Hi Sam and all,
it's not so easy as You think, at least here in Germany. There are many
ISP here offering a service called "Internet-by-call". They have dial-in
number and a standard user ID and password and that's it. They don't
know who You are and the charges for the connection appear on Your next
phone bill. So, if You want an e-mail account, You have to search for a
suitable provider, like GMX or Yahoo or the German WEB.DE. I don't know
about GMX, but Yahoo and WEB.DE smtp servers need some kind of
authentification to make sure that the server isn't abused.
Regards Joerg
On Sat, 03 Feb 2001 12:52:32 +0000, Samuel W. Heywood wrote:
> So my question is: Why does one need to authenticate himself to his own
> system's smtp server? They already know who you are and they know you are
> OK because you are already logged on to their own system by using a
> username and a password that they have already authorized and they have
> already matched to your identity. My ISP's smtp server does not have an
> authentication protocol, but unless you are connected to "shentel.net" I
> don't think there is any way you can send a message out of
> "smtp.shentel.net" unless you have obtained some subscriber's username and
> password and have used this information to illegally log in to "shentel.net"
> If usernames and passwords have already been compromised, then the smtp
> authentication protocol would not provide any increased security whatsoever.
> Sam Heywood
> -- This mail was written by user of The Arachne Browser - http://arachne.cz/
-- Arachne V1.70, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
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