:: That means that nothing sent over email is ever <u>truly</u> secure. But attempting to continually 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.

:: If e-mail traffic on a LAN was not encrypted, it weren't - that is so would be easy and cheap inexpensive to intercept that you're just asking for someone (in order to please take obtain your passwords username and steal your identitypassword). These days , unencrypted connections from your client to your SMTP/IMAP/POP3 server are practically unheard ofvery rarely exist.