Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Uwe Brauer]

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>>> "ASJ" == Allan Sandfeld Jensen <kde@carewolf.com> writes:

> On Montag, 10. August 2020 09:12:12 CEST Martin Steigerwald wrote:
>> Dear Uwe.
>> 
>> Uwe Brauer - 10.08.20, 09:02:15 CEST:
>> > Hello
>> > 
>> > I am writing on behalf of the GNU emacs developers, Richard Stallman
>> > in particular, asking for advice.
>> > 
>> > The issue concerns an announcement by the gmail developers to drop the
>> > option to connect to their IMAP service via name and password, known
>> > as less-secure-apps. The main email reader of GNU Emacs, called gnus
>> > relies on this method. Someone on the GNU emacs developer list
>> > suggested that kmail solved the problem and is able to connect to the
>> > GMAIL imap server using their OAuth2 method.
>> > 
>> > So the question is addressed to the kmail developers, but I could not
>> > find an active mailing list just for kmail, so if this list is not the
>> > right place to ask the question, I would appreciate a link to the
>> > relevant one.
>> 
> I would recommend  anyone concerned with privacy rights to not use Gmail. 
> OAuth2 is just a way for Google to force people to use Google Chrome for 
> logging into google services. Google currently block all privacy secured forks 
> of Chromium from using their login services (supposedly because some spammers 
> used CEF to log onto GMail). You can make it work at the moment by pretending 
> to be Firefox (or by using Firefox), but I am guessing it is just a matter of 
> time before Google also block Firefox for "security" reasons.

Ah, well, in a perfect world fine, but for example, my university
switched to Gmail some years ago and will stay. 

Since I don't want to use any other email reader than gnus, and a lot of
people feel this way, any advice on a _technical solution_ is very much
appreciated.

Regards

Uwe Brauer

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Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Allan Sandfeld Jensen]

On Montag, 10. August 2020 18:20:07 CEST Uwe Brauer wrote:
> >>> "ASJ" == Allan Sandfeld Jensen <kde@carewolf.com> writes:
> > On Montag, 10. August 2020 09:12:12 CEST Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> >> Dear Uwe.
> >> 
> >> Uwe Brauer - 10.08.20, 09:02:15 CEST:
> >> > Hello
> >> > 
> >> > I am writing on behalf of the GNU emacs developers, Richard Stallman
> >> > in particular, asking for advice.
> >> > 
> >> > The issue concerns an announcement by the gmail developers to drop the
> >> > option to connect to their IMAP service via name and password, known
> >> > as less-secure-apps. The main email reader of GNU Emacs, called gnus
> >> > relies on this method. Someone on the GNU emacs developer list
> >> > suggested that kmail solved the problem and is able to connect to the
> >> > GMAIL imap server using their OAuth2 method.
> >> > 
> >> > So the question is addressed to the kmail developers, but I could not
> >> > find an active mailing list just for kmail, so if this list is not the
> >> > right place to ask the question, I would appreciate a link to the
> >> > relevant one.
> > 
> > I would recommend  anyone concerned with privacy rights to not use Gmail.
> > OAuth2 is just a way for Google to force people to use Google Chrome for
> > logging into google services. Google currently block all privacy secured
> > forks of Chromium from using their login services (supposedly because
> > some spammers used CEF to log onto GMail). You can make it work at the
> > moment by pretending to be Firefox (or by using Firefox), but I am
> > guessing it is just a matter of time before Google also block Firefox for
> > "security" reasons.
> 
> Ah, well, in a perfect world fine, but for example, my university
> switched to Gmail some years ago and will stay.
> 
> Since I don't want to use any other email reader than gnus, and a lot of
> people feel this way, any advice on a _technical solution_ is very much
> appreciated.
> 
Sure. Only mentioned it because you brought up RMS, I know he is pretty 
passionate about stuff like that.

Btw, you can see an overview in https://developers.google.com/identity/
protocols/oauth2 which also links bindings for a number of programing 
languages (though not for EMACS LISP). As far as I know KMail uses the 
libkgapi library, which is a KDE implementation of the whole google client 
api.  I don't think you don't need that much to just do the authentication 
though, but I am a browser guy, don't know how things looks from the app side.

'Allan

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Stefan Monnier]

> Ah, well, in a perfect world fine, but for example, my university
> switched to Gmail some years ago and will stay.
>
> Since I don't want to use any other email reader than gnus, and a lot of
> people feel this way, any advice on a _technical solution_ is very much
> appreciated.

FWIW, this has been discussed at my workplace as well, tho luckily it
hasn't happened (yet?).  At that time, I had considered what I'd do, and
I concluded that I'd most likely setup a forwarding on my (gmail) work
email and buy a more respectable email service like `posteo.de`.


        Stefan "luckily still using an email service maintained by
                a colleague a few doors down (well, such was the case
                back when we were still allowed to use our offices)"

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Uwe Brauer]

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>>> "SM" == Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

   >> Ah, well, in a perfect world fine, but for example, my university
   >> switched to Gmail some years ago and will stay.
   >> 
   >> Since I don't want to use any other email reader than gnus, and a lot of
   >> people feel this way, any advice on a _technical solution_ is very much
   >> appreciated.

   > FWIW, this has been discussed at my workplace as well, tho luckily it
   > hasn't happened (yet?).  At that time, I had considered what I'd do, and
   > I concluded that I'd most likely setup a forwarding on my (gmail) work
   > email and buy a more respectable email service like `posteo.de`.

Oh no, I might try out dovecot, but even if it works, it will occupy
a huge amount of my disk.

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Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Stefan Monnier]

>    > FWIW, this has been discussed at my workplace as well, tho luckily it
>    > hasn't happened (yet?).  At that time, I had considered what I'd do, and
>    > I concluded that I'd most likely setup a forwarding on my (gmail) work
>    > email and buy a more respectable email service like `posteo.de`.
>
> Oh no, I might try out dovecot, but even if it works, it will occupy
> a huge amount of my disk.

Not sure what you're saying, but I'm only suggesting to use some other
provider instead of Google.  No need to install&manage anything
like dovecot.


        Stefan

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Uwe Brauer]

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>>> "SM" == Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

   >> > FWIW, this has been discussed at my workplace as well, tho luckily it
   >> > hasn't happened (yet?).  At that time, I had considered what I'd do, and
   >> > I concluded that I'd most likely setup a forwarding on my (gmail) work
   >> > email and buy a more respectable email service like `posteo.de`.
   >> 
   >> Oh no, I might try out dovecot, but even if it works, it will occupy
   >> a huge amount of my disk.

   > Not sure what you're saying, but I'm only suggesting to use some other
   > provider instead of Google.  No need to install&manage anything
   > like dovecot.

The problem with another provider is:

    1. My Gmail account actually occupies some 22 GB, I presume to have
       that amount of space in any other provider will need some
       payment. While I might consider this for my private account, I
       don't feel like I should pay for my work account.

    2. The other provider must allow me to send email using the from of
       my work address, as google does.

    3. That is why I thought to stay with gmail but to go back to use
       dovecot (if their figured out how to connect to an gmail, with
       the new identification process). I did this in the past and the
       downside of this approach is that I will end up with an
       additional 22GB on my laptop and more in the future.

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Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Thu, 13 Aug 2020 08:57:38 +0200, Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> said:
    Uwe> The problem with another provider is:

    Uwe>     1. My Gmail account actually occupies some 22 GB, I presume to have
    Uwe>        that amount of space in any other provider will need some
    Uwe>        payment. While I might consider this for my private account, I
    Uwe>        don't feel like I should pay for my work account.

    Uwe>     2. The other provider must allow me to send email using the from of
    Uwe>        my work address, as google does.

    Uwe>     3. That is why I thought to stay with gmail but to go back to use
    Uwe>        dovecot (if their figured out how to connect to an gmail, with
    Uwe>        the new identification process). I did this in the past and the
    Uwe>        downside of this approach is that I will end up with an
    Uwe>        additional 22GB on my laptop and more in the future.

Surely in step [3] you have to go through the same tedious process to
get OAuth2 set up for gmail? My thinking was:

1. Get a new email provider
2. Tell google to forward 100% of your email to the new provider
3. Switch various accounts to provider

Even better of course is if in step [1] you get your own domain, and
get someone to host mail service for it.

Robert

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Uwe Brauer]

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>>> "AdG" == Adriaan de Groot <groot@kde.org> writes:

Hi Adriaan,


> Hi Uwe,
> On Monday, 10 August 2020 18:02:34 CEST Allan Sandfeld Jensen wrote:
>> On Montag, 10. August 2020 09:12:12 CEST Martin Steigerwald wrote:
>> > Uwe Brauer - 10.08.20, 09:02:15 CEST:
>> > > The issue concerns an announcement by the gmail developers to drop the
>> > > option to connect to their IMAP service via name and password, known
>> > > as less-secure-apps. The main email reader of GNU Emacs, called gnus
>> > > relies on this method. Someone on the GNU emacs developer list
>> > > suggested that kmail solved the problem and is able to connect to the
>> > > GMAIL imap server using their OAuth2 method.
>> 
>> I would recommend  anyone concerned with privacy rights to not use Gmail.
>> OAuth2 is just a way for Google to force people to use Google Chrome for
>> logging into google services.

Thanks for your answer.


> There's an intransparent and arbitrary vetting process in place, where Google 
> approves an application's access to Google services. 

> I blogged about the issue, on behalf of Dan Vratil who was doing the actual 
> work of dealing with Google, 

> https://euroquis.nl/kde/2020/05/12/google.html
> https://euroquis.nl/kde/2020/01/13/google.html

> I'm sure Dan could describe the process in more detail, but it (slightly 
> cynically) comes down to this:

> - you will need a Google account *for the application developer*,
> - this application needs some API keys,
> - this application needs a privacy policy,
> - the application + policy must be submitted to the arbitrary process,
> - wait anywhere from 3 days to 6 months,
> - possibly the application will be allowed to connect to Google services.

This is really bad, deadline is in February. 

So there is quite a bit of  work to do and then it all depends on the mercy of the
«Dark Lord».

I am not sure what RMS is going to say about this.

Then there is a python based solution published on 
https://luxing.im/mutt-integration-with-gmail-using-oauth/

Not sure how relevant that could be.

Regards

Uwe 


> There is code in KDE-PIM somewhere that does the actual API-key-wrangling, 
> that's not really the issue.

> [ade]


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Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > This is really bad, deadline is in February. 

It is annoying, and bad on Google's part, but whether it will
turn out badly for GNUS remains to be seen.

  > I am not sure what RMS is going to say about this.

I've already said it.  The Kmail developer explained how they made
Kmail work with Gmail using OAuth2.  I am waiting to see what
Larse Ingebrigtsen says about whether GNUS can use that method.

In the mean time, please don't panic.  Please don't post predictions
of disaster.  We don't know yet whether we can solve this problem.

As for discussion of how to move your email account somewhere else,
this is the wrong place to ask for or post advice about that.
Those discussions are useful but they are off-topic here.

Would people please take those discussions elsewhere, so we can
concentrate on developing Emacs?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[황병희]

> so we can concentrate on developing Emacs?

Of course!!! Lars is honorable man and light side Jedi for Gnus!!!

Sincerely, Gnus fan Byung-Hee

-- 
^고맙습니다 _白衣從軍_ 감사합니다_^))//

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> I've already said it.  The Kmail developer explained how they made
> Kmail work with Gmail using OAuth2.  I am waiting to see what
> Larse Ingebrigtsen says about whether GNUS can use that method.

Like I've said I don't know how many times now, I'm not working on this
problem at all.  You'll have to find somebody that can register these
developer accounts (legally) on behalf of the FSF, and have them go
through the review etc.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > Like I've said I don't know how many times now, I'm not working on this
  > problem at all.  You'll have to find somebody that can register these
  > developer accounts (legally) on behalf of the FSF, and have them go
  > through the review etc.

I think we are miscommunicating.  Perhaps in two ways.

You said you didn't want to do the work to follow what Google
said to do.  I understand.  But now we are talking about following
the Kmail method.  I don't know what either one actually is, though.
How similar are those two?

Someone else can do the work.  What only you can do is judge
whether the Kmail method would do the job.  If you say yes,
someone who wants to use GNUS with Gmail can do the work.

Would the Kmail method solve the problem for GNUS, if someone does the work?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Martin Steigerwald]

Hi Richard.

Richard Stallman - 15.08.20, 06:40:46 CEST:
[…]
>   > Like I've said I don't know how many times now, I'm not working on
>   > this problem at all.  You'll have to find somebody that can
>   > register these developer accounts (legally) on behalf of the FSF,
>   > and have them go through the review etc.
> 
> I think we are miscommunicating.  Perhaps in two ways.

You are missing context. See below.

> You said you didn't want to do the work to follow what Google
> said to do.  I understand.  But now we are talking about following
> the Kmail method.  I don't know what either one actually is, though.
> How similar are those two?

Richard, Adriaan de Groot described the process what Daniel did for 
KMail. You have not (yet) been on cc. Daniel basically did what Google 
asked him to do:

https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-pim/2020-August/046550.html

Blog posts of Adrian referenced in there:

Akonadi / KMail and Google accounts

https://euroquis.nl/kde/2020/01/13/google.html

Akonadi / KMail and Google accounts resolved!

https://euroquis.nl/kde/2020/05/12/google.html

Also review this blog post by Dan himself:

Kontact and Google Integration Issues

https://www.dvratil.cz/2019/08/kontact-google-integration-issue/

As I have no interest whatsoever to use Google products like GMail, I 
have no intention to answer any further questions. I just thought I 
clear up the misunderstanding.

Best,
-- 
Martin

Re: Kmail: Gmail (less secure apps) advice for GNU emacs developers.

[Martin Steigerwald]

Martin Steigerwald - 15.08.20, 11:14:29 CEST:
> Richard, Adriaan de Groot described the process what Daniel did for
> KMail. You have not (yet) been on cc. Daniel basically did what Google
> asked him to do:
> 
> https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-pim/2020-August/046550.html

Well to be fair: Daniel and KDE e.V. board member, I bet Adrian, did it 
together.

Might be a good idea to drop kde-pim mailing list from Cc once you got 
the necessary information. gnus development discussion would be off topic 
there.

-- 
Martin