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Miscellaneous Ramblings

Anti-spam Measures Marginalize Low-End Macs

Charles Moore - 2001.07.09 - Tip Jar

Last week, my Canadian ISP, Auracom/Interhop, announced that they were adopting a new SMTP authentication protocol for outgoing email messages as an anti-spam measure.

I appreciate why they are doing this, and I support anti-spam measures in principle, but in this case a side effect appears to be that 68K Macs are no longer supported on their network for sending POP 3 email.

On Saturday evening, a friend of mine who uses a Performa 630 phoned to say that she could no longer send email with Netscape 4.0.5. The notification email sent out by Auracom indicated that Netscape Messenger could be configured to allow SMTP authorization, but she had followed their setup instructions and had no luck. I am provisionally assuming that only Netscape 4.5 and later will support such authorization, and these versions will not support 68K Macs.

Eudora Light 3.1.3, the 68K Mac user's standard POP3 client for years, doesn't support SMTP authorization, either. Eudora 4.3, 5.0, and 5.1 do, but they don't support 68K Macs.

My wife uses a 68K Mac LC 520 and Eudora Light for email, so she appears to be shut out as well.

I phoned Auracom's tech support line to ask if they knew of any 68K savvy Mac email clients that authorization, and they were not even aware that this was an issue. As usual, I knew more about the Mac end of things already than they did.

To the best of their knowledge, the only Mac email clients that are compatible with their new protocol are Netscape Messenger (4.5 and later, apparently), Eudora 4.3 and later, and Outlook Express (4.5 and later?), which means that I will no longer be able to use Nisus Email or SweetMail to send messages through their POP3 server, at least as far as I am aware at this point.

I have discovered that information on this issue is mighty thin, so this article is as much a query as it is elucidation

I know that the authentication is necessary in order to use the Apple mac.com SMTP server for outgoing messages, and as well as the SMTP server at Applelinks. Up to now, I have never bothered and just use the Auracom server for outgoing messages.

I can, of course, switch to Eudora 5.1, which I already use for some of my accountsr, but I am truly smitten with Nisus Email's quick send feature; I will miss it. Another alternative is to switch ISPs, of which there is just one other choice in this area, but I'm wondering if this SMTP authorization thing is likely to be adopted by other providers as well.

At least I have several options. It appears that 68K Mac users are essentially locked out by Auracom/Interhop. The tech support guy suggested that they should use the service's Web-based email, but IMHO Web-based email is not a practical option for anyone who deals with more than a handful of messages a day on a dialup connection.

Perhaps there is a solution to this problem that I'm not aware of, and, if so, I'm eager to hear about it, but if my provisional surmise is correct, this sucks. Another way that the scum-sucking, bottom-feeding spammers are ruining the Internet for the rest of us.

My list of currently available full-featured POP3 email clients that support 68K Macs includes:

Eudora Light 3.13
Netscape Communicator 4.0.8
Musashi 3.2.4
Green 1.0b12
Mailsmith 1.1.5
Mulberry 2.0.8
Popmail 2.2
POPmail/Lab 1.2
QuickMail 2.0(68040 Processor or greater )
SweetMail 2.09r7

Of these, the only ray of hope is Bare Bones Software's MailSmith, whose Web page describes what appears to possibly be a workaround for this issue, although I have not tried it. The downside of Mailsmith is that it is extremely expensive for an email client at $79 (cross-upgrade $59).

If there are others, especially ones that support SMTP authorization/authentication, please let me know.

Authentication configuration with PowerPC Macs:

To enable authorization in Outlook Express enter smtp.yourserver.com or whatever as the SMTP address in the Account window. Then go to "advanced sending options" and enable the option that says "SMTP server requires authentication." If you are using the ISP's server as your incoming email POP server, leave the default sub-option as "Use same settings as incoming mail server."

To configure Eudora 4.3 & 5.1 For Mac:

Open Eudora -> Special Menu at top -> Settings option -> scroll down box on left side of window and select "Sending Mail" option -> make sure that "Allow Authorization" is selected with a check mark.

Charles Moore has been a freelance journalist since 1987 and began writing for Mac websites in May 1998. His The Road Warrior column is a regular feature on MacOpinion, and he is a news editor and columnist at Applelinks.com. If you find his articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

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