There are a few ways you can check your e-mail. They vary in degrees of security for the authentication procedure and options that the server will allow you to use to control your e-mail. Oh yeah, you open up your e-mail and check for new mail. Well, you use port 113 to do the identification and authorization for your account info and password, you receive your e-mail on port 110, and you send your outgoing mail on port 25. That's a lot of data to keep track of.
Ports help to keep all that data separate and going to the right places.
I've listed below some standard port numbers for the common types of activities. In this article, I'll be discussing some recent security concerns that affect most all of us using the internet today. For those Mac users out there, I am slowly learning about the system, and I hope to include Mac specific information later on. A lurking meanie gets your IP from just about anywhere you are going on the internet i.e. mIRC , ICQ, many web sites, and, armed with this info, a program called Nuke95 or WinNuke, and a malicious intent, the attacker can effectively shut down your PC, until you reboot. If you feel particularly brave, use regedit and enter it by hand, although you might need to create the key.