Authentication via POP3
10th June 2003
Authenticating users through a third party POP3 server (Python sample code provided) is a really interesting idea, but one that I don’t think could ever be used in the wild. Firstly, I haven’t the slightest idea what my POP3 password is as I tend to save it in my mail application and forget about it. Secondly (and more importantly) is trust: how many web sites do I trust enough to give them my email password whenever I log in?
That said, the author of the code snippet lists these and other weaknesses and seems to be suggesting that it would be best used in an intranet style environment, where it would allow web applications to authenticate using the company mail server thus avoiding administrators having to maintain multiple databases of user accounts.
More recent articles
- Weeknotes: datasette-enrichments, datasette-comments, sqlite-chronicle - 8th December 2023
- Datasette Enrichments: a new plugin framework for augmenting your data - 1st December 2023
- llamafile is the new best way to run a LLM on your own computer - 29th November 2023
- Prompt injection explained, November 2023 edition - 27th November 2023
- I'm on the Newsroom Robots podcast, with thoughts on the OpenAI board - 25th November 2023
- Weeknotes: DevDay, GitHub Universe, OpenAI chaos - 22nd November 2023
- Deciphering clues in a news article to understand how it was reported - 22nd November 2023
- Exploring GPTs: ChatGPT in a trench coat? - 15th November 2023
- Financial sustainability for open source projects at GitHub Universe - 10th November 2023
- ospeak: a CLI tool for speaking text in the terminal via OpenAI - 7th November 2023