On Tue, 25 Feb 2003, Chris Wagner wrote: > > I guess I'm not real sure that I understood that. > > > AFAIK, APOP is just an authentication method whereby there is a shared > > secret (the password) and the string showing the current time, etc. in the > > POP server greeting. > > I understand what you're saying there. > > > These get concatenated and then hashed. > > ? > > You mean they get appended after each other (sorry, I couldn't for the life > of me remember which function concatenate was), then encrypted in some way, > or what?
Concatenate is a fancy word for join together (dictionary.com). The hash is a one way algorithm like MD5. Two passwords are extremely unlike to give the same hash values. The has is one-way. There is no way to derive the unhashed value from the hased value. So sending this over the network is "secure". (Encryption implies that you can decrypt.) > > > The hash is sent over the network to the server. The server does the same > > thing and if the hashes match the user's password is valid. > > So the SIMS box verifies the "encrypted"/hashed password and if valid, > allows access. Yes. It does the same thing the client does (concat and has). Then it compares the two. This is the same way unix passwords work. > > Wouldn't that tend to be more secure than leaving the other setting open? > It is more secure in that the pop password is never sent in the clear. But I wouldn't turn on Require APOP. I had trouble with that, even with clients that supported APOP. Just turn it on in the clients. You can verify this if you turn on the low-level POP logging. You will see the apop command and the hashed pass. You should not see the cleartext pwd if it is configured right. > > So this would have no effect on how any of the other SIMS options work. > > Guess I'm still a little confused here. The relaying setting (treat authenticated ips as local, or whatever it is called) does not depend on APOP in any way. They unrelated, like wether your car takes gasoline vs disel and whether it is air cooled vs water cooled. -- Joe Laffey | Want to convert subnet masks between different LAFFEY Computer Imaging | notations, or figure the number of IPs in a block? St. Louis, MO | Whatmask-It's FREE - www.laffeycomputer.com/wm.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ############################################################# This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
