How do I find out if my ISP uses SLIP or PPP?

[jrv at vanzandt.mv.com (James R. Van Zandt)]

My employer uses these cards too, except on ours the password changes
about twice a minute.  The card is the size of a credit card, but
about three times thicker.  It has a small window with an LCD display.
To sign on, you have to type in 10 digits.  4 are constant, the other
6 come from the card.  I assume the server uses the 4 digits to figure
out which card you have, and eventually what number it should be
showing, and that it allows for fast and slow clocks.  In any case,
the authentication dialog happens before the PPP or SLIP line
discipline is started.  I built a script which gets a number from the
command line and writes it into a normal "pon" script, which then
attempts to close the connection before that number expires.  It's a
marginal system.

The SecureID, however, seems to be a very good system.  I expect that
most of the card volume is occupied by a battery.  The thing runs for
several years, then has to be replaced.  For $50 or so.

	       - Jim Van Zandt


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>Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 22:14:31 -0400
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>>When I dial the company modem, I get connected to an IBM 8235 secure
>>server, which prompts me for a user ID and password.  The password,
>>however, is not fixed:  I get it from a "SecurID" card, which supplies a
>>number that changes every ten seconds.
>
>Intriguing. Please clarify. Is the card synchronized with the server,
>or...actually, is it a card as in credit card or as in network card?
>Does the server emit an encrypted password for which you have the key?
>
>>So I have several questions: how do I find out if this is PPP or SLIP?
>
>Dial in with PPP. If it works, then it is PPP. If not, try SLIP. :)
>However, if security is so crucial, it seems they would prefer PPP
>because (I think I read) it is more secure.
>
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