Long live Webmail!
In my revitialized quest for email that doesn’t suck, I have come to the harsh realization that my webmail most definately sucks. I have two options.
- Better Webmail Programs
- Text-based email clients
For a long time, I would sit down and drop in a new version of webmail, probably horde’s imp. I still might. What I want is one place I can go to check all my email. The key here is encryption, not of all my email, but of the one password that lets me in. OpenID comes to mind immediately.
One account to rule them all…
The unfortunate later part of the line is “and in the darkness bind them.” My idea could be the single greatest idea I have had yet, or the single point of my downfall. The idea is simple. Open up SSH access into my MacPro. This is a little scary for me as a security idiot conscious user, but it might be worth it.
The other downside to my personal box, is that at any given time it sits behind 2-3 firewalls. Yuck. Thankfully SSH (my networking Swiss Army knife) has me covered in one palletable command.
ssh tunnel@erik.karulf.com -fNg -R 2222:spekkio.fort-awesome.net:22
The downside is it binds to port 2222 (without opening serious holes in your security, users can not bind to ports < 1024) This is not too big of an issue, as I just redirect port 443 -> 2222. This lets me access my site through almost any internet accessible computer, as even the most draconian of administrators does not close off port 443 (https) and the traffic looks almost identical to the encrypted traffic you will see from a regular https website. The last hurdle is a tough one, how to SSH from a public kiosk. Well I generally drag around PuTTY and Terminal.app on a USB stick. However, the classy gents at JavaSSH also have a client that will run through a web browser.
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