internet.
So you may need a dial-up service.
And the other dial-up does not require a complex infrastructure.
So if you have one, you will have an internet connection.
Have you ever seen such device?
For those who don't know, it's an acoustic coupler
and old version of a modem.
You use this and dial and put it on the acoustic coupler.
And then you get the internet data connection, whatever.
Dial-up can be saved here.
It can be used a tool to circumnaut censorship.
During the Egyptian uprising, the internet was
undercomplete like that.
Now in Iran.
So the telephones are still working.
So in some case, it can save lives.
You can connect to the internet via a phone call.
And people are doing it in 2011.
People will probably do it in the future.
So why did I start this research?
Turkey has similar troubles from time to time.
If there is a protest, they throttle the internet.
But by law, it's mandatory for government to provide payphones.
So payphones still exist anywhere.
They do not install new ones, but we have working payphones everywhere.
So the acoustic coupler was my plan, my guide to this research.
But before that, I started a project called Neolung for the six.
It's coming from the anonymous ISP in the 1930.
It's an information gateway right now.
But I want it to be usable as an ordinary dial-up ISP.
But I made research.
Some, I found some documents, some guides.
They're really well.
But some updated and requires hardware.
I have no chance to find.
So you need a model for the ISP to dial in a computer to be the server.
A model for the client, a landline, and analog telephone adapter,
p-bex, something to carry the telephone.
So now there is a server in Istanbul.
In my personal office, there is a thing that we people would.
Voice over IP subscription from a Turkish company.
And I have this model because it's the only hardware model
that I can buy right now.
I'm not sponsored by the way, it's the only option.
And this is the photo of it.
I take the photo and take to the plane for braces.
So I hope it still works.
You see, this is the computer running Ubuntu.
This is the model there, the USB thing.
And this is the landback.
So my stack here, on the client, this variable laptop,
a thingpad, the subscription from the same company,
and this one.
This is an analog telephone adapter.
So now it's connected to the voice over IP.
And we were about to cancel the demo.
We found the empty, like, it's on this part here.
So I hope it works.
And the same model here as well.
We will use TPP and Getty on the server side.
And Getty will run the model.
And TPP will the PPP demon, especially.
We'll do the network stack.
To set up a server, just install PPP and Getty.
Connect your model.
I'm using a USB model.
So it will show up like this.
But you have to use a hard layer model.
It's very important.
Like there are two types of models,
software models or VM models, and hardware models.
Software ones are cheaper.
But they only change the signal to the same computer
understands.
But they don't have modulation.
The modulation is done on software.
It's super impossible to debug.
And usually you don't have driver.
So you need to use the hardware models.
So it will show up like this.
And you create a systemD server, a systemD demon about it,
and make a configuration like this.
So it will define our connection methods,
like these speed of the serial port.
We will use that only, no facts, something like this.
And configure the PPP as this.
We define our IP limits for this IP.
I have limited time.
So I skip.
So you create a user for authentication or dinner
or a very unique user.
And in the dialogue group, with shell of PPPD,
and you will log in from here with this user.
And you add the user to PPPD demon.
And when the username password comes from the clients,
it will take you online.
And you need to enable IP forwarding and masquerading.
Masquerading is a little bit tricky on Ubuntu 24.
That's why I wrote a gift on how do you do it.
It's on the resources part of this talk,
in source them website.
So you can check that.
And since we are using YP, it's a problem.
It's hostile to the models.
They use super high compression.
And it's designed for voice, not for data.
That's why it usually breaks your data grams.
That's why I tried so many conflicts to make it usable.
And I realized that basically canceling any kind
of fancy stuff and compressions, echo, canceling,
silence, detection, everything you need to cancel it.
And the only codec works is G711, but even though you use PST
and like the original landline, probably,
your provider is carrying your voice from some provider
to another via voice.
So that's why you will face this compression all the time.
That's why 56 kilobits is a dream right now.
You cannot probably achieve it if you're not like working locally.
Our theoretical limit is 21,000 bits per second.
But if you have like 14J, it's OK.
Where are we, OK?
And I will try 9.6 kilobits today.
Client is easy.
You just install PPP and wave dial.
It's a tool to make the calls and take your line.
And the part is the same.
There is a configuration tool.
If you run wave dial calls, it detects
your modem.
It's fine.
It's made to configuration and auto generate a config for you.
And this is the config.
You need to learn the AT comments from your modems manual.
This basic PDAs reset the modem.
Resets it to the configuration to factory defaults.
The working mod is data.
Zero is data.
The others are facts or something.
We define the modulation and speed.
And I hope this is not working right now.
But this is the AT command for opening the speaker.
To hear the connection sound, but my USB modem has no feature.
And the phone number, the username, password, whatsoever.
But we disable every kind of stuff here as well.
All compressions, all like echo cancelation features.
And we match the route of PPP zero is the default route.
So before connecting to the dial up,
do not forget to close your messaging thing or your email client
because they use more bandwidth than reaching carry.
And open the terminal window and type radar.
And it will dial your SP server and connect you to the internet.
So it's demo time.
It's super untested.
I will just try to connect.
So first of all, I disconnect from the internet.
No, since this is a Turkish number calling, voice or IP,
if it was a landline probably required.
The last time, it was OK in the turn.
You have no rope in getting it.
It should not be an instant connection.
No, no, just I tried it here.
It worked, like, if it means the group.
That sounds like, you know, like, overheating.
I'm going to try it one more time.
Yeah.
I will wait for another minute, then continue.
Yeah, so let me continue and we will try it one more time.
So yeah.
So you can use Dilo.
It's a browser, a graphical browser and links and links.
I don't know if they pronounce differently.
As a text-based browser and there is a search engine called VB.me.
You can build your, like, plain HTML.
Same.
Do not use HTBS, but it requires, like, a huge amount of data.
And you'll probably time out.
And there was a search engine back in 90s.
You can set up your own proxy as well.
Yeah.
What?
Polypoh?
Yeah.
I'm not using, like, HTTP, as I built a gateway for HTTP on nail-long 46.
And I'm usually using it.
You can check it out in GitHub as well.
So some notes on improving the connection stability.
You can adjust the MTO, lower to lower your package size.
In V32, it's 512 is okay, but the lower bandwidth you can drop.
And, like, close TCP timestamps, TCP-Sag Windows scaling,
because they require higher bandwidth.
And so, next on my research, I was planning to implement it on Android.
I'm connecting a research.
I never did anything on Android itself, but I'm looking for the Android internals
to implement this phone's telephony.
And I really want to do the acoustic cover thing, because it's cool.
And now the web dial is our only option.
But there was non-PPP back there.
It was a graphical user interface for dialing.
And, like, you can find the package and the source code.
Like, you can compile it, but it's last updated in 2006.
So it needs a GTK for something like modern.
Maybe I can work on it.
And, yeah, I'm going to provide a low bandwidth information gate.
I talked about this, and maybe a multi-user dungeon if I can.
So, for further reading, this is the project's GitHub.
It's not so well updated, but I will try to do it.
And special thanks to the micro-systems and dial-up.world.
It's an ISP.
And it's this starting point of this project.
But, yeah, their guides are available with old.
So, I was trying to update it.
Thank you for listening.
If you have any questions, I can try to answer them.
And those are my contacts.
So, if you have, like, question, up to which you can ask as well.
So, now we come to the end of the agenda.
So, if you have questions now, as long as we can keep the screen with us,
and as long as you have questions, we can go around.
Yeah.
I will take that.
Oh.
Can you pass the mic?
I'm fortunate.
Can you maybe show the slide with your PPP configuration?
Hi.
You can download these slides.
Well, if you can show, I have to question for you, like,
regarding this configuration, because I did this.
I was providing dial-up access before.
Cool.
And the client or the server?
Served hours via ISP, right?
No, no.
Yeah, this one, this one, this one, no CCP.
I think many of those compression settings,
you are turning off, is purely on the LCP or PPP protocol level.
Compression overhead.
It won't help you with the telephone.
I think you can leave those enabled,
and you will get much more bandwidth.
Actually, I tried to, like, enable them,
and, like, they are enabled.
Yeah, normally they are enabled.
I don't know.
The connection constantly drops.
Like, the bandwidth is okay.
Like, my ping times are okay.
Okay.
It constantly drops the connection.
That's why, when I close them,
I got some stable connection.
But, you know, now.
I understand, okay.
But, vis-a-mally shouldn't hurt.
I mean, cancellation, everything is a problem.
You're right, but this will not turn it off.
It will be just changing your pockets.
We've sent.
And second thing, for 56k, I have bad news.
You need the digital line on your provider side.
You need an ISDN.
I was using ISDN, a 30-tonal connection in the Arab Spring.
We were giving it to the Egyptians.
So, we had the proper digital line.
And then you can get 56k on the other side.
Yeah.
You're right.
I used ISDN in this Congress.
Because communication Congress.
And talk with the people.
But the problem is, in Turkey,
ISDN was available for only a very short time.
And usually for business customers.
That's why.
Like, I have no chance to find any kind of hardware or similar.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, if you have more questions, just come here to the front.
And discuss directly with us.
I guess that would be the most easy now.
See you all, shall we?
Yeah.
That's right.
No, I'm just kidding.
What is ISDN?
I'm just kidding.
I'm just walking around to meet the voice.
I'm just kidding.
All right.
I'm going to take a break.
I'm going to go to the guest room.
We're trying to help us out.
We are in the radio for speakers.
That's right.
We can use a picture later.
But, you know, on the radio equipment,
you sound noise as in without any compression.
But the voice of the radio is usually, like,
have issues.
That's fast enough.
I get all the issues.
Just like 1.2 Together 1000-200 boats.
But beyond that,
issues.
I think it's because it's not connecting to the carrier, as it's saying there, but what is it?
But what you can do is tell the pull-out to actually show you the signal straight and tell you before it actually tries to
tell you what's the quality of current vegetation.
We know if it's breaking because it just doesn't understand.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's the reason why it's...
But what really is this thing, is how this thing has an interface.
It's an interface where it can check it, but I'm not connected to its interface.
It's can only access the Lyade local network.
So that's why this is a super uncasted demo, and how to get this information to the ATCOM.
So you can find and put it directly to the line with the ATCOM.
So if you move it in your mind, we can try it on.
Yeah, we can do that.
But nothing stays on.
I tried it.
A thousand times it works, but...
Yeah, probably.
Yeah, I've seen it walking just before you started.
Was I the last one?
Yeah, yes.
So...
So it's just like that.
I came up.