Password-Protected Email Improvement
Alan Connor
also. None of us got ANY response from the addressed published on Usenet and
on his web pages.
So I am just going to post the mail I wanted to send to him here, in hopes
that others can make use of the idea or point out flaws in the concept or
the scripts. It works well so far.....
I am REALLY fed up with spam and simply will not take it anymore.
NO spam gets by this setup.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Salmi,
Thanks for the password-protected mailbox system. I love it.
Here's a slight improvement that I've thrown together, and I would really
like to hear what you might have to say about it, and any improvements in
the scripts that might occur to you.
Your system as it stands works well for ordinary spamming, but not for
harrassment, as I have found out the hard way.
It needs the script at the bottom, the directory "procmail" in your $HOME,
a string TSPW[0-9][0-9]* in $DIR/passfile (to get started), and a little
personalization.
When a mail from an address that's not on the priveleged list comes in, a
one-time password is generated and sent to that person with the admonition
to be sure and use it with the address they acquired it with. If they don't,
the mail with the mismatched address/password gets dumped.
If a mail with a valid password/address combination is passed to your inbox
that line is stripped from the list, not to be used again.
So far it has worked just fine. (I also have a master password so that my
regular correspondents can use different addresses if they need to.)
This is my mail sig:
If I am mailing you for the first time, mail from the address on
the To: line above will get through my filters with no problem.
Others will get you a receipt asking you to re-send the
mail with a temporary password on the subject line.
Please use PLAIN TEXT when you mail me. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I use bash2 on Linux, but this should be sh compatible. I don't think GNU
sed is necessary.
Sincerely,
Alan Connor
Just enough of the .procmailrc to make this work:
###########################################################################
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin
MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail #you'd better make sure it exists
DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/inbox #completely optional
LOGFILE=$MAILDIR/from #recommended
PASSWD=`cat ~/procmail/passfile`
### General
:0
* ^Subject.*TSPW[0-9][0-9]*
| cat > ~/procmail/newmail && procpass.sh
### Password
:0 c
* $ ! ^Subject.*${PASSWD}
| net=${PASSWD} ; ten=`sed -n '/^From:/p'`; echo "$net $ten" >> ~/procmail/pr
ocpass
:0:passwd.lock
* $ ! ^Subject:.*${PASSWD}
* ! ^X-Loop: you@your\.isp
* ! ^From:.*you@([-a-z0-9_]+\.)your\.isp
| (formail -r \
-i"Subject: Sorry, Access Denied." \
-A"X-Loop: y...@your.isp" ; \
echo "*************************************************" ; \
echo "* This is a computer-generated response *" ; \
echo "*************************************************" ; \
echo ; \
echo ; \
echo " Greetings. I am the Mighty Guardian of this mailbox, and
" ; \
echo " must temporarily bar your path." ; \
echo ; \
echo " Please include the one-time password ${PASSWD} anywhere on
the Subject line," ; \
echo " make sure your mail is in PLAIN TEXT, is smaller than 20kb,
" ; \
echo " and has no attachments." ; \
echo ; \
echo " (you MUST use the password with the same address you acquir
ed it with)" ; \
echo ; \
echo " Then kindly re-send your email to y...@your.isp. " ; \
echo ; \
echo " If you wish to engage in regular correspondence, your " ; \
echo " address(es) will be added to the priveleged list " ; \
echo " and there will be no further muss or fuss." ; \
echo ; \
echo ; \
echo ; \
echo "************************************************" ; \
echo "* THANK YOU ------- SPAM SUCKS *" ; \
echo "************************************************" ; \
echo ; \
echo ; \
echo ; \
) | $SENDMAIL -t && echo TSPW"$RANDOM" > ~/procmail/passfile
### Endnotes
:0:
${DEFAULT}
##############################################################################
#!/bin/bash
## put on your path as recognized by procmail (see top of .procmailrc)
DIR=$HOME/procmail
nnt=`sed -n '/^Subject/s/\(^Sub.*\)\(TSPW[0-9][0-9]*\)\(.*\)/\2/p' $DIR/newmail`
tnn=`sed -n '/^From:/p' $DIR/newmail`
echo "$nnt $tnn" > $DIR/procpass2
tnt=`cat $DIR/procpass2`
cat $DIR/procpass | while read line; do if [ "$line" = "$tnt" ]
then cat $DIR/newmail >> ~/Mail/inbox
sed "/$line/d" $DIR/procpass > $DIR/procpass3
mv $DIR/procpass3 $DIR/procpass
else continue
fi
done
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alan
--
There's no place like ~
Timo Salmi
Alan Connor <alanc...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I have tried to send this mail to Timo Salmi, and have had 2 other people try
> also. None of us got ANY response from the addressed published on Usenet and
> on his web pages.
Dear Alan (and others),
Baffling! You should have received my public email password in the
automatic return email. Anyway, I have now whitelisted you Alan.
> So I am just going to post the mail I wanted to send to him here, in hopes
> that others can make use of the idea or point out flaws in the concept or
> the scripts. It works well so far.....
I think it is more beneficial that you posted here than just to me.
It always is batter to have a wider audience in a matter like the
current one.
All the best, Timo
--
Prof. Timo Salmi ftp & http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ archives 193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance ; University of Vaasa
mailto:t...@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/> ; FIN-65101, Finland
Timo's FAQ materials at http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html
Alan Connor
> In article <l9gQa.45283$C83.3...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> Alan Connor <alanc...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> I have tried to send this mail to Timo Salmi, and have had 2 other people try
>> also. None of us got ANY response from the addressed published on Usenet and
>> on his web pages.
>
> Dear Alan (and others),
>
> Baffling! You should have received my public email password in the
> automatic return email. Anyway, I have now whitelisted you Alan.
>
>> So I am just going to post the mail I wanted to send to him here, in hopes
>> that others can make use of the idea or point out flaws in the concept or
>> the scripts. It works well so far.....
>
> I think it is more beneficial that you posted here than just to me.
> It always is batter to have a wider audience in a matter like the
> current one.
>
> All the best, Timo
>
Thanks Professor,