SSH (Secure Telnet): How to Get it, and Why We Ask that You Do














The internet has always been plagued by hackers, but in some ways
now is worse than times past.  Hackers often run packet sniffers,
which check data going over unsecure portions of the net (i.e. anywhere)
for usernames, passwords and other potentially usefull things.  Telnet
is probably the most vulnerable and most often sniffed port.  When
you connect to us remotely using telnet, you are exposing your account
to an extremely high risk of being compromised. Remotely checking email can
also result in this, as can FTP, but both are lower risk.  Either way,
this can result in users losing data, accounts being disabled at 
inconvenient times and all sorts of troubles for us.  This is a bad thing for
everyone involved.  Keep in mind that accessing telnet, ftp and
mail from your dial-up account is over secure channels.  Random hackers
over the internet can't snoop these, but it never hurts even then
to take precautions.


Fortunately, encryption technology is a lot more open than it once was, and
many software developers have taken advanced encryption technology and created
software using these algorithms to send encrypted data over the internet.
The most widely accepted secure telnet protocol is SSH -- Secure Shell.
Originally only for UNIX, freeware versions (for home use) have finally came
out for Win95 and MAC systems.


Keep in mind that passwords that have dictionary words, small numbers of characters,
or pieces of your user name, either forward, reverse or even scrambled, are easily
cracked by hackers EVEN IF you are using secure communcations.  We recommend that
customers change their passwords monthly over a secure connection (i.e. SSH), and
that users put symbols and a mix of upper and lower case letters in their password.
We will soon be implementing a system that prevents easily cracked passwords, but 
until then, please use your judgement about your password.



Windows95


    

  1. If you use a Windows95 system, we recommend that you either get F-Secure
from DataFellows,Inc. (which costs money),
Secure CRT from Van Dyke Technologies, Inc (which also costs money, but less) or that you download Cedomir
Igaly's freeware SSH Client for Windows95  here.
Note that you will also need to download another piece of freeware, written by Peter Gutmann,(for
home use only) which has the encryption library necessary to run Igaly's program properly
here.  Consequently, Van Dyke offers a secure FTP program as well.

    

If you get the client by Cedomir Igaly, you need to do the following:
    
1. Unzip both files to a directory of your choosing.  Winzip should do this
pretty easily, but pkunzip for dos also works just.  You can get these on the
web if you dont happen to have a copy.
    
2. Run SSH32.  When it asks you for a cryptographic library, tell it to look
for crypt32.dll in its own directory.  This should cause the program to come
up.
    
3. A Box of configuration options will be in front of you if everything so far
has worked.  Name the profile name Channel1.  Proceed to fill in Host Name with:
user1.channel1.com
    
4. Next fill in your UserID with whatever your UserID is.
      
5. Where it says port off to the right, fill in 22
    
6. For Authentication type you want just password checked.
    
7. On the right there is a Cipher option.  Select 3des.
    
8. Leave compression at none, and the only box below compression that should be checked
is Keepalive.
    
9. Click save under profile name.  Next time you use the program you can bring up the Channel1
Profile and not have to input this stuff again.
    
10. Go ahead and click on OK to connect.  You should now be connected with secure telnet!

    


    Macintosh
    
Unfortunately there are no SSH clients for Macintosh available at this date.  However, one is
being worked on and hoepfully will be available soon.

    

    WindowsNT
    
The Windows95 SSH program should work fine for WindowsNT, but we havent actually tested it.