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MSN Forces Outlook POP
Phoenix-D writes: "Qwest.net, my Phoenix-area DSL provider and ISP, recently decided to hand over their ISP buisness to MSN. No huge deal, right? Well, check out this blurb: 'Due to the Microsoft anti-spam initiative, customers are restricted to use their mail services. Therefore, POP3 service is only available when using MSN Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, or Microsoft Outlook Express.'" Awesome. Microsoft's Anti-Spam initiative forces POP users to use the primary sender of mail worms.
How is this even possible? POP3 is an open standard, and most every client speaks that protocol. To restrict it to one set of clients seems like a futile measure, as clients will just start coming with options to spoof their client ID, just like Opera and iCab can for http.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 -- Mathematics is the Language of Nature.
Well, it loaded now, but it's slow.
Any way, how can the tell what POP3 you're using? And why would POP3 stop spam? Wouldn't SMTP be where the action is? (I'm assuming that's what they mean). Are they looking at headers (easily emulated by spamware, ineffective) or some other signature? And I don't see how this will stop spam, anything like that is easily emulated. More and more stupidity.
funny munging
I can't imagine a better example of anti-competitive practices. MS is going to force people who never selected them as an ISP to use MS software in a manner that does not at all aid "anti-spam initiatives" and, as the post pointed out, will almost certainly make related problems even worse. How on earth does *anything* related to what client is used to access a POP3 server effect spam??? SMTP would at least seem in the ballpark, but POP?
When you sign up for a passport id with a hotmail account they wouldn't sell that address to everyone under the sun.
I signed up for hotmail before MS ever took it over. I never used the email address in any form online, never even had any mail to it. I basically just had it because. After MS took over it litterally filled the account with junk mail.
telnet popserver.msn.com 110
user user
pass password
list
Replace popserver.msn.com with the actual pop3 server. I have no clue what it actually is.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
So, what do they do for customers who aren't using an OS that Outlook is available for?
Not only are they forcing you to use Outlook, they're forcing you to use Windows. (I believe it's available for Mac too, yeah...).
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Not leveraging a monopoly, but not moral either.
If I was a Qwest customer using Linux, I would be pissed (I am not a Qwest customer...).
Their reasoning seems to be that network snoopers could overhear plain-text passwords coming into the pop server and use that to send email through the SMTP servers. Why not just use Qmail with an SSL X509 cert? Would provide better protection in general...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
MSN is already breaking things by insisting on a @msn.com From line. Everyone else is just trying to work around it.
h .t xt
Yes, you should always just use your "local" SMTP gateway, but when the people running it are being draconian morons, you don't have many choices... and no, having official correspondence go out under @msn.com isn't an option.
If MSN was serious about this, they'd just use several of the possible authentication methods that exist for SMTP service (IP range, SMTP-after-POP, SASL, ). It sounds like they've picked one, and only one, instead of implementing several and allowing mail to go if any of the above are met.
Some SMTP auth links:
http://www.thecabal.org/~devin/postfix/smtp-aut
http://www.qmail.org/top.html (look for "authenticate")
http://www.sendmail.org/~ca/email/auth.html
What we need is an electronic version of the Amnesty International letter writing tables. People could log in, get presented with a list of the most eggregious offenses against free and open software, and have the links to send polite emails to those companies asking them to change their practices. Maybe this type of approach would have kept Congress from passing DMCA...
I don't. I haven't and won't buy Windows XP. I paid $40 for a boxed SuSE distro, to financially support an alternative. I don't buy any MS software, because I think it's crap.
That is how capitalism works - the people "vote" with their money. I can't think of a single common application that Microsoft can do that can't be done on mac, linux, solaris, etc.
The government does not exist to protect stupid consumers from themselves. If you want to change the software industry, start spending money in it.
MSN has no clue if you're sending spam through a third party relay, or if you're connecting to a legitimate authenticating mail relay, or if you're handing your own SMTP, and connecting to the proper MX.
MSN allowing outbound port 25 connections from a dialup customer is a step backwards for spam prevention. As someone who's being affected en mass by their changing policies, your university should contact them, and inform them that they either need to make provisions for your case, or that your group will have to make sure that your users take their business elsewhere, and find an ISP that you can work with.
If the faculty members were using their university e-mail addresses, and not their MSN one, they will have no issue in moving to a new ISP, save for the initial time in re-configuration. If they were using their local MSN e-mail address, and they're not willing to give it up, then they have to weigh the costs & benefits in switching. The only ones who are really screwed in this situation are not those that are concerned with third party relay, but wished to use some other non-MS client to read their mail from.
Realisticly, you should be using authenticated SMTP to see if there's some prick in the dorms starting up his own little spamming business. You should not expect outside ISPs however, to allow your users to connect to the server from a dialup connection. [Hell, we don't even allow allow relaying for connections from off-campus, although, that was a recent change [this morning] due to the lack of being able to authenticate with the trend micro virus scanner in front of the SIMS mail cloud, and we're just waiting to see how many users start complaining as they didn't get the messages regarding the policy changes]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
While I agree that this isn't exactly a rights issue, I complete disagree that MSN or MS can do whatever they want. The FOF has survived appeal and it is now a brave new world for MS. Every move they make is fair game for legal scurtiny. You can cry about the supposed free market all you want but that ain't the real world and in this case I'd rather nip this in the bud before MSN gets a stranglehold share in the marketplace.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
How is it advantageous to force users to use Outlook for mail retrieval in order to prevent spam?
There may be some decent reason to do it with SMTP, but not with POP. That's simply an excuse to restrict their users to their product...
Do you like German cars?
Here is my report on Qwest/MSN-you know what they are doing in my area, Phoenix. It is all truthfull, please read. Be sure to check the end of this post for an article on more information.
I am currently a Qwest customer in Phoenix, and have more details on the current situation.
Back in March, I signed up for Qwest DSL Select, which is a $20 per month DSL line at 640 Kbps, 272 Kbps guarenteed. Once connected, you are "always on". You are not guarenteed to connect but once your on you can remain on no matter how long it is. I also pay $20 for the Qwest DSL ISP which is now owned by MSN.
Over the summer I was charged for the DSL modem which was supposed to be free as a promotional gift. Additional charges were also added for services I did not pay for. It took two months to get the charges off and many long phone calls with people saying like "I don't know how to do this," or "I don't think my supervisor will allow."
A week and a half ago, Qwest started disconnecting my "always on" connection after each two hours of connectivity. Then there was a five minute (I call it a penalty) to wait until I could connect again. I downloaded a connection manager, and set it up to disconnect me automatically after every 1 hr 50 mins, and then immediately reconnect. It cuts out the stupid 5 minute wait. I do this for two reasons, downloading and gaming, those are very sensitive to 5 minute lags of course. 10 second reconnects are a miniscule problem in comparison. However I found that I am still getting disconnected every half-hour (with out the 5 minute penalty) and its still annoyed the heck outta me
After the first 5 days of this, I call in asking whats going on, this is not the service I originally agreed to. They say it is part of the plan, but if I didn't like it, I could switch to MSN ($20 a month, which I know still disconnects my uncle tells by the way) and the "regular" DSL for 32.50 a month. HUH? Its the same 640 Kbps line an MSN? what kind of switch is that?
So as you can see they're trying to harrass us into paying more. This was not happening a week ago. To fix this problem I was very smart. I ordered on the day after I called the COX INTERNET and DIGITAL TELEPHONE for $40 dollars a month (you have to buy your own cable modem). In comparison you pay $72 a month with qwest for broadband DSL and phone. They were advertising that on the radio today like it was something great and I know it isn't YOU'RE PAYING about $15 dollars a month more than I have been. IT'S A SCAM. THANKFULLY, I'm getting COX in exactly one week, yes I'm counting those days. I urge every switch to COX now to show them how bad they are.
Now that I told you that, check out the Arizona Republic article. It tells about the scams Qwest is involved in here and Microsoft is also to blame now seeing the new information on SlashDot. They're like about the worst companies around. I know six other people have switched in the the phoenix area to COX because of the same reasons! Share this information because it's true.
If you're forced to use Outlook to get your e-mail, there are ways to make it as "pleasant" and "secure" as possible.
/. afterall--it shouldn't be too painfull.
Want to use Linux, but need to use Outlook to get your mail? Fine, it's called a Virtual Machine. Run VMWare, load it with Win9x/NT/2k/XP, and either Outlook or the OE that comes with the OS. Put a shortcut to Outlook in the StartUp folder so that launches with Windows, and all you have to deal with is the extra overhead of the Virtual Machine's booting of Windows. Inconvenient but workable and not too difficult to set up.
Maybe WINE supports Outlook/Express? I don't know because I don't follow WINE, but I'm sure someone can tell us. In any event, VMWare with Windows installed would handle it for sure, andf pretty easily. And there's no security threat to your *real* OS, just the one in the VM. And turning off all of Outlook's bells and whistles would even eliminate that security problem. Like I said, inconvenient, but workable.
Even if you're running Windows and don't want the bloat of Outlook/Express cluttering up your OS all the time even when not in use, running a VMWare VM with a light version of Windows installed and Outlook running in that VM would be an option. You can pare down Windows using 98lite from http://www.98lite.net, BTW, making a fully functional install take up as little as 50MB--perfect if you want to run it from a VM for a limited purpose of interoperability. And if your system is that of a hardware enthusiast--hey, this is
Complicated? Yep. It would be much better just to be able to use any POP client. But if you can't, you can still run Outlook through Linux, one way or another, or even keep Outlook off your primary Windows install if that's the OS you use.
BTW, if you run Windows and are "upgrading" to WinXP, I'd wait for 98lite.net to finish work on their WinXP installer. It will allow you to *really* keep all the little bits of OE, MSN, etc., that usually get installed, from ever touching your PC. I currently use their version for Win98SE and am very happy with it--without all the extra junk installed, it's surprisingly stable and fast. Perfect for gaming and all else...
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus