Internet access

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This article describes strategies you can use for getting Internet access while travelling.

	internet access Travel Guide : 1 Access types 1.1 Internet cafes and Hotel Computers 1.2 Modems 1.3 Cellular phones 1.4 Wired connections 1.5 Wireless 1.5.1 Lists of wireless accesspoints 2 Accessing email 2.1 Webmail 2.2 Shell accounts 3 Firewalls and getting access 4 External links

Access types

Internet cafes and Hotel Computers

Internet cafes and Public Hotel Computers are spreading quickly to even the most remote regions of the world, often driven by local demand for 'net access. Probably the cheapest and easiest option. Most will be running Windows, but the version varies, often they are still running windows 98 (eg in Morocco) which will make uploading pictures from a camera nigh on impossible. Other services that are usually missing: IMAP clients for reading mail, microphones and internet-phone software.

Security is also an issue, as many cafe computers are infested with keyloggers and other nasty forms of spyware. Do not use important passwords on a public computer.

Modems

If you've brought your laptop with you, you can use the phone socket in a hotel room to connect to the 'net. In some hotels the sockets are impossible to get at (heard of some people a few years ago still using acoustic-couplers because of this... doubt it's true any more). Note, it can be very expensive to use modems on hotel phone lines.

Cellular phones

For GSM phones, the worldwide standard pretty much everywhere except Japan and South Korea, GPRS (packet data) roaming is becoming more and more common around the world. There are two basic ways of getting online with your phone:

• Use GPRS to download mail directly to your phone and surf the Web. While this can be done on most any modern phone, you will want a Blackberry/Treo/Communicator-type device with a large screen and keyboard to make this practical.
• Use GPRS to connect an external device, typically a laptop, to the Internet.

In the USA, CDMA (the system used by Verizon) is widespread, and arguably the most available service outside of metropolitan areas. CDMA phones can frequently be used as a computer modem with the purchase of an adapter cable. While not part of their basic cell phone service package, Verizon's "Quick 2 Connet" (QNC) service provides 14.4 kbps internet access at no additional charge to their customers using the phone and cable combination.

Wired connections

(802.3 aka Ethernet) Common when visiting private homes, businesses, universities; uncommon at cafes, libraries etc.

Wireless

(Wireless 802.11b/g WiFi Access Points). There are four kinds of these:

• Completely open public Access Points.
• Open Access Points that require you to accept some policy in a browser before letting you connect to the internet. I.e. even if you only want to read email with POP3 you have to start a browser and try to read a random web-page. This is a problem for hardware internet phones.
• Commercial access points. They usually charge a high fee per hour or day.
• Private Access Point left open by their owners. Possibly not on purpose.

Lists of wireless accesspoints

• WiFi411 (http://www.wifi411.com/) You can search a distance from city center.
• WiFinder (http://www.wifinder.com/)

Accessing email

In many countries it is easier to use email to keep in touch with friends and family back home than it is to call home regularly. Email has advantages over phone calls: it doesn't require you to account for time zone differences before contacting your family; and it's possible to contact a lot of people with a single email.

Webmail

Webmail provides access to your email over a web interface. For most email users this is very convenient, as it means that they can check their email wherever they can get access to a web browser. Webmail interfaces are growing more sophisticated and suitable even for people managing high volumes of email (>50 messages per day).

An increasing number of email providers such as ISPs are setting up webmail interfaces for their users so that they can check their mail on the road. But many people choose to use one of the dedicated webmail providers, many of whom provide a free service. Recommended dedicated webmail providers are:

• Yahoo! Mail (http://mail.yahoo.com/) - One of the most popular webmail sites, it offers webmail in several languages.
• Gmail (http://www.gmail.com/) - With the more space than any other webmail site (2.5+GB) it is one of the best out there (GMail requires an invitation from an existing user or a mobile phone registered in the United States to create an account)
• Lonely Planet Ekit (http://www.lonelyplanet.ekit.com/) Webmail integrated with phonecard, SMS, Fax targeted at travelers.

A very limited number of web access points will restrict access to sites known to host webmail. Examples include some universities and private businesses who wish to discourage users from checking their email during work hours. However, almost all internet cafes and other access points aimed at the public will allow you to access your webmail: for many of their users, webmail is the reason they are there.

Shell accounts

A shell account allows you to login to a remote server's command line interface and use a text mail client (such as Pine (http://www.washington.edu/pine/) or Mutt (http://www.mutt.org/)) which runs on the remote server. The advantage of a shell account, if you happen to have one, is that it is a way to access email at your existing address and therefore you may not have to set up a special travelling webmail account and maintain two sets of inboxes. Another advantage is it's usefulness with very slow internet connections--an important feature when using a cell phone as a computer modem. It's uncommon for ISPs to provide shell access to your mail account, but if you buy web and/or email hosting through a dedicated provider, you are more likely to have shell access.

There are two normal ways to access a shell account:

• telnet: an unencrypted, uncompressed connection, usually over port 23
• ssh: an encrypted and optionally compressed connection, usually over port 22

Almost all internet cafes will have port 22 unblocked. Most internet cafes use Microsoft Windows, so putty (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html) is probably the easiest ssh client to use. Depending on where you are you may find the bandwidth horribly slow, and thus ssh will become almost unusable. Putty has an option to compress the connection, which may improve matters a little.

Firewalls and getting access

Several countries (for example China) have a policy of blocking access to different areas of the 'net. The description below is based on China's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall_of_China) access policy, but applies to several other countries (namely Cuba, Burma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_Wide_Web), Syria, South Korea, North Korea, Iran, Turkmenistan(?), ...)

Typically the following sites may be blocked:

• Human-rights NGOs' sites
• Opposition sites
• Universities
• News outlets (BBC, CNN, etc)
• Blogging / discussion forums
• Webmail
• Search engines
• Proxy servers

Often they will duplicate the sites that have been blocked but (not so) subtly modify the content.

The way the sites are block often varies within the country: Sometimes it is just the url that is blocked via blocking a DNS request, so entering the numeric ip address (if you can find it) can get around it. Other times, all traffic from that IP address is blocked, the only work around that might work then is to use a proxy server that has not yet been blocked by the authorities.

The gateway (in China at least) is much more sophisticated than this: Even using a proxy server many sites are not accessible (eg the BBC News site, Amnesty, etc). The only work around that is reliable is to use an ssh tunnel to connect to a proxy server outside the country via an ssh server, from a local port (eg 4321), then to connect to the proxy server like that. (I'll add a detailed how to using putty as the ssh client when I get back!)

If you are likely to need access to any of the above sites, it is recommended that you set up your own proxy server, or get a friend to do it for you on their machine.

This is a list of public anonymous (or transparent) proxy servers, these can come and go quite rapidly however, and this list may not be up to date:

• US proxy 66.119.34.38:80

If you're interested in seeing what might be blocked from inside the firewalls, it is possible to use a proxy server in the country you're going to be going to. For example, I'm currently using a transparent proxy: 61.185.19.77 (port 3128), that's in China, somewhere.

There is a small risk if you search for too many 'naughty' keywords (like 'freedom') you'll get the proxy taken down...

External links

A reasonable list of public anonymous proxy servers is held by 1 (http://www.publicproxyservers.com).

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