I'm not arguing about the ISP policy. Earthlink has a prohibition against "keep alive" programs, and I am not disagreeing with that. Me, I don't *want* to keep the connection alive.

I don't *want* to keep the connection alive if I've been idle for "X" (in this case four) hours. But The Damn Fucking Windows XP Dialup insists on reconnecting.

I hear the re-dialup. I don't *want* the goddamn forking dialup to be reconnected. That's the problem. When I fall asleep on my couch, as I did with the last boring Monday night football game, I am sometimes awakened by "titlkslkdfj" noise from my system dialing up my ISP.

I do not want this, and I do not know how to prevent this.