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Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

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Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#91

Post by hyyypr »

therealmarv wrote: post #85

Security Experts... let me quote Linus Torvalds: "the security community tends to be very black and white. Either it's security or it's not. And if it is security, they care deeply. And if it is not, they don't care." So who cares if you write your email in text mode but browse the web with Chrome/Firefox? No offense against Mutt... I can understand that some terminal pros like it but I cannot understand using it for…

You can read html emails in mutt with decent support, using "links" or a somilar app. Mutt let's you define application that generate dumps for a given MIME type.

See: https://www.debian-administration.org/article/75/Reading_HTM...

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#93

Post by alwillis »

jbk wrote: post #18

I still use mutt (and default to text), but I don't see anyone else doing this, even in my geek coworkers or friends. So I'm a bit surprised by this article. I use mutt because it's very very fast, and quite customizable (I maintain a kind of 0-inbox through a set of hotkeys, + spamassin + procmail). To handle numerous mailing-lists with medium volume, it's so far the best I've seen. I tried many email clients (on Wi…

Great article on getting started with Mutt on OS X: http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/the-homely-mutt/

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#94

Post by toothbrush »

therealmarv wrote: post #85

Security Experts... let me quote Linus Torvalds: "the security community tends to be very black and white. Either it's security or it's not. And if it is security, they care deeply. And if it is not, they don't care." So who cares if you write your email in text mode but browse the web with Chrome/Firefox? No offense against Mutt... I can understand that some terminal pros like it but I cannot understand using it for…

I used to use mutt (now i use mu4e) and indeed i do not own a mobile phone capable of more than GSM. Also, as mentioned elsewhere, HTML rendering works fine in mutt and mu4e (although perhaps this opens me up to various nefarious things).

I don't do this because i'm a security expert (i'm not), i just love speed (so AJAX and fancypants websites are out for me, i'll use the terminal or Emacs where possible) and the keyboard.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and i'd never trust my web browser with my PGP key...

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#95

Post by toothbrush »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #72
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…

Honestly, depending on what you're comparing to, i consider mutt a step forward in terms of usability. How long does your search for a specific email take using the Gmail interface? I bet it's longer than using an indexing backend like notmuch or mu locally :)

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#96

Post by toothbrush »

michaelsbradley wrote: post #21

I use mu4e[1] to read, search and refile my emails, and there's a keyboard shortcut for viewing an HTML email in a browser. offlineimap[2] handles inbound messages. I love it! But for writing email, I still tend to jump over to Apple Mail. msmtp[3] handles outbound messages on those occasions when I choose to fire off a message from within mu4e. [1] http://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e.html [&] https://github.com/…

I also use mu4e, and i'm curious, why do you switch to Mail.app for composing? I love the fact that all my editor customisations (of which there are many) are still there when i'm writing email.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#97

Post by smcl »

qw wrote: post #78
insertnickname wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same for me, I cannot think of the use case for this - maybe it was introduced in the embrace/extend/extinguish era to nudge people into using Rich Text format emails?

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#98

Post by smcl »

qw wrote: post #78
insertnickname wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same for me, I cannot think of the use case for this - maybe it was introduced in the embrace/extend/extinguish era to nudge people into using Rich Text format emails?

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#99

Post by koevet »

I do use mutt as my principal e-mail client. It started as an experiment, now I fully transitioned to it. I enjoy being able to compose messages in vim and the tight integration with gpg. In case you want to try mutt out, some time ago I wrote a short guide about setting up mutt on osx,

http://www.lucianofiandesio.com/getting-started-with-mutt-on...

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#100

Post by mariusmg »

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…

To switch folders with the keyboard :

- install Nostalgy addon

- press "g"

- type/select folder name

- profit$

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