[exim] Pine and smtp authentication

Hello,

Since I upgraded exim3 to exim4 on debian, a user has a problem where
pine takes exactly 30 seconds to send an email to our smtp server.
Meaning it takes 30 seconds before asking for a password, so something
is timing out. The configuration in exim4 regarding authentication is this:

##
login:
    driver = plaintext
    public_name = LOGIN
    server_prompts = "Username:: : Password::"
    #server_condition = "${if 
crypteq{$2}{${extract{1}{:}{${lookup{$1}lsearch{/etc/exim/passwd}{$value}{*:*}}}}}{1}{0}}"
    server_condition = "${if pam{$1:${sg{$2}{:}{::}}}{1}{0}}"
    # PAM Authentication (our PAM is LDAP based)
    server_set_id = $1
##

The .pinerc regarding the smtp server shows this:

##
# List of SMTP servers for sending mail. If blank: Unix Pine uses sendmail.
smtp-server=g2i.atypon.com/novalidate-cert/ssl/user=theuser
##

I am unable to reproduce this myself, as pine will instantly prompt for
a password. This problem only occurs with him, from outside our network,
say on a unix shell account, if he tries it inside the network it works.

Any idea what may cause this?

Thank you,
Jeroen