A bit about email

Before you torch and pitchfork me, I'm aware most of this is simplified and doesn't go into edge cases, even though the internet is composed entirely of edge cases. Otherwise, I'd be writing a whole book. First, some terminology; A typical email will past through many different components on it's way to the recipient: 1. Sender's MUA [Via SMTP on port 465] 2. Sending MSA 3. Sending MTA [Via SMTP on port 25] 4. Receiving MTA 5. Receiving LDA and message store [Via IMAP] 7. Receiver's MUA (These aren't all necessarily different machines or even different programs, but it is helpful to give a name for each step.) The mail user agent (MUA) runs on the user's computer and is what they use to send or read messages. Let's say they send something: that message will be uploaded to to the submission agent (MSA) which checks the user's password before handing off to the mail transfer agent (MTA). The transfer agent's job is to talk to the other mail servers and get the message to the receiving…

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