How to disable ssl/tls?

[Jackson]

Using Eudora ver 7.1

I got this pop up from Avast (my primary anti-malware program):

"avast! has detected a secure connection from your mail
program (process Eudora.exe) to the SMPT server 68.1.17.4(cox net).

This tye of connection cannot be checked for viruses. Please
disable SSL/TLS in your mail client so that the Mail Scanner
can scan your mail. The Mail Scanner will provide the
SSL/TLS security itself."

1. Will this be a valid message? I assume it is.
2. Will someone please tell me just what SSL/TLS is and how to
disable it. I looked under 'options' with no success.

Thank you so much...

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

Post by Jackson
1. Will this be a valid message? I assume it is.

Possible -- if I knew what type of configuration AVAST has for mail
handling...

Post by Jackson
2. Will someone please tell me just what SSL/TLS is and how to
disable it. I looked under 'options' with no success.

SSL is Secure Sockets Layer... The socket connection is made with
some handshake to define a connection specific encryption key used to
encrypt all subsequent traffic on that connection... Not sure what TLS
is.

Look under the configuration of your personalities, not the main
options.

[John H Meyers]

Post by Jackson
Using Eudora ver 7.1
"avast! has detected a secure connection from your mail
program (process Eudora.exe) to the SMTP server 68.1.17.4(cox net).
This type of connection cannot be checked for viruses. Please
disable SSL/TLS in your mail client so that the Mail Scanner
can scan your mail. The Mail Scanner will provide the
SSL/TLS security itself."

Since all attachments are stored directly into files,
any anti-virus scanner which scans files will protect you
as much as is possible against infected attachments anyway,
without needing any "mail scanning."

In addition, note that when you contact an SMTP server,
this is for _sending_ messages -- this "scanner" is offering,
therefore, to test your _outbound_ messages for viruses,
and possibly to insert a related message (or "ad" for Avast)
into your outgoing messages. This certainly is _not_
for _your_ protection.

Many people therefore feel that "email scanning,"
which means the insertion of _another_ scanner
between the email client and the server, is unproductive,
and therefore prefer to turn off any email scanning
in anti-virus software, particularly since there are
complications whenever trying to do this with SSL/TLS
(secured and encrypted connections), which require
duplicating some of your email "account setups"
in the anti-virus program itself.

Post by Jackson
1. Will this be a valid message? I assume it is.
2. Will someone please tell me just what SSL/TLS is
and how to disable it.

An old saying goes "if at first you don't succeed -- read the directions."

The message quoted above is incomplete and meaningless,
perhaps even dangerous.

You need to study your _Avast_ manual for complete instructions,
since anyone who blindly "turns off [Start]TLS" in their email client
will simply have turned off the protection and encryption
of both login passwords and email content,
and will thus only have degraded their own security.

You also _can't_ simply "turn off SSL" on ports 995, 993 or 465,
so read the Avast manual and find out what this really means,
as well as the additional account settings you first have to make in Avast,
without which you would end up with no connection security at all.

Some ISPs prevent such inadvertent self-harm
by refusing to make any non-secure connections anyway,
which would instead just keep you searching for more help.

"Support Center > Knowledgebase > avast! 5.x:
Some e-mails are not scanned by the Mail Shield":

http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=458

"If encryption is required, the appropriate e-mail accounts
need to be configured in the [Avast] _Mail Shield_
to establish a secure connection with the mail server."

http://www.avast.com/community-and-support

--

[John H Meyers]

Post by John H Meyers
http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=458
"If encryption is required, the appropriate e-mail accounts
need to be configured in the [Avast] _Mail Shield_
to establish a secure connection with the mail server."

As the image (Figure III) in the above also illustrates,
you can instead apparently just _turn off the warning message_
allowing "secure" TLS/SSL connections to simply pass through Avast
without being "intercepted" and scanned.

This would make Avast exactly equivalent
to my current Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition,
which acknowledges that it can not scan TLS/SSL connections,
but says that there's no risk, because it's still scanning all files :)

No doubt you can also turn off all Avast email scanning elsewhere,
even for non-secured connections.

--