Anyone familiar with how ADSL authentication works?

I have MTS DSL, its not the fastest i can get around here but its not that expensive, anyway this guy that I know (an ISP here in Manitoba, Canada) was bragging that a MTS tech said if you put a [USERNAME]t.RES[x].mts.net and login you will not be charged at all because you haven’t activated. This apparently only works if you have not yet logged in with the user name you pick when you sign up.

This sounds like B$ to me because wouldn’t they have to list every user twice?

can any one confirm that this is B$ or would I have to ask some one that administers the network to me this sounds in-effcient and fake but if not I'll have to cancel my service and sign up again :D, naw just kidding - just want to call B$ on the guy

ADSL authentication, if I remember correctly, can be either PAP or CHAP - just like it is for a normal dialup account.
So there may be special cases whereby on their particular service, they don't record usage statistics for particular usernames, but there'd be no real way of knowing.

It sounds like their system can authenticate users by just a username/alias, or by a fully qualified hostname.
I would imagine, that the accounts are stored by hostname, and that perhaps, accounting of usage is done on an alias basis.

So if you login with your proper account name/hostname, thus bypassing your alias, then perhaps no accounting would be done.


Of course this could all be complete bull****. It really depends on the ISP themselves.

ADSL does not work with the same protocols as dialup. For instance... many companies including BT do not have telephone numbers in the dialup menu, it's actually a string. IE <BT OPENWORLD CONNECT> etc.

This "BT openworld connect" string connects you to specific servers which WILL log everything.

The two most common protocols PlenderJ listed are correct, although PAP is usually recommended over CHAP. Companies like ameritech.net ceased CHAP authentication on their PPPoE internet clients a few weeks ago.

IMHO <ABX...

That guy was B$'ing you. Non activated users are unable to connect to secure servers. It may allow you to connect via a different "dialup string" and gain access that way, but I wouldn't think your ISP would willingly give you that address! :p

When an account is activated, it will automatically track everything going in & out. This then trips another program which bills you per second/minute or which ever package you subscribed to! :)

Hope that helps.

Figures, I didnt think they would bother with that and the he said that the purpose of having that setup is so you could Test the account but it the user name was different, wouldnt that defeat the purpose?

Thats my reasoning anyway. Just wanted some other opinions.