Re: [gentoo-user] Seamonkey automatic email download after switch to Oauth2

[Dale]

Michael wrote:
> On Friday, 3 June 2022 02:45:11 BST Dale wrote:
>> Howdy,
>>
>> Early this morning Seamonkey could no longer fetch emails.  It wouldn't
>> accept the username and password.  I did some searching and it seems
>> that Google is disabling plain text username and password.  Honestly,
>> sounds like a good idea really.  During my searches, most recommended
>> OAuth2 so I switched to it.
> Err ... perhaps not?  The use of a browser to delegate sign on is not
> necessarily a good idea, because it introduces layers of complication and with
> it potential vulnerabilities.  Random explainer here:
>
> https://medium.com/securing/what-is-going-on-with-oauth-2-0-and-why-you-should-not-use-it-for-authentication-5f47597b2611
>
> I recall some IMAP4 devs complaining about it, but Google pushed on
> regardless.  From the end of May if you want to login to Gmail you have no
> option but to use OAuth2.  I expect this will break some users login if they
> have not disabled what Google calls "Less secure application access" and
> shared with Google their mobile phone number and what other *private*
> information Google wants to know, before it allows you to access your email
> messages.

I read a portion of your link.  It lost me pretty quick.  I seem to
recall that the old way, the username and password was sent in plain
text.  In other words, anyone could grab it between me and google,
including my ISP plus who knows who else.  I'd think that about anything
would be more secure than plain text.  There may be better options but I
have to work with what Google supports.  If it supports something
better, I'd switch to that.  I'm open to better options.  I just want to
be able to fetch my emails in a reasonably secure way.  BTW, the
password I use for email is not used anywhere else.  I use Bitwarden
now, used LastPass before that. 


>
>> After a while, I noticed it wasn't downloading new emails
>> automatically.  I have it set to check for new messages every 10 minutes
>> or so.  I had to hit the Get Msgs button each time.  I'd prefer it to do
>> it automatically.  I tried restarting Seamonkey and even changing the
>> settings for doing it automatically, in case a config file needed
>> updating after the switch, still doesn't do it automatically.  I'm
>> attaching a screenshot of the settings.
>>
>> Does using OAuth2 disable automatically fetching messages or am I
>> missing some other setting?  It worked fine until I switched to OAuth2
>> so I don't know what else it could be.  Is there something better than
>> OAuth2 that gmail supports?  I just picked the first option I found.
>>
>> Thoughts??
> The OAuth2 mechanism will refresh exchange of tokens between client and server
> when they expire, but this should be seamless and transparent to the user.  If
> there is a breakdown in the connection for some time and a token expires, then
> depending on the mail client it may pop up a window asking for your login
> credentials to be resubmitted.  It does this occasionally on Kmail, but I have
> not noticed it on T'bird, which I believe is similar/same to the mail client
> of Seamonkey.
>
> Checking for emails every so often on a timer, is separate to authentication/
> authorization.  Whether you check for email manually, or after a timer
> triggers it, OAuth2 will kick in on each occasion as the next step.  There may
> be some bug in Seamonkey.  You could try a later version or try T'bird.  If
> that works with the same settings, but Seamonkey doesn't, then by a process of
> elimination the issue would be with Seamonkey's implementation.
>
> HTH.


I wouldn't think the two would have any effect on each other either but
the only change I made was how it sends username and password.  Heck, at
first, I didn't even restart Seamonkey.  When I hit the Get Msg button,
it asked for the password and starting downloading several hours worth
of emails.  It hasn't asked for it again since I entered it the first
time so it should be able to trigger itself.  Your logic makes sense but
reality has thrown a wrench into the gearbox.  I thought about switching
back but the old way wasn't allowed anymore.  So, I can't revert and
test.  BTW, I'm using POP3 I think.  I actually store my emails locally.

I'm not sure where to go on this.  It may be a bug but even that would
be odd since sending username and password should be separate from
triggering a timer.  It just doesn't make sense. 

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)