maemo.org - Talk - Can i have a secret email account?

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- - Can i have a secret email account? (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=67338)

TiagoTiago

2010-12-23 05:04

Can i have a secret email account?

I wanna have an email account, using the builtin program, that i can hide and unhide whenever i want, and i don't want it consuming battery and bandwidth/bytes while it is hidden; and this all while having another email account there working as usual; other than just adding and removing an account all the time does anyone got any suggestions?

kingoddball

2010-12-23 05:14

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Just tell your wife you're having an affair ;)

theonelaw

2010-12-23 06:15

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TiagoTiago (Post 902546)

OMG - you mean MODEST ?
yuk.

You could run the hidden one in CLAWS with notifications turned off,
with your regular stuff in the MODEST but otherwise not sure.
You should be able to hide CLAWS into background
- it does not use much battery/bandwidth - just edit the lanch script perhaps.

talonz

2010-12-23 06:22

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingoddball (Post 902548)

Just tell your wife you're having an affair ;)

lmao

he should maybe the wife will appreciate the honesty and reward him with a 3some

TiagoTiago

2010-12-23 06:36

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Nah, nothing like that, i would never willingly get involved in an exclusivelly monogamic relationship.

What happens is i let my friends and family play with my N900 somtimes and i would rather not have them accidently stumble on my "adult" conversations and things like that. I already use two differents email address keeping that in mind, but it's quite annoying to log in and out and use the webmail client in general, and i enjoy the simplicity and integration of the default email client in the N900.

talonz

2010-12-23 06:41

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

i would never let anyone touch my n900 thats just as bad as an affair lol

chucknorris

2010-12-23 06:58

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

yes..u can have a secret email account..just dont reveal ur email id to any1 else..it shall be a secret then.. :P

Mentalist Traceur

2010-12-23 07:28

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Quote:

Nah, nothing like that, i would never willingly get involved in an exclusivelly monogamic relationship.

(FYI, the word's monogamous, not monogamic; though I prefer monoamorous since monogamy implies the marriage model as well as the loving relationship model, rather than just the loving relationship model by itself. And it makes conversations on the topic messy.) I can respect that - so long as it's openly out there and all partners involved are always uncoerced and concenting. In fact, I almost thanked your post just on that comment alone - refrained from it because at the end of the day though, I don't know enough about you to be certain it's a thanks-worthy statement in context.

Quote:

What happens is i let my friends and family play with my N900 somtimes and i would rather not have them accidently stumble on my "adult" conversations and things like that. I already use two differents email address keeping that in mind, but it's quite annoying to log in and out and use the webmail client in general, and i enjoy the simplicity and integration of the default email client in the N900.

I think the reason this isn't gaining much traction is because there's already multiple email clients, other than Modest (the built-in one), and most developers who can improve it probably don't use it, or use it because they're satisfied with what features it has.

Me personally, I just don't like always being logged in, so I never ran into the problem. But I can more than understand the desire for more convenient secrecy. Perhaps try some of the other non-standard email clients. If any of them has an easy-to-use feature like that, great, if not, it's probably easier to submit a feature request to the one you like the most than to try to get people to develop one for Modest. But frak if I know. *Shrug*

Any 'ways' of doing what you're suggesting that I can think of (with my limited coding knowledge) would require at the very least changing some elements of Modest itself. Nothing you can do with just a script or settings tweeks. (Though you can probably have a script to log you in/out... It's still the same need to log in/out, but if you automated it'd be less of a pain in the ***.)

kingoddball

2010-12-23 07:36

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Why not add an account in Easy Debian/Easy Fedora/Ubuntu?

Hide an email add in there?
All data will be safe (web based).

Joseph.skb

2010-12-23 07:42

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Sure, you could use Ovi mail. Just create the email account 'secret-something'@ovi.com :p I'm sure no ones using Ovi mail.

kingoddball

2010-12-23 07:48

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Just log into gmail's webpage. No trace on your n900 :) Problem solved.. :D

Mentalist Traceur

2010-12-23 08:01

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

You guys keep suggesting solutions he's pointed out as not part of his desired use case.

It's not the issue of having a secret email account literally - you can easily just make blah112358fibonachisequencecan'tguessthisaddressca nyou*****blah@yahoo.com or something, and share it with only specific contacts. THAT isn't what he's talking about.

You can also log in from the webmail client, but that, is, again, not what he's talking about - he said he doesn't like being logged in through the web client. (Personally, that's exactly what I see as a strength of the N900. I don't need built in email clients, I can just go to the familiar and versatile full web pages, but whatever.)

And, furthermore, putting it in EasyDebian (or another chroot operating system) is only an advantage if Debian/whatever has the feature he's looking for, and it won't kill his battery to have a 'hidden' email client checking in the background, from within EasyDebian.

The point is, he's not looking to hide the email address itself from sight, or from other people knowing that he's got blahblah@blah.com. He's looking for a way to have an email client 'hide' the emails of blahblah@blah.com from view in the UI, without logging him out of blahblah@blah.com. Meanwhile, accounts like blehbloo@blah.com or blahblah@bleh.net stay visible in the same client.

All accounts stay logged in, and all get their new emails like they normally would, but with the option to hide specific accounts and its respective emails from the email client's UI, and suppress any new email notifications for that client, if there are any.

Which is why right now I'm thinking you either change one of the existing email clients to support that feature, or you change one to run silently in the background, and keep your hidden/'secret' accounts signed into that one, while keeping your normal accounts in Modest.

Or, well, you suck it up and keep logging in/out of the accounts you don't want the emails showing up for, if possible with a script to make it faster.

mattbutsko

2010-12-23 08:05

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Quote:

(FYI, the word's monogamous, not monogamic

Yeah, that matters.

Mentalist Traceur

2010-12-23 08:08

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattbutsko (Post 902625)

Yeah, that matters.

No less so than you feeling the need to create an entire post just to criticize it mattering, I would argue. If I had made an entire post dedicated to just that, you'd have a case. But since I was already making a sufficiently productive and on-topic, in my opinion, post, I see no reason why having that extra correction in there is at all an issue.

TiagoTiago

2010-12-23 23:30

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

How about a shell script that will rename or move/swap some files or folders? Does Modest work like that or would that just screw things up?

Joseph.skb

2010-12-23 23:43

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Suggestion: (but not the most enviromentally approved suggestion). Print out the email, hide it with your secret collection of ??? and delete off the email! No trace, even hackers can't get that if you lost the N900!

TiagoTiago

2010-12-23 23:54

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

I don't need an alternate boot in a hidden rubberhose-proof encrypted partition, simply needing to run a terminal comand to toggle the presence of the account in Modest would be enough.

cmantito

2010-12-26 11:49

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Simple, using gconftool-2.

First, find the relevant email account (bold is what you type):

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_X86: ~] > gconftool-2 --all-dirs /apps/modest/accounts

 /apps/modest/accounts/gmailID

If you have more than one account, there will be several paths on the list up there. For example, my account you can see above is called 'gmail'.
Then, you can use gconftool-2 to view the details of each of the accounts listed to find the path for the relevant one:

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_X86: ~] > gconftool-2 -a /apps/modest/accounts/gmailID

 signature = 

 limit-retrieve = 20

 notification_ids = [1]

 store_account = gmailID_store

 has_new_mails = false

 retrieve = messages-and-attachments

 email = xxx@googlemail.com

 use_specific_smtp = false

 enabled = true

 leave_on_server = true

 display_name = gmail

 fullname = xxx

 use_signature = false

 transport_account = gmailID_transport

Then you can change enabled to false, restart modest and it won't be there til you change it back to true:

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_X86: ~] > gconftool-2 -s /apps/modest/accounts/gmailID/enabled --type bool false

Change the 'false' to 'true' to re-enable it, you can probably make a shell script to turn it on and off if you like, the path generally shouldn't change, so once you find the account, it's just a case of remembering that last command...

Hope that helps!

TiagoTiago

2010-12-28 02:16

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

That seems to be perfect, thx! :D

mattbutsko

2010-12-28 02:40

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mentalist Traceur (Post 902629)

Yeah, I don't really dedicate too much to this forum, nor do I take it's members too seriously. I kinda blew off your post. My bad. No ****, the post that I quoted, I didn't actually finish reading it. Just don't really care enough.

Edit: Alright I just went back and plowed through it. Good point, but it didn't take a lot of effort to hit Quote and type like 17 characters, so I didn't go that far outta my way.

Quote:

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_X86: ~] > gconftool-2 -s /apps/modest/accounts/gmailID/enabled --type bool false

This little bit is simple but genius. Great work.

TiagoTiago

2010-12-28 07:02

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Here is the script i came up with after reading cmantito's post and this shell scripting tutorial filled with typos and other writing mistakes :

Code:

# The nice msgs i'm writing without testing,

# the original code has a bunch of random phrases here and there



# run the script without parameters to see a list of the accounts 

# present, name an account (without the ID part) and it should 

# toggle the status of that account



# I make no promises this is safe and i hold no resposibility for any 

# damage it might cause



if [ $# == 0 ]

then

echo "Which one?"

gconftool-2 --all-dirs /apps/modest/accounts

echo "Use the stuff between 'accounts/' and 'ID' "

else



status=`gconftool-2 -g /apps/modest/accounts/$1ID/enabled `



if [ $status == "false" ]

then

echo "Enabling $1 now"

echo `gconftool-2 -s /apps/modest/accounts/$1ID/enabled --type bool true`

elif [ $status == "true" ]

then

echo "Disabling $1 now"

echo `gconftool-2 -s /apps/modest/accounts/$1ID/enabled --type bool false`

else

echo "Oops!"

fi

echo "Done, i think"

fi

cmantito

2010-12-29 01:24

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

I've written another version of TiagoTiago's script in Perl, with both a simple menu for selection and the ability to pass an account with a parameter.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl



$arg = shift(@ARGV);

if(!$arg){

        $data = `gconftool-2 --all-dirs /apps/modest/accounts`;

        @accounts = split(/\n/, $data);

        

        print "\nPlease choose an account from the following list:\n";

        print "(alternatively, pass an account name from below as a parameter to toggle it)\n\n";

        for($i = 0; $i < ($#accounts + 1); $i++){

                $thisAccount = $accounts[$i];

                ($name) = $thisAccount =~ /accounts\/(.+?)ID/;

                

                $status = `gconftool-2 -g $thisAccount/enabled`;

                if($status =~ /true/i){ $currentState = "enabled"; }

                elsif($status =~ /false/i){ $currentState = "disabled"; }

                else{ $currentState = "state unknown"; }

                

                print "\t[".$i."] ".$name.": ".$currentState."\n";

        }

        print "\nSelection [0-".($i - 1)." or [q]uit]: ";

        $id = <STDIN>;

        if($id =~ /^q/i){

                exit(0);

        }

        print "\n";

        if($id !~ /^\d+$/ || !$accounts[$id]){

                print "Invalid selection.\n";

                exit(1);

        }

        

        $path = $accounts[$id];

        chomp($path);

}else{

        $path = "/apps/modest/accounts/".$arg."ID";

}



$status = `gconftool-2 -g $path/enabled`;

if($status =~ /true/i){

        system("gconftool-2 -s ".$path."/enabled --type bool false");

        if($? > 0){

                print "The account could not be disabled.\n";

                exit($?);

        }

        print "The account has been disabled.\n";

        exit(0);

}elsif($status =~ /false/i){

        system("gconftool-2 -s ".$path."/enabled --type bool true");

        if($? > 0){

                print "The account could not be enabled.\n";

                exit($?);

        }

        print "The account has been enabled.\n";

        exit(0);

}else{

        print "The specified account could not be found.\n";

        exit(1);

}

Example:

Code:

~ $ perl modest-account.pl 



Please choose an account from the following list: 

(alternatively, pass an account name from below as a parameter to toggle it) 



        [0] Home: enabled 

        [1] Mail@32@for@32@Exchange: enabled 

        [2] Work: enabled 



Selection [0-2 or [q]uit]: 1



The account has been disabled.





~ $ perl modest-account.pl Home

The account has been disabled. 

~ $ perl modest-account.pl Home

The account has been enabled. 

~ $

If I can ever be bothered to learn Python/Qt, I might make this into a pretty little app, but Python is not my strong point. :P

cmantito

2010-12-30 02:16

Re: Can i have a secret email account?

Progress update!

The best way (for me) to learn a new language: inability sleep, and dive in head first. I converted my Perl script to Python. Next, if I still can't sleep, I'll try my hand at GUIing.

It's identical to the Perl script, except I didn't bother with regexes, and it's in Python:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys

import commands

import string



try:

        arg = sys.argv[1]

        path = "/apps/modest/accounts/" + arg + "ID"

except:

        print "\nPlease choose an account from the following list:"

        print "(alternatively, pass an account name from below as a parameter to toggle it)\n"



        data = commands.getoutput("gconftool-2 --all-dirs /apps/modest/accounts")

        accounts = string.split(data, '\n')

        

        i = 0

        for acct in accounts:

                # path:   /apps/modest/accounts/xxxID

                pathParts = string.split(acct, '/')

                theId = pathParts[4]

                # theId = xxxID

                nameParts = string.split(theId, 'ID')

                # ['xxx', '']

                name = nameParts[0]

                

                status = commands.getoutput("gconftool-2 -g " + acct + "/enabled")

                if status == "true":

                        statusText = "enabled"

                elif status == "false":

                        statusText = "disabled"

                else:

                        statusText = "state unknown"

                

                print "[" + str(i) + "] " + name + ": " + statusText 

                i = i + 1

        

        try:

                id = int(raw_input("\n\tSelection [0-" + str(i) + "]: "))

                if id > i:

                        print "Invalid selection."

                        sys.exit(1)

                if id < 0:

                        print "Invalid selection."

                        sys.exit(1)

        except:

                sys.exit(0)



        path = accounts[id]

        path = string.rstrip(path)

        

status = commands.getoutput("gconftool-2 -g " + path + "/enabled")

if status == "true":

        exitState = commands.getstatusoutput("gconftool-2 -s " + path + "/enabled --type bool false")

        if exitState[0] > 0:

                print "The account could not be disabled."

                sys.exit(exitState)

        

        print "The account has been disabled."

        sys.exit(0)

elif status == "false":

        exitState = commands.getstatusoutput("gconftool-2 -s " + path + "/enabled --type bool true")

        if exitState[0] > 0:

                print "The account could not be enabled."

                sys.exit(exitState)

        

        print "The account has been enabled."

        sys.exit(0)



else:

        print "The specified account could not be found."

        sys.exit(1)

(It may be a lack of sleep talking, but I think I like Perl better.)

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