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Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

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Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#71

Post by jvehent »

simoncion wrote: post #68
dmix wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That plus there aren't many good open source (non-web) options. Thunderbird is pretty bad.

What's wrong with Thunderbird? Note that if you use it as an IMAP client for Gmail, that Gmail's IMAP implementation is -as I understand it- kinda bad, so you're gonna kinda have a bad time.

There is nothing wrong with thunderbird, but it's a very different user experience from a terminal-based application.

Side note: I use mutt with gmail imap and have no problem whatsoever. http://wiki.linuxwall.info/doku.php/en:ressources:astuces:mu...

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#72

Post by nickpsecurity »

tptacek wrote: post #13

I don't know any security experts who do this. I do know a bunch of old-school nerds who use mutt because that's what they got started with.

I agree with you here. Further, I'll add that it being 100kloc and not Thunderbird etc tells us nothing about its security. It will have plenty of flaws that show up when hackers decide it's worth the time just maybe less. I do like simple, console apps for all the security tech I can easily use with them. Doubt the mutt users are doing that outside MAC, jails, etc.

But just using mutt is giving up much usability and features with little benefit in security. They're better off using good config and sandboxing with a client that gets more audits and bug fixes.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#73

Post by nickpsecurity »

aidenn0 wrote: post #64

Claws (and sylpheed, which it is a fork of) is by default text-only (html rendering only through a plugin). I used to use just mutt, but use claws quite a bit now.

My graphical client of choice. Lightweight, quick, and relatively easy to box in. Didn't play with Gmail so nicely so I access it a different way. Works with other accounts fine.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#75

Post by ta0967 »

Steltek wrote: post #54
totony wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mutt doesn't support retrieving mail very well, but you can use sync programs (getmail, offlineimap, isync, exchange2mbox) to create local mailboxes and make mutt use the local mailbox directory instead. you can send email using external programs (local smtp server and openxchange for exchange). Mutt is not a traditional mail client, it is more of a glue between multiple programs so you can have one interface for all…

Be careful with which Exchange servers you try offlineimap with. There was a severely bad interaction in Exchange with how offlineimap operates. Exchange used a global database with a small limit (I want to say 2^16) for unique message headers. Offlineimap injected unique headers for synchronization purposes. This quickly led to resource exhaustion and essentially blocked the server.

each email is supposed to have a globally unique Message-Id header, offlineimap or not.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#77

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

simoncion wrote: post #68
dmix wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That plus there aren't many good open source (non-web) options. Thunderbird is pretty bad.

What's wrong with Thunderbird? Note that if you use it as an IMAP client for Gmail, that Gmail's IMAP implementation is -as I understand it- kinda bad, so you're gonna kinda have a bad time.

I find that it hasn't really been designed for keyboard-only use. Some features, such as switching folders for instance, seem to require a mouse, or at least I haven't been able to find a shortcut for doing it. It's also kind of hard to avoid accidentally composing html emails - it cannot be disabled completely. I still use thunderbird myself though, as I haven't been able to find a better alternative for Linux. claws-mail comes close, but it does too much work in the ui thread, which grinds everything to a halt whenever it fetches email. Why do mail clients all seem to suck so much, given how much people use email?

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#78

Post by qw »

insertnickname wrote: post #74
monochromatic wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you wind up with plaintext emails that look gross when opened in Outlook?

It is HTML emails that are gross, not plain text.

Not necessarily for the Outlook users. The default setting of my Outlook was to ignore double line breaks and (paragraphs), which makes plain text mails less readable.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#79

Post by tobik »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #77
simoncion wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Thunderbird? Note that if you use it as an IMAP client for Gmail, that Gmail's IMAP implementation is -as I understand it- kinda bad, so you're gonna kinda have a bad time.

I find that it hasn't really been designed for keyboard-only use. Some features, such as switching folders for instance, seem to require a mouse, or at least I haven't been able to find a shortcut for doing it. It's also kind of hard to avoid accidentally composing html emails - it cannot be disabled completely. I still use thunderbird myself though, as I haven't been able to find a better alternative for Linux. claw…

For switching folders in Thunderbird: Alt-g-o and select new folder with arrow keys

Composing HTML emails need to be disabled for every account. Never had a problem with it.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#80

Post by pilooch »

gooseyard wrote: post #40

I've used mutt for ages, but a couple of years ago I switched to Karel Zak's mutt-kz branch ( https://github.com/karelzak/mutt-kz ), which integrates notmuch into mutt. The setup is a little fussy (although well documented), but the results are spectacular. Mutt's search was never horrible but with notmuch its nutty fast, and the tagging feature makes dealing with search and mailing lists very convenient.

You can use mairix as a search system outside of mutt. Results are a temporary mailbox.
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