danielv at netvision.net.il wrote:
> 
> Hmm, actually, that's what I do all the time, I just never saw it as
> anything but normal.
> 
> > a.    Wildly counter intuitive (in effect I'm sending the same password
> > twice to the same agent).
> Logically, maybe, yes. Physically, though, the two logins are probably
> two different server programs (say, pppd calling login, and the pop
> server (Telinco)) checking the same password database. Note that TCP/IP
> doesn't generally require authentication, it's applications that do.
> 
> > b.    Terminologically dubious (is my ISP password a Pop 3 password?).
> See above.
> 
> > But there may be design decisions here which I'm completely unaware of.
> Maybe, but I don't think that any of them are part of Celeste - just the
> server software. If netscape doesn't require you to enter a password to
> access your mail, then it's probably cheating (assuming the password is
> the one it sent to the dialer, and getting lucky). I for one, access my
> mail on pop server belonging to ISP A while connected through ISP B, so
> if I find Netscape let's me access my mail without entering my password,
> I'll get pretty mad ;-) I'd check again that you don't have a profile
> defined where you once did enter your password.
> 

It's really the difference (I think) between a Mac/Windows way of doing
things and a *nix way. On nixes, the dialler is absolutely distinct from
the Netscape or whatever application: the emailer  doesn't call the
dialler (nor does it assume a diallup connection), but will complain if
it's not connected. (I guess you could say that this is part of the *nix
paradigm: rather than having each program which requires diallup to have
it's own dialler, you write one good dialler and everything else can use
it.) Thinking of just how complex a peice of software a dialler is, and
that getting Celeste to grab the password from wherever whatever *nix
dialler is in use stores it would be a wee bit tricky, I'm not *that*
surprised that they wrote it as they did. And it probably also makes it
easier to use the same code for different OSs. Even though it does
require you to enter the password twice (and there may be security
implications in this).  

But no *nix email software will ask you for your password unless, I
guess -- you can't do this with the 4* series of Netscape -- you're
trying to grab mail from a server not belonging to the ISP you're hooked
up to. 

Actually, there could be advantages to doing it the Celeste way. It
makes for code re-use (Celeste can do without a seperate *nix fork) and
it could make putting into place the facility to grab mail from a
variety of ISPs easier.It just seems rather wierd.

Cheers

John

-- 
******************************************************************************
Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?"
Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft."
******************************************************************************