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Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

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Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#111

Post by p4bl0 »

rekado wrote: post #110
0XAFFE wrote: post #108

As I'm a emacs person, I tried once wanderlust[1] and got hooked up to it. Wanderlust is mail client which supports a wide variety of protocols. For me the biggest advantages are the blazing fast IMAP support and the whole emacs thing (Keybindings, Help (C-h b for all keybindings in this buffer, priceless I have to say), the possibility to run it either in GUI or in a terminal, etc). Recently the devs uploaded it to…

Another Emacs person here. I'm using offlineimap+msmtp together with mu4e. I prefer not to do IMAP sync or mail delivery in Emacs itself.

I do the same, except I use emacs build-in SMTP (smtpmail) directly. I'm quite happy with it :). What is the advantage of msmtp?

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#112

Post by 1ace »

eru wrote: post #88
dogma1138 wrote: post #10

Most "Security Experts" are working for consultancy, tech firms, and government agencies so they probably use plenty of other clients. The majority will probably run Outlook since Exchange is the defacto mail-server standard for any organization (that isn't tied to Lotus because 45 years ago the CEO had to sacrifice a goat to appease IBM to spare his 1st born), the rest will probably use Gmail or any other web-based…

Off-topic: > [...] just as alcohol, drug use and smoking is more common in Doctors than any other diploma based profession out there [...] What I could find with a quick search pointed in the other direction. Do you have some evidence?

I can attest to that. When my sister was in med school (in Switzerland), I got to see just how much this is true.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#113

Post by bakul »

a3n wrote: post #61
bakul wrote: post #55

I still use mh (well, nmh now) programs for my personal email. There is nothing that beats mh's "pick" program for selecting emails.

Does imap figure anywhere in your mix?

Nope! I forward mail from various other email addresses to my email address where I care.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#114

Post by keithpeter »

kragen wrote: post #46
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…

If Mutt is not a traditional mail client , then what is? heirloom-mailx? I read my mail with less. That's a nontraditional mail client.

"I read my mail with less."

How? Sounds like you just grep your way through the mailbox?

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#115

Post by p4bl0 »

iso8859-1 wrote: post #12
p4bl0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why bother with the desktop environment at all in that case? You could just install a window manager (I like Openbox but you may prefer a tiling wm) and xfce4-panel, which works pretty well standalone. This has been my setup for years now :).

Good point. But what is a desktop environment anyway (one could argue that you made your own)? For example, Lxde already uses Openbox, yet Openbox is not just the "WM for LXDE".

Usually, desktop environments come with a lot of software, like a graphical file browser, games, something to display the content of a directory on the wallpaper (the "Desktop" itself), etc. that I don't need, so I prefer to install only what I need (and concerning graphical software, that is only openbox, xfce4-panel, emacs, rxvt-unicode, inkscape, gimp, and iceweasel).

But in a sens you are right, it's like I composed my own minimal desktop environment :).

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#116

Post by nextos »

rekado wrote: post #110
0XAFFE wrote: post #108

As I'm a emacs person, I tried once wanderlust[1] and got hooked up to it. Wanderlust is mail client which supports a wide variety of protocols. For me the biggest advantages are the blazing fast IMAP support and the whole emacs thing (Keybindings, Help (C-h b for all keybindings in this buffer, priceless I have to say), the possibility to run it either in GUI or in a terminal, etc). Recently the devs uploaded it to…

Another Emacs person here. I'm using offlineimap+msmtp together with mu4e. I prefer not to do IMAP sync or mail delivery in Emacs itself.

Have you tried isync? I was using offlineimap before, but found it buggy and inefficient.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#117

Post by foldr »

lottin wrote: post #8

Another reason is that it spawns a text editor. Typing emails in a text widget without proper editing capabilities can be irritating.

Copy+paste? It's rare that I write an email that's more than a couple of paragraphs, but when I need to, it only takes a second to copy the text over from a real editor.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#118

Post by darkr »

nextos wrote: post #116
rekado wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another Emacs person here. I'm using offlineimap+msmtp together with mu4e. I prefer not to do IMAP sync or mail delivery in Emacs itself.

Have you tried isync? I was using offlineimap before, but found it buggy and inefficient.

Currently using isync for those exact reasons. Only issue that I have with it is that it doesn't support nested folders.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#119

Post by dijit »

josteink wrote: post #104
DanBC wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the US government doesn't have full access to your private server? If it's located within the US they have full physical access. If it's located outside the US it's a valid target for all the TLAs. If the government is on your list of threats you need a lot more than "private mail server".

> If it's located within the US they have full physical access. If I were to live in the US, I would know when my server went missing. With Google or other cloud-providers they can do it behind your back. > If it's located outside the US it's a valid target for all the TLAs. And then can't seize it. It's physically secure. It may not be bullet-proof security-wise (what is?) but they can't rubber-stamp their way into…

Amen, this whole "if it's not 100% secure why bother" argument is annoying, we can still make it hard for them.

We can, and we definitely should.

Re: Why Some Security Experts Use Mutt

#120

Post by DanBC »

dijit wrote: post #119
josteink wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's located within the US they have full physical access. If I were to live in the US, I would know when my server went missing. With Google or other cloud-providers they can do it behind your back. > If it's located outside the US it's a valid target for all the TLAs. And then can't seize it. It's physically secure. It may not be bullet-proof security-wise (what is?) but they can't rubber-stamp their way into…

Amen, this whole "if it's not 100% secure why bother" argument is annoying, we can still make it hard for them. We can, and we definitely should.

It makes it easier for them.
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