Re: gmail+imap+smtp (oauth2)

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > > In case a school demands you have a Gmail account, it would be useful
>   > > if we had instructions to send to the staff, saying, "You may create
>   > > the account, choose a password, and tell it to me.  (Since it will
>   > > only be for email to and from the school, it makes no difference to me
>   > > that school staff will know the password.)  Please choose an account
>   > > name with no resemblance to my name.  Please set the account settings
>   > > as follows so that my software can access the account."
>   > >
>
>   > There is no way any institution would support such a workflow. Apart
>   > from the additional resource demands,
>
> It looks like we are miscommunicating.  I think you're thinking about
> a change in the university's general practices.  I'm talking about
> demanding that some staff person do this once -- for you -- as a
> special thing.
>
> Perse will be shocked and say, "But then I would know your password!"
> That gives you a chance to shock per again by saying, "That's ok -- I
> trust a university employee more than I trust Google."
>
> Then you can say that you refuse to run Google's proprietary software
> on your computer, and likewise Microsoft and Apple, because trusting them
> that far is against your principles.

and the staff member would say "Sorry, I'm not permitted to do that" or
"Sorry, I cannot do that". 

Things have changed a lot since the 70s. Staff in Universities are far
more restricted on what they are allowed to do and what they can do these
days. There have been numerous cases of staff 'selling' degrees,
entering fake transcriptions, altering results, etc. Due to the
reputational damage such things can cause, lots has been done to lock
down what they are able to do, increased monitoring of what they do and
detailed policy on what they are allowed to do. As a student (or more
accurately, a prospective student), your unlikely to even get close to
someone who could setup/create the account for you. 

This is also ignoring the huge workload imposed on staff these days. It
isn't like the old days where you would talk to the assistant in the
school/department who could do anything. These days, your probably
connected to some unfortunate call centre worker with a set script of
canned responses who will just refer you to some web page.