Beware, this story was related about a friend of a friend (FOAF) and so should be regarded with suspicion... A FOAF had bought a new laptop PC with Windows XP installed. He also owned one of the latest Nokia cell phones. One day he was using the PC when the Nokia was switched on and laid next to the PC. The PC promptly put up a standard "New hardware Discovered" dialog box. Curious, the FOAF worked through the device install dialog. XP had recognised the cell phone via the PC IR interface (one assumes the Nokia announces it's presence when switched on via it's own IR interface.) XP worked out that the Nokia could be used as a network interface and asked for the phone number of the FOAF's ISP, which was given. (It's possible that this is another function of the UPnP package.) The PC then connected to the ISP and a fully working network connection was established... The risk is obvious, XP did not establish the ownership of the cell phone before dialing out. As I said, I'm only relating the tale as it was told. I do not have the hardware necessary to test the truth of the story, perhaps others on this list do. -- Geoff Lane
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Dec 31 2001 - 12:54:33 PST