[Tfug] Telnet/mail

[Jeffrey Denton]

On Sun, 9 Jun 2002, Adrian wrote:

> Aahhh.... Whimping out eh? I telnet into my pop mail server all the time, mostly
> for security reasons.
>
> Hey, shut-up, let me explain. As you know, or just found out, pop3 is clear
> text, so your user name and pasword to access mail are in clear text. It just
> happens these are usually also your ISP user names and passwords, anyone who
> grabs them can dial in on your account. Fortunately, on your home ISP, it's
> only a few hops inside your ISP, so there's not to much of a chance of being
> sniffed. When your off on somebody else network and retreive email your user
> name/password go who knows where.
>
> That's why I frequenty ssh into my home box and then telnet to the pop3 from
> there.

Good thing you explained that, I almost sent a reply after only reading the
first line.... =)

Not all ISP's mail servers are only a few hops away.  Smaller ISP's tend to
outsource their mail servers (e.g. - C2I2, traceroute is blocked after 18-20
hops(yes it varies)) and larger ISP's may have their mail servers located in
another part of the country.  The only thing you can do to protect yourself is
to not reuse passwords (the password you use to get email is only used to get
email from that one server).

dentonj