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Technically, you don't need an email account to send email. "telnet example.com 25; HELO there; MAIL FROM: you@example.com; RCPT TO example@example.com; DATA;
by jrockway 3y ago
Technically, you don't need an email account to send email. "telnet example.com 25; HELO there; MAIL FROM: you@example.com; RCPT TO example@example.com; DATA; ...; ." Viewing the reply is, of course, more challenging.
- derefr 3y agoI don't think there exist any Mail Submission Agents well-connected to the graph of what you would think of as "email on the Internet", that allow you to send FROM an arbitrary address without SMTP AUTHing yourself as an account that maps to someone with privileges to send from that address.
- jrockway 3y agoYou connect to the recipient's server. It's nice that iCloud Mail automates this all for you (and is allowlisted), but you don't need an email provider to send email.
- hiatus 3y agoLet me know when you can telnet into gmail to send mail as an unauthenticated user to another gmail user. Let alone DMARC, SPF and other modern protections. The last time I could do what you describe was more than a decade ago.
- hiatus 3y agoThis used to be a thing, with open mail servers making it trivial to send emails to your friends masquerading as whitehouse.gov for instance.