[techtalk] POP mail security

[Laurel Fan]

Excerpts from linuxchix: 5-Jan-100 [techtalk] POP mail security by Subba
Rao at attglobal.net 
> What is the best way to protect my users passwords from being sniffed?
> Can a user use an encrypted tunnel to send the userid and password to
> the pop server?

Most unix programs come with documentation.  Usually this is in the form
of a man(ual) page.  These can be accessed with the man command.  More
information is available by typing:
  man man
If you're using more as the pager, which is usually the default, you can
search for a string with the '/' command.  For example, 
  man man
then,
  /EXAMPLES
will jump to the first occurance of the string EXAMPLES.
Other helpful commands are ' ' (space) to go down a page and 'b' to go
up a page.

In your particular case, you might try
  man fetchmail
and searching for 'secure' or 'encrypted'.

If the manpage is not helpful, or you don't understand it, there is
often documentation on the web.  Good sources of documentation are
general purpose linux documentation sites such as the Linux
Documentation Project at http://www.linuxdoc.org and the Open SOurce
Writer's Group at http://www.oswg.org.  I found several relevant
documents:

Secure POP with SSH mini-HOWTO:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Secure-POP%2BSSH.html  

Mail HOWTO:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Mail-Administrator-HOWTO.html

Another source of information is the project's web page.  They often
include a FAQ or more detailed documentation.  This might also include
pointers to mailing lists and newsgroups specific to the project, which
may be able to help you if you don't find anything elsewhere.  This can
often be found at http://www.freshmeat.net, and using the seach box at
the top to search for the project's name.  By doing this, i found:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail

And lo and behold, there is a FAQ, containing what appears to be exactly
your question.

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail/fetchmail-FAQ.html#G8 

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