Hi James, Jonathan has described POP-Before-SMTP authentication to you already. The solution in your case may involve more than just your ISP. If it is a big concern for you that you cannot submit mail before receiving it, and your ISP does not allow you to use other forms of authentication, then the next thing you may consider is a third-party relay.
This host will accept your mail from wherever you say, and deliver it to wherever you say, without restriction on which destinations mail is allowed to go to. Today's public open relays are closed off now - spammers, like every great thing they've touched, destroyed the openness and friendliness associated with SMTP so prevalent ten years ago. Since spam is relayed very often through publically available open relays, your new relay must be secure in order that your mail does not get rejected by the rest of the world, and must use authentication - probably SMTP authentication, before permitting relaying. To put this all in plainer words, see this page: Thank the spammers! http://linxnet.com/misc/spam/thank_spammers.html Many public services do, however, provide authenticated and secure SMTP relaying - Runbox ( http://www.runbox.com/ ) will give you no-ad POP3 and SMTP service. You don't have to use their email address or their POP3 system; you need only get yourself a username and password, and use this to authenticate against their SMTP service, and you can relay wherever you like and spoof your Earthlink or whatever usual account you normally use. finally, there's me - I can provide you with authenticated SMTP service. I will give you a username and password and let you relay mail through my host. I have strict rules about spam, so abuse is naturally not tolerated, but this service will suit you particularly well in your predicament. I'll only add now that I don't believe the BrailleNote claims not guilty as fast as all that. POP-before-SMTP is by far the simplest and most common method of authentication; the design of the BrailleNote's KeyMail system makes it impractical. You need only log in to the POP service, you need not download your mail. If BrailleNote provided a POP-Before-SMTP Authentication option, and the BrailleNote's sequence would not normally involve connecting to a POP3 service as when sending mail only, you can make it briefly log in and then immediately quit the session before beginning the SMTP session, which would achieve what you want. Cheers, Sabahattin -- Thought for the day: Bagpipes (n): an octopus wearing a kilt. Latest PGP Public key blocks? Send any mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sabahattin Gucukoglu Phone: +44 (0)20 7,502-1615 Mobile: +44 (0)7986 053399 http://www.sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/ Email/MSN: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
