how to email from public wireless network?

[ayoung]

I am planning to buy the IBM X30 Thinkpad with wireless (WiFi?).

Can you tell me how does wireless network at public places (ie in Silicon
Valley areas, such as cafes) works? How do I set to send and receive email?

I am using Outlook 2002. Do I need to set up email account every time I go
to different wireless access area?

Thank you.

 

[Dave]

the easiest would be if your isp or office provides a webmail interface like
owa or some other method to use a web site to read and send mail. another
good way is to have a vpn connection back into your company or home network,
then you can use it as if you were in the office or home. after that you
will have to see if your isp allows you to send mail through their smtp even
though you aren't on their network, some will others will block it assuming
it is someone trying to relay.

 

[ayoung]

We have pop3 email using Outlook 2002.

How to find out if I can connect vpn to company web site host?

 

[Yves Konigshofer]

Ideally, you would like to have your e-mail, username and password encrypted
during send and receive. Ask your company's IT department whether they
support SSL for e-mail. Usually, this is accompanied by the use of
different ports (the defaults are 995 for pop3 and 465 for SMTP). In
general, obtaining your e-mail over wireless is not much worse than
obtaining it over the open internet given than anyone between you and the
server can read it. However, both are pretty bad to begin with and you
really want to have a secure connection to the office. Again, ask your IT
department for help.

-Yves

 

[ayoung]

I do not need to secure email over the wireless network at Starbuck.
I just want to be able to send and receive messages.
How do I use Outlook or any other POP3 service?
I do not know how to set the email account without knowing the wireless
server.

 

[Yves Konigshofer]

In Outlook, select Tools->E-mail Accounts...->Add a new e-mail account

The mail servers you need to use will be the same at Starbucks as from
anywhere else. However, if you have your e-mail set up to use your ISP's
SMTP server (some ISPs filter that port so that you cannot use your usual
SMTP server), you will have to change that to the one your company uses.

However, it is really not a good idea to read your e-mail over an insecure
connection (i.e. over the internet without encryption between your computer
and the mail server) since your password and anything else will be out there
for anyone to see. If you logon to your company's computers using the same
password you use for e-mail then bad things can happen...

-Yves

 

[ayoung]

But that is the whole point of public wireless internet access, such as
stuck at airport for a few hours? So that I can pick up my office email and
reply if urgently needed.

 

[Yves Konigshofer]

Well, there is a right way and a wrong way to do office e-mail when outside
the office. The right way involves ensuring that no e-mail and no passwords
are sent in a way that can be read by others. This is done using encryption
all the way from your computer to the office and usually does not require
any special changes when moving from one public access point to another.

-Yves

 

[Dave]

thats right. but the key is to do it safely. so either use a webmail
access that uses https, or use a vpn to get into your company network and
read with normal tools from there. but make sure you know how to do it
properly or anyone sitting in the terminal could snoop your mail and
anything else you do.

 

[ayoung]

Can you tell me where to learn more about this vpn email systems?
May be we should set up for all our sales staff to use this in their
laptops?
Thank you very much.

 

[Yves Konigshofer]

If it's just for e-mail, a VPN may be a bit much. VPNs allow remote users
to connect to office LANs using an encrypted connection. Once they are
connected, everything is supposed to work as if their computer is located
inside the office.

The easiest way to secure the out-of-office e-mail is to use a mail server
that supports SSL. That would encrypt everything sent between users and the
server and is supported by the major e-mail programs.

We've got numerous ways to access our e-mail securely when away.
One way is to use Kerberos-based authentication and encryption. That works
reasonably well but is not supported properly by Outlook (Eudora works) and
thus needs a bit of additional software (not to mention quite a bit of
server infrastructure). There's also a slight problem when using Kerberos
from behind a router, which most people use at home.
The most common way is to connect to the SMTP/POP3/IMAP servers using SSL.
That's relatively straightforward but is limited to e-mail in that you have
to authenticate separately to each server (not an issue once Outlook is
configured). Most ISPs block the usual SMTP port (except to their own SMTP
server) but this is not the case for the default SSL SMTP port (and you can
move it).
Another option is to use VPN software, which makes it appear as if the
computer is located somewhere on the LAN. However, anything sent over the
LAN is no longer encrypted (that is probably not a major issue). There are
some routers available that will serve as a VPN endpoint (e.g.
ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pdf/wrv54g_ug.pdf).

-Yves