But then, none of the external sites I contact these days use old FTP -and- don't offer a secure alternative. If there was such a site, I'd be on the horn with their IT guys giving them hell.
The one old unencrypted protocol I still use extensively is TELNET, to test a TCP port for a live listener. But I'm not transferring any actual data.
Aside: One of my favorite "So you say you have 5 years of Linux experience" questions when interviewing a candidate for an IT position is: "You have to resurrect a Linux system that won't boot. You diagnose that there's a typo in /etc/fstab. You are at the console and your only available editor is /bin/ed. What is the first command you give ED?" (Answer: A capital 'P' to get a damn prompt! or any actual ED editing command. Extra credit if they use "cat | sed 's/foo/bar/'" and a temp file instead of ED.
Another favorite is: "You need to test whether an SMTP server is working, but you're at a console terminal with no mail client. You run "telnet {server} 25" and you get a response. What are the commands you use to send a test mail message?"
If the candidate can't answer at least one of those, they haven't got the experience needed to work at the level of IT that I do. :-)
Of course not all of my IT work is that bit-pushy; I do most of my work at a much higher level. But I firmly believe that any IT person who doesn’t have some familiarity with the lower levels doesn’t really understand what they’re doing at the higher levels.
# The one old unencrypted protocol I still use extensively is TELNET, to test a TCP port for a live listener. But I’m not transferring any actual data.
Anyone who actually uses telnet to login somewhere is an idiot who deserves a slow death. OTOH, telnet is an indispensible tool for troubleshooting connectivity.