Cable modem - Secure mail

[Paul Melson]

On Mon, Sep 11, 2000 at 07:47:01PM -0400, basher584 wrote:
> >From what I read around is that anybody in my "neighborhood" could sniff
> the network.  So I am worried about getting my mail from my old ISP
> through their POP-email server (as the password is the same as the
> dial-up (out of my control)).  Is this worry justified?

	If the cable modems are configured properly, this
	should not be the case.  They should work like
	bridges and only traffic destined for your MAC
	address(es) should be passed on.  However, I have 
	seen several of TCI's LanCity modems act in a 
	confusing fashion, where they would arbitrarily
	pass packets to the local machine that weren't
	destined for it, so your concern is not without
	base.


> What have people been doing to securely get their mail?

	Personally, I prefer ssh & ELM.  I would also
	use IMAP/SSL, if any of my ISPs ever implemented 
	it.  Not likely, though. :(


> I was thinking about doing port forwarding with my web host using
> 'ssh'.  Has anyone done this before?

	Yes, but purely to see if I could do it.  It's
	not bad, but your ISP will have to recompile
	sshd2 w/ `--enable-tcp-wrappers` and then set
	up an entry in their /etc/hosts.allow file for
	POP sessions.


PaulM

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