“Sean! Could you come look at this email?”
“Sure. Hmmm … ”
From: "Your XXXX Internet Customer Care Team " <customersupport@XXXXXXX>
To: "XXXX Internet Service Customer" <members@XXXXXXX>
Subject: Service Alert: Update your XXXXXXX computer email server settings before 10/14/15
Date: September 30, 2015 5:29:24 PM EDT
> Service Alert: Update your XXXXXXX computer email server settings before 10/14/15
Dear XXXX Internet Service Customer,
Our records indicate that you are using an email application such as Microsoft® Outlook® or Apple® Mail to send or receive email using your XXXXXXX account. You'll need to update your XXXXXXX computer email server settings before 10/14/15 to continue accessing your email.
What Are Email Server Settings?
Your email server settings are used to connect Microsoft® Outlook® or Apple® Mail to your XXXXXXX mailbox. You are currently using outdated server settings to make this connection, and XXXX is discontinuing support of these on 10/14/15.
Why Should I Update My Email Server Settings before 10/14/15?
Your current email server settings will expire 10/14/15 and will no longer be supported by XXXX You’ll avoid service interruptions that will prevent you from sending and receiving email Updating to the new server settings increases both reliability and security
…
“Do you think this is a valid email?”
“Let me check the headers … ”
After a few minutes of scaning the raw headers, and doing a few whois [1] checks on some IP (Internet Protocol) addresses I was able to conclude the email was real.
And annoying.
Not because we had to spend the next five minutes reconfiguring Bunny's email server settings, but becauase that means I have until October 14^th to work around this new twist in email when posting to my blog [2], as odd as that may seem.
My workflow for posting is to use my preferred editor to write the post, then email it to my server where it will be posted via mod_blog [3]. Now, because I'm running Postfix [4] (on Linux) here at Chez Boca (just for updating the blog—I read email directly on my server using mutt [5] … yeah, I'm weird that way) it handles the delivery of email by queueing it locally, then forwarding it through our ISP (Internet Service Provider)'s email servers (because our ISP disallows direct email from home computers to arbitrary email servers due to spammer abuse). So it appears I have about two weeks to figure out how to get Postfix at Chez Boca to connect via SMTPS (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Secure) [6] instead of SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol).
How hard can that be?
Um … yeah … looks like it'll take a while to get things configured [7] …
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHOIS
[2] https://boston.conman.org/
[3] https://github.com/spc476/mod_blog
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_(email_client)
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMTPS