Step one: Download and burn the latest version of
Knoppix.
Step two: Acquire a
T-mobile phone with
bluetooth and
GPRS
capability. I used a
Siemens S56, but I suspect a number of
bluetooth GPRS-capable phones will work as well.
Step three: Acquire a
USB bluetooth adapter of some stripe. I am
using a
Belkin F8T001
Step four: Attach USB bluetooth device and insert Knoppix CD.
Step five: Turn on
computer, let knoppix boot. (you might need to
change the boot order in the
BIOS to get it booted, but probably not)
Step six: Click on the lower-left
penguin icon (similar to the
Windows Start Button), select Network/Internet, then GPRS connection.
Step seven: Select bluetooth connection, then custom init string. Edit
so that it reads thus: AT+CGDCONT="1","wap.voicestream.com"
Step eight: Enter the same password into your bluetooth phone and the
computer. It will dial and attempt to connect. It will disconnect
because you have not added the PC to your phone as a trusted device.
Hit CTRL-c to disconnect. The Phone will ask you if you want to add the
PC as a trusted device. Do it. Go back and follow step six and seven
again. This time the connection will work. Wait patiently for a few
seconds while it finds the
DNS servers.
Step nine: Congratulations. You're in business. Go to everything2.com
and give me a C! because you have to admit, that's pretty cool.
A number of people have asked me how much this costs. Well, this is the coolest part of all. Though this may be entirely temporary, this service is accidentally free to current T-Mobile customers through their unadvertised free
WAP access over
GPRS. What this means, in practice, is that
port 80 and the
SMTP,
POP, and
IMAP ports are open and everything else is blocked. So, surf to your heart's content. The only downside is that the
SSL port is blocked, so you won't be doing any shopping, but I'm sure some industrious hacker is already thinking about
port forwarding and
SSH.