9855 Resource 214 21 21 1058295053348 1206206032567 Controlled Mail2Channel Gateway: Secure Weblog Authoring via E-mail

A new e-mail gateway for channel item contribution is now available to all MySmartChannels users.

<p>Wouldn't it be convenient to be able to post to a channel by simply sending an e-mail?&nbsp; It's easy to imagine reasons to want this capability; for example, you could:</p><ul><li>compose wegblog items right in your favorite mail client; </li><li>post items from a cell phone; </li><li>update an FAQ (frequently asked questions) by CC-ing or BCC-ing a channel when answering a question via e-mail; </li><li>make a group of people aware of an e-mail message by CC-ing or BCC-ing a channel to which they are subscribed; or </li><li>collect applications-generated e-mail notifications in a channel. </li></ul><p>An e-mail gateway opens up a world of useful possibilities.&nbsp; Unfortunately, it also opens up a world of security concerns.&nbsp; Clearly, you would not want a competitor, a hacker, a disgruntled employee, or a spammer to be mailing content into your channels.&nbsp; (Just imagine what might show up in your weblog if a spammer found the mailbox--scary!)&nbsp; Passwords are not the answer either.&nbsp; E-mail (specifically, the underlying SMTP protocol) is simply not secure; it passes all e-mail content as plain text.</p><p>After scratching our heads on the security issues for a while, we designed a new service, called the Mail2Channel Gateway--just released in beta--that offers a secure e-mail gateway to MySmartChannels.&nbsp; Mail2Channel does not require login names, passwords, or any other special mail formatting, nor does it even require that you set up an actual mailbox.</p><p>Mail2Channel creates <i>virtual mailboxes</i>.&nbsp; When an authorized user wants to send mail to a channel, he or she obtains a virtual mailbox for that channel.&nbsp; Virtual mailbox names are intentionally cryptic (they are based on an encryption scheme that is, for all practical purposes, not guessable) and are valid only for a specific user and channel combination.</p><p>When a message is received at that virtual mailbox, Mail2Channel bases the sender's identity on the message's From or Reply-To address (both of which are easy to spoof, of course, just stay with me).&nbsp; If the sender appears to be the authorized user for the virtual mailbox, Mail2Channel creates a new channel item using one of two methods:</p><ul><li>Method 1--A channel item is created, but in an embargoed state.&nbsp; A confirmation e-mail is sent to the authorized user informing him or her that the channel item was created and providing links for previewing, editing, and un-embargoing the item.&nbsp; Acting on any of these links requires true authentication (i.e., logging in with username and password). </li><li>Method 2--A channel item is created and immediately posted.&nbsp; A confirmation e-mail similar to that of Method 1 is also sent.&nbsp; Method 2 is less secure but may be appropriate for certain inside-the-firewall use cases. </li></ul><p>Mail2Channel is currently available to all registered MySmartChannels users (click the channel resources icon <img height="16" src="mysmartchannels/images/_btn-subscribe-0.gif" width="16" border="0" /> for any channel).&nbsp; We encourage you to take it for a test drive and welcome any thoughts or comments you might have. </p> 10 application/xml false e-mail publishing gateway Mail2Channel Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 aseidl 68.40.167.222 false true false false true 190014 false false true false false false true 214 blog blogsite/MySTHome/web