Q. on the Verizon air card logging me out.. - Montana Owners Club

Ozz · 05-30-2008, 02:33 AM

The darn thing logs me out every 24 hrs or so, is there a setting I can make to stop this? It's irritating when I am on line and it chooses to drop me.
I asked the kid that sold it to me in Brownsville, he said that was normal...
Any of you have this problem?
I leave my laptop on 24-7.
Thanks, Ozz

H. John Kohl · 05-30-2008, 03:07 AM

I get that now and again. It goes dormant. I am "guessing" that the network hub may monitor activity and when the usage goes up it will drop dormant users. I just log back in.
Cheers,

tom41 · 05-30-2008, 03:20 AM

Ozz, I have verizon card for over a year now and have never had that happen so dont know what to tell you. I do go into options in the VZAcess manger and click the Activation when I move out of an area into another. Also call the 800 # for verizon, they should be able to help
Tom

Alex Sian · 05-30-2008, 06:38 AM

Ozz, a router designed to support your verizon evdo device would do a great job of always keeping you connected. router also allows you to easily share the evdo connection with more than one computer.

lots of folks on the forum use a router... i'm sure they'd agree.

best routers out right now, are those from cradlepoint.

- alex

rogue · 05-30-2008, 07:11 AM

Ozz, I use the router at home here in Oregon and have ditched my DSL (why pay for both). With the router, even if the Verizon card drops you, you automatically reconnect when you need to use it. I have the Verizon UM150 and cradlepoint CTR350, with Ethernet from my desktop, and wireless to my Laptop and Itouch.
Bob

Ozz · 05-30-2008, 07:32 AM

Thanks, all.
I contacted support, he had me download a half ream of stuff I haven't waded through yet.

sailer · 05-30-2008, 03:43 PM

Ozz I have the Verizon air card but never leave the air card on all the time as i was told thats how the hackers get in , to your bank stuff as you are on line forever and loged in ,, maybe i'm wrong ,, sailer

simonsrf · 05-31-2008, 08:50 AM

Ozz,

Like Alex said, the Cradlepoint router is a wonderful tool. It supplies fulltime connectivity to more than one computer, and adds another level of security. We have ours connected to a booster and CDMA antenna ....ahhhh.......high-speed internet in the Monte while we drive with the inverter on (solar)!

Waynem · 05-31-2008, 09:18 AM

Ozz,
If all else fails, search for "Stay Alive Software," and see what you come up with. The software is designed to send a packet telling it there is activity. You may also find that your email program can be made to act as a stay alive program. Fix it in the options to poll your server for email every 2-3 minutes.

With that said, there were some comments on security. Leaving your computer on is an invite to hackers, but most likely you have some security measures in place for that. The bigger threat is if someone breaks into the Montana (Heavan forbid!) and steals the computer with you logged in. You may have passwords remembered and possibly some sensitive items you would not want to get around or out in public. Sensitive items being anything that you could possibly think of from A-Z. Heat is a destructive element to electronics. In the old days of tubes and the beginning of transistors, it was then a process to leave electronics turned on as the surge in voltage was more damaging then leaving them on. However, today's technology is such that the case is no longer valid, and, you are saving on energy (the positive side) NASA has a policy that computers will be turned off when not in use for long periods of time, or when going home for the evening unless there is a valid reason to leave them on. Can you imagine at on Center, 12,000 computers being left on indefinitely? The electric bill is already high and our taxes pay for it.

Of course, it does no good to shut it off to prevent snooping eyes if you don't have it password protected, or you can take it with you everywhere you go.

My above words are not to spread paranoia, but as a caution to cause the brain matter to think about security. You are only as secure as the weakest link in the chain.

sreigle · 05-31-2008, 01:29 PM

We've never had that problem, either, but we use a router. We usually turn it off when we go to bed but sometimes forget.

Ozz · 06-01-2008, 01:09 AM

Well folks, I don't have a router, don't plan on getting one. We are at the stick house now, so it's here in the office, and no one in the neighborhood would try and break in, my alarm wakes up the cows a county over, and to be candid, most of the neighbors stay away, ever since the day I was in my yard in my Jammies with my M-1 carbine, shooting in the ground at Moles.....
Wayne, I will look into the "Stay alive software"

sreigle · 06-01-2008, 10:27 AM

Jim, does the driver software with the aircard have any settings? I can't remember. If it does, there may be a setting in there that will solve the problem.

Ozz · 06-01-2008, 02:44 PM

The software that is loaded in my computer?
I will try to look there.
Thanks, Steve.

Waynem · 06-01-2008, 03:19 PM

Ozz,
Try Sam Spade
It has a "keep alive" feature and it's free.
You must keep Sam Spade open, minimized, for the keep alive to work, if I remember correctly.

Ozz · 06-02-2008, 02:03 AM

Thanks.

snfexpress · 06-04-2008, 04:52 PM

Okay, I think a few things should be clarified.

1) Anyone using a computer should have a software or hardware based firewall. More convenient for us RV'ers is a hardware based firewall, such as the KR2 or Cradlepoint router. The KR2 is an SPI firewall, or Stateful Packet Inspection. What this means, in its most simple terms, is that if your computer sends out a packet of information, then it will receive the returning packet of information; otherwise any packet of information that comes in is rejected. A good software based solution is to use Linux and something like Clark Connect - however, this requires another computer, acting as a gateway. Micro$oft's XP firewall, in my opinion, is a joke.

2) Even if you only have one computer, a router is a smart addition to your system. Not only does it provide the protections expressed above, but if you add a second wireless computer or printer, the set up is much easier, especially for us RV'ers.

3) The router should use, at a minimum, WPA protection. WPA stands for Wi-Fi Protected Access. Yes, just about any encryption algorithm can be broken, but I submit to you this hypothesis: do you think a fellow RV'er in the park has the skills, motivation and desire to crack into your system? I'm not being a braggard; I can hack into just about anything, but I choose not to. The FBI referred to me as a "hacker" when hackers were considered skilled individuals as opposed to criminals. Not only do I not want to break the law, but what would I do once I was inside another person's system? Look at their bank accounts? And if I did, how would I steal their money without leaving an electronic trail? And, if I did, wouldn't the victim be able to have the money replaced? With the advent of the Internet and the associated reduction in operating costs for businesses such as banks, the loss to them of refunding stolen funds is more beneficial than having to revert to "people and paper". There are ways to electronically steal money, but you better be extremely good at what you do.

4) The myth about leaving computers turned on is just that - a myth (but reversed). There is a belief that computers are better left on as opposed to being turned off after each use. Computer hardware, such as hard drives, is rated by MTBF hours. MTBF stands for Mean Time Between Failures. Hard drives actually are stressed more if they are subject to starting up as opposed to being left running. Before I retired, my servers and workstations were always left running 24/7.

5) A simple stay-alive solution is to open a DOS box (Start->Run->CMD on Micro$oft XP machines) and type: ping -t www.whitehouse.gov This will keep your connection "always on". Of course, if you have a router like the KR2, you don't have to worry about this.

I've been around computers since CP/M in the 1970's and programmed in assembly as well as higher level languages.

If you have questions or rebuttals, please post them.

Ozz · 06-05-2008, 01:02 AM

Thanks Michael

sreigle · 06-07-2008, 04:25 PM

Ah, yes, Michael, assembly language. That's where I started, too. There was a time I loved that level of detail and enjoyed bit flipping. But in my older years I've become an end user. Just give me an end product and make it work the way I want it to!

I also use a router and a third-party software firewall. But the hardware firewall in the router came with next to no instructions and there's not much help. So it's not really set to protect the way it should be. Back in the stick home days we had a cable router and that one came with a good manual and was easy to set up. One thing I check fairly frequently in this aircard router (ours is the TopGlobal 3G Phoebus router) is the logs. Also the are that shows who is logged in. Someday I'll go hunting online for some instructions for setting up this router properly for security.

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