diff --git a/lib/Net/Cmd.pm b/lib/Net/Cmd.pm
index ef1896b..b76c213 100644
--- a/lib/Net/Cmd.pm
+++ b/lib/Net/Cmd.pm
@@ -188,11 +188,26 @@ sub set_status {
   1;
 }
 
+# The default encode/decode methods
+sub encode {
+  my ($cmd, $text, $len) = @_;
+
+  $text;
+}
+
+
+sub decode {
+  my ($cmd, $text, $len) = @_;
+
+  $text;
+}
+
+
 sub _syswrite_with_timeout {
   my $cmd = shift;
-  my $line = shift;
+  my $line = $cmd->encode($_[0], $_[1]);
+  my $len = length($line);
 
-  my $len    = length($line);
   my $offset = 0;
   my $win    = "";
   vec($win, fileno($cmd), 1) = 1;
@@ -352,6 +367,8 @@ sub getline {
 
       substr($buf, 0, 0) = $partial;    ## prepend from last sysread
 
+      $buf = $cmd->decode($buf, length($buf));  ## decode it
+
       my @buf = split(/\015?\012/, $buf, -1);    ## break into lines
 
       $partial = pop @buf;
diff --git a/lib/Net/SMTP.pm b/lib/Net/SMTP.pm
index 3b82a60..455f22c 100644
--- a/lib/Net/SMTP.pm
+++ b/lib/Net/SMTP.pm
@@ -158,6 +158,28 @@ sub etrn {
 }
 
 
+# Overload encode method when Authen::SASL is available
+sub encode {
+  my ($self, $text, $len) = @_;
+  my $sasl = ${*$self}{'net_smtp_sasl'};
+
+  return ($sasl)
+    ? $sasl->encode($text, $len)
+    : $self->SUPER::encode($text, $len);
+}
+
+
+# Overload decode method when Authen::SASL is available
+sub decode {
+  my ($self, $text, $len) = @_;
+  my $sasl = ${*$self}{'net_smtp_sasl'};
+
+  return ($sasl)
+    ? $sasl->decode($text, $len)
+    : $self->SUPER::decode($text, $len);
+}
+
+
 sub auth {
   my ($self, $username, $password) = @_;
 
@@ -216,13 +238,6 @@ sub auth {
   # todo that we would really need to change the ISA hierarchy
   # so we don't inherit from IO::Socket, but instead hold it in an attribute
 
-  # DIGEST-MD5 can support integrity and/or confidentiality protection
-  # over the socket traffic (auth-int and auth-conf) which we do not
-  # support here for now.  To disable them, set maxssf=minssf=0.
-
-  $client->property('maxssf' => 0, 'minssf' => 0)
-    if ($client->mechanism eq 'DIGEST-MD5');
-
   my @cmd = ("AUTH", $client->mechanism);
   my $code;
 
@@ -241,6 +256,13 @@ sub auth {
     $self->debug_print(1, "(decoded) " . $str . "\n") if $self->debug;
   }
 
+  # Some mechanisms in Authen::SASL offer additional security layers
+  # for integrity and/or confidentiality and define encode() and
+  # decode() methods.  To support them, store # the Authen::SASL
+  # object in {net_smtp_sasl}. 
+  #
+  ${*$self}{'net_smtp_sasl'} = $sasl->{conn};
+
   $code == CMD_OK;
 }