electronic communication for the information terrorist

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

Kragen Sitaker wrote:
> Brad writes:
> > Kragen, wouldn't  your time be better sent of doing a buffer-overflow audit
> > of say, mutt, and then add features you want to it?
> 
> Mm, probably not.  

Why not?
 
> > Also, one of the problems with sendmail-style mail in general is the idea of
> > a single folder 
> 
> You mean a single file?

Yes.
 
> > for all messages.  Folders should be directories, and
> > messages should be files.
> 
> Yes, probably so.

:)
 
> > The problem is that there is no (to my knowledge) RFC'd format that does
> > mail this way.
 
> MH-format (which is widely supported) and maildir format (which is less
> widely supported) both do mail this way.  MH format is probably less
> reliable.

I had head Bad Things (TM) about MH format, and that's why I ignored it.
maildir format?  Isn't that qmail's?

 
> > Have you considered writing it in a language that is less likely to allow
> > buffer overruns and security breeches?  (like using Perl in taint mode or
> > something)?
 
> Yes, I was planning to use Perl.  Taint mode is bad for this, though;
> it taints the wrong things.  In this case, only data from the mailbox
> should be tainted.

Good point.  You could hack Perl to taint variables for you:

use vars tainted $foo;

:)

> Is there a Scheme dialect that has cbreak-mode keyboard input, curses, and
> stat()?

Guile would be the only one, I think.
 
> Paul Ivffpure writes:
       ^^^^^^^^
Huh?

> > I tend to agree with Brad, though. I think it might be more efficient to
> > audit mutt than write your own client with some borrowed 'less' code. If
> > you tell me what to do, i'll help audit stuff...
 
> I don't know; mutt has some misfeatures that it shares with most mail
> clients.

Those would be...?

-- 
         -  bkuhn@ebb.org  -  Bradley M. Kuhn  -  bkuhn@gnu.org  -
                          http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn