you can use ssh. If you are running on a windows client, you can download a free copy of ssh called putty and pscp from
PuTTY Download Page. putty is the login client and pscp is the file copy.
Then, you can type:
pscp user_id@remote_system
ath_to_file local_name
so for example, if I wanted to retrieve the /etc/profile from the remote system "gandalf" and my user id is joe1234, I can type:
pscp joe1234@gandalf:/etc/profile profile
you will be prompted for a password most likely unless the system is set up to use certificates.
putty is also a much better client than telnet both from a usability and security standpoint.
Hope this helps.