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Grex > Oldcoop > #376: The problems with Grex, e-mail and spam | |
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cross
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response 425 of 480:
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Feb 27 13:17 UTC 2007 |
Regarding #424; You can use POP and still use pine or mutt from the grex
shell. In that case, pine or mutt or whatever just gets the mail via POP
from a remote mail server and you read it as you normally would;
conceptually, this is the same as reading it from /var/mail.
It amazes me that you ask about SSH'ing to grex and using IMAP, but are
opposed to POP. Conceptually, for this purpose, the two are exactly the
same.
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cmcgee
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response 426 of 480:
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Feb 27 14:08 UTC 2007 |
My first reaction to Dan's proposal is that it makes a big change in Grex's
mission and philosophy.
We have, in the past, agreed as a community, to keep the difference between
being a paying participant and a non-paying participant as minimal as
possible. Membership DOES NOT buy privileges.
Just about everyone, except Sindi, probably makes liberal use of the many free
email systems that are far more reliable than Grex. It is Sindi's philisophy
that keeps her from helping her friends find free, reliable email.
Access to much older equipment, for almost free (such as one can find at
Kiwanis here in Ann Arbor) still allows one to use Yahoo!, Gmail, etc, etc.
[philosophy, back up a few lines]
There IS a solution to spam on Grex for those who want to use it. For free.
I see no reason to enter into a longterm contract with someone else, increase
membership fees, and give up on Grex email.
I agree the tool is seriously bent. But it still works, and there are better,
free tools out there for those who are unhappy with what we choose to provide.
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cross
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response 427 of 480:
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Feb 27 15:56 UTC 2007 |
Thanks, Colleen, for your thoughts. As I said, this is just thinking out
loud. However, I think you misinterpreted at something in my proposal: it's
not using membership for buying privileges, but rather covering costs and
doing reasonable verification on those who can send/receive email here.
Yes, it's a bit of a philosophical departure from what we have done in the
past, but we need to take into account the fact that the economics of email
and, indeed, just about everything computer related, have changed
dramatically since grex was founded. As we move forward to a solution to
the email problem, we can't forget that; our old assumptions about how mail
fundamentally works have broken down and we need to adjust accordingly.
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keesan
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response 428 of 480:
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Feb 27 19:56 UTC 2007 |
I mentioned IMAP because fastmail.fm (with 10MB mail storage but limited
bandwidth in its free accounts) offers free IMAP, but paid POP. Their free
spam filter is pretty bad though. Since Jan 24 I am getting increasing
amounts of junk, up to 2 per day. My procmail/spamassassin filter here does
a far better job. Can you download gmail mail to grex, for free? Using the
webmail interface is not practical on older hardware and slower connections.
Thanks for the motd. So far no takers.
Fastmail explained how to use vi to edit Pine to work with their IMAP.
I do have more reliable mail, at SDF. 100MB mailbox. But no spamassassin.
So I don't post my address there online. I got NO spam here today.
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kingjon
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response 429 of 480:
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Feb 27 20:48 UTC 2007 |
#428: Yes, you can download Gmail mail via POP for free. If a message is marked
as "read" via POP it won't show up on POP again, due I presume to Gmail's
"tags" system (which replaces folders), so if you do so, make sure to locally
save a copy of any mail you want to keep. (Which is, as I understand it, the
original point of POP, the "Post Office Protocol" -- that you download mail and
it's deleted on the original server.)
For that matter, Gmail is -- minimally -- accessible via lynx. It's what they
call their "bare HTML" view, and I'm not sure you can use all the standard
features, but it works for reading, tagging (which replaces filing into folders
-- read their FAQ for the details), and archiving. It does *not* work in links,
since it detects that browser's minimal Javascript, tries to use that, and
fails miserably.
In my experience (admittedly my only experience with POP is with Gmail), IMAP
is better than POP (A pity Gmail doesn't offer IMAP), but direct access as on
Grex surpasses either. (When I run into my Calvin mail quota, I ssh into the
web server, where mail folders are stored, and sftp them in a tarball off,
rather than go through the web interface.)
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cross
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response 430 of 480:
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Feb 27 21:06 UTC 2007 |
Regarding #428; As Jonathan said, yes, you can do POP with gmail for free,
and you have a 2GB (yes, *giga*byte) quota for mail. I wouldn't say that it's
`not practical on older hardware and slower connections' to use the web
interface, though. Opera running on most of the boat anchors you give out
would probably do a reasonable job.
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keesan
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response 431 of 480:
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Feb 27 22:34 UTC 2007 |
It took 2 minutes to download the gmail starting page with opera. Their pages
are too large. And webmail is inherently slow and GUI-ish. Can one retrieve
mail from another site with IMAP at grex? With POP? I am not ever going to
use popmail via modem to download to my own computer. I don't read most of
what is sent me (freecycle mail).
I might some day experiment with IMAP/pine and fastmail just to learn
something. But I would still need a spam filter at grex to do that.
Testing lynx at mail.google.com. Lynx supports ssl. Faster than opera.
I don't have an account to log into for testing purposes. Jonathan, the
problem with links might be the ssl requirement.
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keesan
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response 432 of 480:
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Feb 27 22:57 UTC 2007 |
I have been unable to get IMAP working between pine and fastmail. All I did
was disable pine from sending mail. I was supposed to type several long lines
into .pinerc with .vi. Eventually I gave up and used pico. This changed my
sender to mailmessagingengine.com somehow. When I tried to mail to myself
I was keesan@mailmessagingengine.com
It would be much easier to change the login in .procmailrc than to edit
.pinerc Does anyone else have PINE working at grex with IMAP and some free
mail account?
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scholar
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response 433 of 480:
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Feb 27 23:22 UTC 2007 |
lordy.
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cross
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response 434 of 480:
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Feb 27 23:30 UTC 2007 |
Regarding #431; For about the third time, YES, YOU CAN USE PINE ON GREX TO
READ MAIL ON GMAIL VIA POP. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DOWNLOAD IT TO YOUR LOCAL
MACHINE.
Gmail isn't slow. Your computer is slow. Sorry, there it is.
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ball
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response 435 of 480:
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Feb 27 23:49 UTC 2007 |
My computers are slow and when I dial in through a mobile
phone my connection to Grex isn't all that quick. Berkeley
mail is lightning fast though! :-)
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kingjon
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response 436 of 480:
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Feb 27 23:55 UTC 2007 |
#432: You shouldn't have to edit .pinerc manually. Pine has a built-in setup
utility for just that purpose. The email provider should give you an IP address
and port to connect to for POP or IMAP and an IP address and port for SMTP (to
send). The line you probably want, should you decide to edit .pinerc by hand,
begins "incoming-folders=" (assuming you want to keep your mailbox here).
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keesan
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response 437 of 480:
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Feb 28 00:32 UTC 2007 |
I did edit something of the sort as instructed by Fastmail. They did not
provide IP addresses, just a list of what to type. It failed miserably.
How would one set up pine here to do popmail from a free account some place
else, and does it automatically download mail? My IMAP setup tried to send
via that other account, which I did not need to do.
Gmail is designed for a fast connection. All webmails are slow for me.
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keesan
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response 438 of 480:
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Feb 28 00:36 UTC 2007 |
I just discovered that when I tried sending myself a mail to here, it ended
up at my fastmail account (before I undid the IMAP setup). That is NOT what
I want, I want mail sent there to end up here so I can read it with pine.
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kingjon
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response 439 of 480:
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Feb 28 01:35 UTC 2007 |
In "IP address" I meant to include "domain name." Like I said, with pine, which
includes an extensive internal setup feature, it should be unnecessary to edit
.pinerc by hand.
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keesan
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response 440 of 480:
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Feb 28 03:00 UTC 2007 |
Apparently IMAP works by having the mail go some place else but reading it
here. So I would have to forward any mail from here to there and then read
it here? To configure pine for IMAP setup/config Z. It is much simpler to
just edit a .procmailrc file and probably catches more spam than fastmail.
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ball
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response 441 of 480:
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Feb 28 03:36 UTC 2007 |
IMAP, like POP3 is a protocol for retrieving mail from a
server somewhere. If I remember correctly, IMAP is a bit
more flexible in that it provides your mail user agent (in
your case PINE) with the option to scan headers and delete
messages without automatically fetching the entire message
from the server. Whether PINE takes advantage of that
facility is a separate question. Hopefully someone here will
correct me if I'm wrong.
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kingjon
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response 442 of 480:
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Feb 28 11:57 UTC 2007 |
#441 is, as far as I know about pine and IMAP, correct.
Re #440: Pine can handle multiple incoming mailboxes, so you don't need to
forward mail from anywhere to anywhere. Just add whatever address and port you
are given to your "incoming folders collection", as pine calls it.
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keesan
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response 443 of 480:
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Feb 28 17:25 UTC 2007 |
Would someone like Jonathan be willing to set up a free account at fastmail.fm
and figure out how to read mail at it with pine at grex? It is beyond me.
But I am already getting 2 spams a day there from the same stock spam place
(gifs advertising some stock). I would still need to use a filter here to
filter on anything with a .gif, or pay fastmail for better spam filtering.
It is easier to just use .procmailrc.
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kingjon
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response 444 of 480:
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Feb 28 18:40 UTC 2007 |
I'd be willing to (not this moment, as I've got class soon). I won't do it at
Grex, since I don't use pine on Grex, but pine should be the same anywhere.
I'll reply with my results when I have any.
In my original response I didn't specify pine because pine is not the only tool
in the arsenal for getting mail from somewhere. It is to be preferred if you
want to use their space rather than your space for storing the mail, but you
could use fetchmail or some other IMAP client to download the mail and use
whatever tool you please here (including passing it through procmail).
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cross
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response 445 of 480:
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Feb 28 19:13 UTC 2007 |
I think it might be more profitable to set up an account on gmail, which
probably has much better spam protection.
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cross
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response 446 of 480:
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Feb 28 19:14 UTC 2007 |
Regarding #441; The POP protocol has most of those functions, as well....
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keesan
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response 447 of 480:
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Feb 28 20:26 UTC 2007 |
I just spent about 20 minutes trying to sign up for a google account using
the lynx (latest) on my own computer. I could not find a link to the image
you needed to type in to verify. I downloaded the .wav file and tried typing
in the numbers I heard (against a ridiculously noisy background). I mailed
asking them to email me to help. Then I broke down and used Opera to sign
up. I could access my account with lynx and it took 30 seconds from the
time I typed in the URL to read my mail. Since I have lynx set to number al
links, I could type 10 for Compose, and 30 for send (or whatever they are).
It sent in a couple of seconds. My ISP webmail can take 20 sec to delete
mails. I have not tested google this way.
I then tested access to pine. If I am already at grex it takes about 2
seconds. If I am not at grex, it took 10 sec to ssh here and enter my
password and type pine and i to see a list of my mails (less if I had fewer
mails in the inbox, more on a really slow day).
I added another To: line to my .procmailrc to dump any mails to koresh,
and another couple lines to send any mail about pills or girlfriend to the
spam folder.
Lynx can handle https sites (you need a cert.pem).
I then accessed my inbox with Opera. 46 seconds. With Opera set to not
display any images (but I think it still downloads them).
The conclusion is that pine at grex is much faster to access via modem,
(2 sec if I am already at grex), lynx takes 30 sec, and opera takes 40 sec
(plus another 30-40 sec to load X and opera). On my fastest computer.
Firefox or Mozilla take twice as long to load as Opera.
Pine being faster than Google to access (with lynx or opera).
Fastmail.fm took 10 seconds to access with lynx (on my computer, in all
cases). Probably less if I set lynx to access fastmail cookies.
Google took 30 sec with lynx. Fastmail is getting 2 spams a day now.
Links indeed does not access gmail though the SSL part works. (The links at
grex does SSL).
How would someone read google mail using pine at lynx?
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cross
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response 448 of 480:
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Feb 28 20:32 UTC 2007 |
So now that you have a gmail account, try to get pine to pull email out of
it using POP.
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kingjon
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response 449 of 480:
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Feb 28 20:50 UTC 2007 |
#445: I have a gmail account, but it only has POP and additionally makes
messages disappear from POP once read via that method.
#446: The difference seems to me to be that IMAP is intended for managing
mailboxes remotely, while POP seems intended for simple mail retrieval.
The first "definition" Google finds for "IMAP" is as follows:
"(Internet Message Access Protocol) IMAP is gradually replacing POP as the main
protocol used by email clients in communicating with email servers. Using IMAP
an email client program can not only retrieve email but can also manipulate
message stored on the server, without having to actually retrieve the messages.
So messages can be deleted, have their status changed, multiple mail boxes can
be managed, etc."
I have now created a fastmail.fm account. Their "Pine" configuration entry is
overly confusing -- as keesan noted, it tells you what keystrokes to use in vi,
which is unforgiving, and likely some stray command keystrokes slipped in when
she used pico. The "I know how to set up SMTP/POP/IMAP myself ..." FAQ entry is
much more revealing. I'll enter detailed instructions when I get back to my
dorm room, where I have pine set up (I'm typing this from the computer science
Unix lab) and can substitute fastmail's IMAP server for Calvin's and post. That
will include both fastmail IMAP and Gmail POP; as Dan said in #445, Gmail
probably has better spam protection, and I add that it is entirely free unlike
fastmail which reserves some features for those who pay.
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