Secure SMTP Settings Help

What is SMTP?

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) / TLS (Transport Layer Security)

SSL or TLS encrypts everything sent between two computers. When used with email it protects your password and the contents of your email from being intercepted while en route between your computer and your email server. (When used with web pages it protects your credit card numbers and other personal information from an eavesdropper between your computer and the web site.) Its use does not imply that the data is encrypted when it is on a computer, just while it is in transit.

Why are McDonald's only permitting Secure SMTP or not standard SMTP?

This policy has been set to take advantage of the authentication required to use Secure SMTP. That is, your mail provider requires you to login to their mail server before permitting you to send any email messages. This means your mail provider can track and potentially stop any users that might be attempting to generate spam emails.

McDonald's is effectively protecting the Free WiFi service, so it is available for everyone to use, by preventing potential "spammers" from using the Hotspots as a source to send spam emails.

Which ports are permitted for Incoming & Outgoing emails on the FREE WiFi hotspots?

Incoming Mail

• POP3
• POP3 over SSL (POP3S)
• IMAP
• IMAP over SSL (IMAPS)

Outgoing Mail

• SMTP over SSL (ports 465 & 587)

How do I know if my mail provider supports Secure SMTP?

There is no real issue way to know without checking their website or contacting their support team and asking which protocols are supported for Outgoing email. Some examples of email providers that do support Secure SMTP are listed below and the link takes you to their associated support page:

Are there any local mail providers that don't support Secure SMTP?

From our research on the Internet it appears that the following major mail providers do not yet support Secure SMTP. However Telstra and Optus equally acknowledge the Spam issue by blocking SMTP on port 25 which somewhat justifies the stance taken by McDonald's

bigpond

optusnet

iinet

webcentral (only supported on port 25)

TPG Internet (only supported on port 25)

What do I do if my mail provider does not support Secure SMTP?

Our recommendation is to use your mail providers Web Mail interface if they do not currently support Secure SMTP or get a free email account from gmail and use their Secure SMTP service for outgoing email messages.

For details on how to configure you mail application to support Secure SMTP using the gmail service, please refer to the following webpage on the Google website:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=13287

If you are having issues configuring these mail settings, we suggest using Webmail as this will always work regardless of these mail restrictions.

What about if my email comes from my workplace?

For Corporate users, typically the VPNs will be used to securely connect back to their office and they will access email over the VPN. Please check with your IT group on what their recommended solution is for accessing email remotely. If it is not via a VPN, they also might have a Web Mail interface such as Outlook Web Access or OWA.