Encrypted Authentication
—Making Secure Connections—

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

After changing my e-mail settings to use encryption and SSL, I no longer can send mail. Did I make a mistake?

Most likely your e-mail program is configured to use SSL for both receiving mail and sending mail. SSL is not supported for sending mail and your e-mail program will not be able to send mail if you have enabled this seting. Uncheck SSL for sending mail and your problem should be resolved.

What happens if my favorite e-mail program does not support SSL?

First, check to see if a new version of your e-mail program is available from your e-mail software company. There isn't really a good reason for any e-mail software company not to provide SSL support. Some foreign companies found SSL support problematic due to US export laws. However, in recent years, solutions have been developed outside the US to support SSL on various platforms including Macintosh, Unix, and Windows.

For Windows and Unix e-mail applications that do not support SSL you might consider software called Stunnel. Stunnel is a program that allows you to encrypt arbitrary TCP connections inside SSL. Stunnel can allow you to secure non-SSL aware applications and protocols (like POP, IMAP, LDAP, etc) by having Stunnel provide the encryption, requiring no changes to the application. Please note that the IT Service Center and BugBusters do not support this software.

For more information visit these web sites:

• The Stunnel site
• University of Washington Stunnel and Pegasus Mail Howto
• Setting-up Stunnel on a PC

My application has built in FTP and does not support SSH or Kerberos. How can I have a secure connection.

First, you may want to consider switching to IT Service Center supported FTP applications. Macintosh users can switch to Fetch, which uses Kerberos for encryption. Windows users can switch to SSH (Secure Shell). These applications are user friendly, secure, and supported.

If you do not want to switch to a supported FTP program, SSH tunneling will help solve this problem for you.

Windows users can follow the instructions at: www.colorado.edu/its/docs/authenticate/sshtunnel.html

Macintosh users can follow the instructions at: www.colorado.edu/its/docs/authenticate/macsshtunnel

Further Instructions for Dreamweaver MX Users
www.colorado.edu/its/docs/authenticate/windreamweaver.html

How do I automate transferring files from a batch file?

SSH supports this feature. New documentation explaining this feature will be posted on this web site soon.