Re: Do we need IMAP/TLS or POP/TLS?

On Sun, 1 Jun 1997, Paul E. Hoffman wrote:
> IMAP and POP clients, however, by definition have a pre-existing
> relationship with the server. That is, the server must know about them
> before they attach, and therefore this prior knowledge can be used in
> setting up the client.

It's bad enough that clients need to be configured with the name of the
IMAP/POP server itself.  Forcing users to also decide whether or not to
connect to a TLS port when setting up a client is completely unacceptable
in my book.

> The only exception I can think of is public, anonymous IMAP mailboxes. In
> this case, however, you wouldn't be using TLS, since there is no
> authentication and no need for privacy.

I disagree.  I might very well want to prevent observers from seeing what
I fetch from an anonymous IMAP server.

---
Chris Newman <[email protected]>

A paragraph from ASN.1 standard: "The resulting type and value of an
instance of use of the new value notation is determined by the value
(and the type of the value) finally assigned to the distinguished
local value reference identified by the keyword VALUE, according to
the processing of the macrodefinition for the new type notation
followed by that for the new value notation."