Note the two globes in the above diagram - those are two networks . Those globes represent the Internet that your emails need travel through in order to traversebe received by an e-mail recipient. Usually both are the internet, but the The '''smaller one globe (the one your workstation is connected to) cannot be trusted at allto send mail messages unencrypted'''. The bigger one larger globe usually involves inter-ISP traffic, often through an internet trunk line, so it's equally is also unencrypted , but not as it cannot be easily accessed by hackers, pen-testers, or evildoers.

# :* Email (the way the vast majority of people use it) travels from SMTP server to SMTP server uncencrypted. That means that nothing sent over email is ever truly secure. But intercepting SMTP server to SMTP server traffic is difficult and expensive, not worth doing for the little bit of money most of us have in our bank account.# :* Email travelling over a LAN (especially Wifi, but any local network) is always encrypted. If it weren't - that is so easy and cheap to intercept that you're just asking for someone to please take your passwords and steal your identity. These days unencrypted connections from your client to your SMTP/IMAP/POP3 server are practically unheard of.