Does FTP still send cleartext passwords?

From: Stowell Davison (Stowell.Davison@noaa.gov)
Date: 03/06/03 

From: Stowell Davison <Stowell.Davison@noaa.gov>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:46:39 -0500

Do most ftp servers these days demand passwords in ciphertext (a la
rfc2228 or the like)? Do any of them? Is there an easy way to tell for
a given client or server if it has that capability?

The man pages for ftp and ftpd on my Linux 7.2 system say nothing about
encryption of passwords. A brief Google search indicates that the
subject has been under discussion for more than five years, but I can't
tell where the discussion went.

Thanks for any help.

Stowe Davison
.