netcat strange behaviour

[Alex Zbyslaw]

shibbsd at spymac.com wrote:

>I just wanted to connect to a POP3 server, authenticate and grab the STAT
>information, so
>I issued the following command:
>
>printf "USER XXX\nPASS XXX\nSTAT\nQUIT\n" | nc -i 1 <mypopserver> 110
>
>And what I got on stdout was:
>
>+OK <greeting string>
>+OK
>+OK
>  
>
I tried it on my pop server and got

+OK
+OK
+OK
+OK 14 15121
+OK

Why don't you try the old-fashioned "telnet <mypopserver> 110" and type 
the commands by hand and see what you get.

--Alex