GM Plugin - Rough Idea of Cost

hi,

would like a rough idea of cost to create this plugin for gossamer mail if it's possible.

if the GT staff could also give me an idea of what they'd charge too that'd be great.

see this post...

cheers,

r

I don't know about the cost to make this, since it would be a _major_ under taking. You'd need to have the spam filter/controls (as described under the hosting threads) as well as custom levels of control -- *BUT*

I *LOVE* the idea of limiting mail to ONLY authorized senders -- ESPECIALLY for kids!

I might try to do that for one of my GM installations, so I can set up my kids email accounts. They would have to get permission from me to add a friend, and no other mail -- spam, porno, etc -- could ever get through.

Of course, if the spam filter can do that, installing that would be the best option.


PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.

The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Leave a PM here, or better yet, in the
Ultranerds.com: http://ultranerds.com/forum

Rock & Bead Shop: http://BetterBeads.com
Need a good Identity? http://IdentityDots.com

hi pugdog,

agree - I think it's an excellent idea too! :)

i think giving people the option (in your case kids) to sign up for an account where they will only receive email from people on their white list would be really well received.

It would eliminate spam recieved at the users end "totally" as far as I can see, then 'server' spam control is up to the admin - quite separate of the webmail system. You wouldn't even need to add a holding box for 'will you accept mail from these people?' emails - just forget about them all together. great for personal accounts.

r

I don't think this should be that difficult to implement. But the way Gossamer Mail has been designed, it won't be possible to do as a plugin. There's a few things that would need to be done:
1) Add an option to turn on and off whitelisting.
2) incoming.pl (and pop3 checking code) would need to be modified to check the From address. The easiest way for doing this 'authentication' would be to setup the whitelist like Hotmail does - everyone on your address book is whitelisted.
3) When sending mail to someone, you probably want to check if they exist in your address book. If they don't, they should be alerted the recipient won't be able to reply unless they add the address.

But would should happen if someone sends an email to a whitelist enabled account where they're not whitelisted? Should it bounce, bounce with a whitelist error? I could see why you'd want it to do nothing (spam), but with legit email, it'd be nice to know about it. Thoughts?

I think this sounds like something we *might* add to 2.2. We did sort of agree to a feature freeze, but I'll see what we can do.

Adrian

do you mean on a per user basis? - that's probably the way to do it. I think the example url i gave had 'all' accounts being whitelist only, but some people might not want that i guess, so having it as an option would be good.


yip - sounds good! option 'on' turns all current addresses into the whitelist. off just sets everything back to normal.


hmmmm... thinking aloud... I wonder if when you send an email to someone, it automatically enters the recipients email address into the whitelist? That would solve the problem of someone not being able to reply.


yip, fair point. A bounce with "you need to be on the recipients white list" would be a good idea. I'm not 100% sure what happens when spam gets bounced, I assume it just drops that email address from the list?

regan.

Hi,

Your outline covers the spam-control features for an adult, but the *REAL* market for this sort of feature set is Kid Safety.

In that respect, the "whitelist" (and account set up options) have to be controlled by another ID.

I can understand the feature set problems with this, but if this "feature" was built in to a different version of GMail, it might be easier to implement. Using the address book idea is a good one. If an account is "owned" by an adult. If it's owned by a minor, the address book needs to be disabled, and only a hidden white-list be used. Or, possibly, if the owner is a minor, various features are "locked" by password, or to access by another ID.

Once an account is flagged as a "minor" account, it cannot be changed except by the system admin, or the adult owner (if there is one).

I hope I'm being clear here. The original idea was a "spam filter" system, to the extreme.

The idea I'm proposing -- or extending -- is slightly different.

I really do think the market is for the Kid Safe feature set. If this is built in, you can hit markets desperately seeking alternatives, and fill a real need that is perpetual -- new kids reach email age every year.

I'm barely understanding GForum at this point, so trying to decipher GMail is beyond me right now. But, this is a desperately needed feature that parents are seeking. Right now, AOL is one of the few alternatives, but it's severely limited, and it's not truly kid safe. It opens up as many doors as it closes.

I'm willing to help work on this project, and have registered some domains for such a project. My kids are at the age where this is something I *need*, and I can approach other groups in my area for test subjects.

Everyone wants an email address. Children want to talk with their friends, stay in touch with their clubs or organizations, etc. But, giving them an email address is one of the *worst* and most dangerous things you can do -- especially in the "tween" years. A kid-safe email address is something desperately needed.

Something to seriously think about in these troubled times.


PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.

The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Leave a PM here, or better yet, in the
Ultranerds.com: http://ultranerds.com/forum

Rock & Bead Shop: http://BetterBeads.com
Need a good Identity? http://IdentityDots.com

I can see your point with kids - the whitelist feature would be perfect.

It could probably be easily implemented just adding another option to the users setup - ie. "lock address book with password", which the adult could enter their own password to lock.

This of course assumes that the adult is present when the kid signs up - I guess a parent can stipulate that "this is your only email address" and control it from there.

As an account option we'd be able to offer a "kidsafe" account - and it would still be able to go through the same GMail setup without being a totally different install.

your thoughts?

regan.

Getting an email account is sort of a boot-strap event. You have to have one, to get one.

Most "free" email services require you to have an email address to verify with, or a credit card.

As long as a kid doesn't have access to someone else's email account, or a credit card, they can't really get an account, except on an "open" system. Open systems are risky for operators, so few are there. (Both from the kids point of view, and the spam point of view).


PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.

The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Leave a PM here, or better yet, in the
Ultranerds.com: http://ultranerds.com/forum

Rock & Bead Shop: http://BetterBeads.com
Need a good Identity? http://IdentityDots.com