They did it to me. All of a sudden I could not send email. I contacted customer support and they told me about this port thing. They claimed they had sent me an email but I had no record of it. What a total pain on the butt. Plus I was using Eudora and there was no option anywhere for specifying the outgoing port. Finally on my own I found a comment on a BB about how to get Eudora to display additional options such as outbound port. So yes, the message from comcast is legit.
Reported post by UnifiedeMail as spam.
I got the same email from Comcast about six months ago. However, my email (Microsoft Entourage on a Mac) was still working, and I read somewhere that the correct port should be selected automatically on a Mac, so I ignored the message. (Plus I didn’t even notice the email until several months after it was sent.)
Then, one day about a month or two ago, I could no longer send email–so I figured out how to change the port settings, and everything appears to be working again.
You’re making an assumption that it’s not being used for plain-text email. Apparently they have no obligation to support it, whether it’s standards compliant or not.
I don’t get the malware vector thing, unless the target is some improperly configured machine that still accepts plain-text email. If they have control of the server, they can just change the port.