Password required to use Modem Monitor Applet

[Luke Seubert]

Good day,

A Linux newbie friend of mine has just installed Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary
Hedgehog. He has successfully configured pppd (using pppconfig) to
dialup Earthlink, browse the web, and send and receive email.

However, the Gnome Modem Monitor Applet does not function correctly. 

The <Activate> choice in the pulldown menu is grayed out. He must first
enter <Properties> in the pulldown menu, which requires his password.
Then, he does nothing except click on <OK>, upon which, Modem Monitor
Applet fires up the modem and connects. 

He also has problems disconnecting, and so far shuts off the entire
computer to disconnect, or upon my advice, uses 'sudo poff'.

Obviously, having to use a password to access the modem and turn it on
and off is very annoying.

His user privileges are set to allow access to the modem devices, and to
connect to the Internet through modem devices.

Still, this seems like some sort of permission problem, maybe somewhere
with pon and poff, though I am not sure about that. Does Modem Monitor
Applet use pon and poff? What other config/permission files might be
tweaked to fix this, and what would their location be? 

It has been many years since I used a modem with Linux, so I am pretty
hazy on such things these days.

Somebody else has filed a similar problem as a bug:
https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=8890

Many thanks for any help.
Luke Seubert