In the "old days", many users connected to one another with modem based dial-in Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) using Fidonet. FReepers would be wise to familiarize themselves with both BBS ware and Fidonet. I see this posted a bunch around here. And as someone who started with acoustic-coupled 300baud modems.....
IT'S NOT AN OPTION.
First, of course, modems are fairly few and far between at the user end. Perhaps common on laptops, unlikely on desktops.Second, think of the line limitation. Traffic to FR is "peaky." Very short bursts (a few dozen characters for an http request) and then a short burst of HTML text. A dialup service has no line sharing capability. A "FidoFREEP" server with 16 telephone lines would be able to support SIXTEEN users and that's it. And of course, DoS works for FidoNETs too.
Third, all telephone lines are now digital ATM or hybrid networks. All the "modem" traffic becomes digital, snoopable. It seems very likely that if they really are trying actively to shut down FR, that eventually "they" will be able to disrupt any modem traffic on the networks with stateful packet filtering.
Finally, if we don't have phone number call-trees for individuals, who's to suggest that we'll get modem numbers down that can be swamped by DoS again anyway?
IT'S NOT AN OPTION.
Three very good reasons on why it would not work. Could Obama and the LEFT shut down all phone traffic ? (The likely DO have the desire, but I don't think they have the ability, yet.)
None-the-less, in the world BEFORE http, we used Citadel and Fidonet and single line connections. Would several FReepers be able to post 4+ meg pictures of scantily clad women in bathing suits and squander limited bandwidth, like they do now ? Nope.
Such systems like BBS ware and Fidonet still might be worth considering. It might be a good idea that FReepers to have a Bootable CD ready with at least a bootable version of Knoppix on it available.
External 56K FAX/modems are available for $25.00.