Thoughts on search-based imap mailboxes

[Konstantin Ryabitsev <konstantin@linuxfoundation.org>]

Hello:

While discussing something else on the kernel.org users list, the 
question of "virtual inbox folders" came up when talking about imap and 
public-inbox. Here's how I imagine it could work in a way that doesn't 
require any kind of real user management.

- any site visitor can create a saved search against any index, which 
  would be generated with a random name (e.g. guid4) and stored on the 
  server via a simple guid->(index, search terms) mapping
- if imap is enabled, any user can also create an imap "account" that 
  would also be a guid random string, perhaps with a random password as 
  well (or no password, since guid4 strings should suffice)
- users can freely associate saved searches with these accounts, perhaps 
  optionally allowing them to save them with aliases, such that the 
  record is:
  user_guid->(saved_search_guid, alias)
- when logging into imap with an actual random account name, the 
  associated inboxes would be displayed instead of the general listing
- accounts and saved searches that were not accessed within $DAYS would 
  be automatically purged

What are your thoughts about this scheme? I like it because it respects 
users' privacy, since we cannot map accounts to developers, and because 
it doesn't require any kind of central identity gatekeeping. Anyone 
setting up a public-inbox mirror can immediately start using this scheme 
without needing to set up any kind of identity management backends.

-K