Hi there!
On 5 Feb 00, at 10:18, Allie Martin wrote
about "Re: The Bat! - suggestions [Random ":
> > Considering all this, I'd say that the option suggested by you won't
> > be useful for the majority of TB's users;-(
>
> I think that he was speaking about receiving rather than
> sending mail. I do agree completely with what you said about sending
> mail using a different SMTP server from the ISP with which you have
> the e-mail account.
>
> AFAIK, you may only download your mail from one SMTP server.
You _cannot_ download mail from SMTP server. You _can_ download mail
from POP3 or IMAP4 server. SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) and POP3
(post office protocol, version 3) are two very different daemons that are
hearing on completely different ports;-) Since Wie talked about SMTP, I
understood that his SMTP is unreliable, and so he wanted to use a "backup"
one when the default one wouldn't accept his mail. Maybe I misunderstood
him?
If he was talking about POP3 rather then SMTP, the solution to his problem
exists already. Since you usually may, having connected to ISP "A", download
the mail from any number of POP3 servers (including, but not limited to, the
POP3 server of ISP "B"), it's as simple as that: just set up as many accounts
in TB as many POP3 accounts you've got and use the function "fetch all
accounts". That's all.
I'd better give you the background of the problem. POP3 and SMTP are very
different in the following sense: "bare" SMTP protocol includes no
authentication, whereas the POP3 protocol has it (however loosy it is: the
login and password are transmitted as plain text, which is a serious security
flaw, of course). So the spammers are looking for the open-relay SMTP
servers that they may use to *send* spam (they don't need POP3 at all, since
they needn't receive anything;-)). Open relay SMTP means, that *everybody*,
physically located *everywhere*, is entitled to send anything he wants through
this SMTP. Besides, if the spammer uses open relay to send, he cannot be
traced back, of course. Technically is works as follows: *if* my own "at work"
SMTP, mph.phys.spbu.ru, was an open relay, *you* could simply telnet to it
on port 25:
telnet mph.phys.spbu.ru:25
Then, after the connection is established, you need nothing but telnet:
EHLO <CR>
MAIL FROM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <CR>
......... (SMTP will tell you, what to do next;-))
And that's all;-) Open relay SMTP will happily accept all this and send it to the
address(es) you supply.
But since all that anti-spam campaign began, there exists less and less open
relays available on the Net. There exist different authentication procedures
used by ISPs. Most popular are:
(i) accepting mail only from a given range of IPs (i.e., the SMTP will establish
connection only with the users having dialed up the ISP that owns this SMTP
server);
(ii) POP3 before SMTP (i.e., the user needs to first log on POP3, having
shown that he *has* the right to use this server; then, SMTP will accept
connection from this IP address);
(iii) Modern one: RFC2554 (authentication with username/password).
The items (ii) and (iii) above apparently require that these features are
supported by your MUA; The Bat! supports both.
But since the method (i) is AFAIK much more widely spread then the two
others (in fact, most ISPs prefer it to be set this way nowadays), trying to
connect to a SMTP of ISP "B" being on dialup connection provided by ISP
"A" will usually just fail. Thus the feature suggested by Wie (as I understood it;-
)) is hardly usable for the majority of TB's users.
> Am I right? You may connect to the SMTP server through any ISP's
> internet connection but you still have to connect to one particular
> server to get your e-mail.
Vice versa;-)
> This is what Wie said:
>
> "Hope TB! Can do automatic checking of the SMTP server so if
> the SMTP look down or not responding for some second or
> minutes,.. then TB! automatic change the SMTP server address
> to another SMTP. [Not when sending mail,.. but when connecting
> to SMTP server]"
--
SY, Alex
(St.Petersburg, Russia)
http://mph.phys.spbu.ru/~akiselev
---
Thought for the day:
If it weren't for Edison, we'd be watching TV by candlelight.
---
PGP public keys on keyservers:
0xA2194BF9 (RSA); 0x214135A2 (DH/DSS)
fingerprints:
F222 4AEF EC9F 5FA6 7515 910A 2429 9CB1 (RSA)
A677 81C9 48CF 16D1 B589 9D33 E7D5 675F 2141 35A2 (DH/DSS)
---
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