N
Nil
After re-reading the NIN set-up, I see the answer in Section
10. A secure connection isn't required for access. But,
some T-Bird versions need the authentication option. My
original "version" guess above may be correct.
I just tried it with that option turned off, and like you I was able to
connect and retrieve messages. I still don't understand it. I thought
the option was to tell Tbird to feed the ID and password to the server
when asked, but apparently it does something different, and the
credentials exchange happens anyway. Curious...
I also find that I can turn off that option for eternal-september and
still operate. Maybe it's that you need to turn that option on once for
Tbird to capture the credentials, then after that it will work with the
option off.
I'll turn it back on anyway, since that's their recommendations, but it
seems to work either way.