>If I may say (nothing here stated against Mr. Johnson or his IT group), a lot >of ISPs have it in their head that shells are inherently insecure based on >events like these, whereas an unprotected SLIP/PPP dialup can be equally >damaging and give hackers a difficult-to-trace entry point to other systems, >just like a shell prompt. > >For a lot of older systems, a shell account is much more computationally economical and efficient than SLIP or PPP.
A lot of non-university ISPs these days are using MSoft products to provide their services, so there isn't a un*x shell, and any CLI access is inherently more dangerous than it could/should be were something else being used.... Even for ISPs who do not have or will not provide shell access (as "telnet access" has been called by others here) you can ALWAYS telnet directly into the mailserver itself (use port 110) and use the kinda cryptic POP commands to view new messages, etc. This is essentially all your POP mail client does, anyway. I've done this a few times to remove messages that were corrupted in some way to cause my POP client trouble. It's kinda fun to do once just so you can see what's going on behind the scenes, regardless. And you can do it with even a pb100, although a telnet client with a good scrollback buffer helps a lot here :) B -- -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
