email authentication

From: willy gates (willy_gates_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 10/26/04 

Date: 26 Oct 2004 02:51:50 -0700

Hello

BT have asked us to enable SMTP email authentication, good idea I
thought...

But then I began to think...

I am logging into BT SMTP or POP3 server and sending them a login and
a password. I have not got a secure connection SSL, nor is secure
authentication supported. Therefore I assume that I am sending a
plaintext username and password each time I log into the BT server to
send/receive my email.

Is this correct?

That means if I get a virus that wants to set up a spam zombie on my
machine sending spam to my BT server then BT have prevented them from
sending unauthenticated spam however it wouldn't take much to read my
unauthenticated password and start using my BT login to send spam. Or
do the spam zombies created by these virus send their email using
other servers?

Thanks for your help

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