> During dialup connection to the Yale server via PPP, is the password
> encrypted or is it sent in the clear?
My guesses: your PPP password itself is probably sent over your
phone line in the clear, but this shouldn't be too much of a cause for
concern unless you're being wiretapped. :) There may also be some hops
between iic computers once your password gets there. These connections may
or may not be encrypted; the folks at iic will know better than I do.
Adding to what's been said already - once you've got a network
connection established, fetchmail's also good way not to send your
password over in the clear. In addition to supporting kpop (which the
Pantheon supports - I think Shawn knows the syntax), it can be configured
to work through ssh. See http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail/ for
details.
Matt