>All incoming e-mail should be coming to my mail server. This gives me an
>address at my own domain (in this case, keitai@cynic.net) and allows me
>to keep a copy in my regular mailbox and do some spam filtering. (The
>former is handy because I can reply from a real keyboard if I happen
>to be near one, and I also have a copy that hasn't had the attachments,
>if any, trimmed. The need for the latter is fairly obvious.)
This may work for you, but keep in mind that the majority of users do not
have their own mail-server and probably wouldn't even want to bother
setting everything up as you described.
For the majority of users it is probably more convenient and practicable to
get a pop mailbox from their mobile phone company. This is in fact
practised in the GSM world with SMS/Email gateway services.
As a user I would get a pop mailbox -say- 0447777123456@mobile-co.net for
which I am being encouraged to set one or more aliases, -say-
benjk@mobile-co.net and disable the number based address. I would then
configure another identity/personality on my email client to check
benjk@popmail.mobile-co.net and I would be able to send email from that
address via smtp.mobile-co.net (POP before SMTP for authetication).
On the mobile I would typically get a notification SMS (free of charge)
from Email-Gateway with the content "Email <id-no> arrived from <address>
with subject <subject> size: <size> <timestamp> and I can choose to read it
by sending an SMS (charged as one message) with the content "read <id-no>"
upon which I'd get the message delivered by SMS (multiple messages if
longer than 160 chars, again MT is free of charge).
Of course if you are at your desk you could instead download the message to
your email client.
In addition there are web based interfaces to read and send email and set
user preferences. This option could be used to set user defined anti-spam
filters for incoming email.
The same method can of course be applied to mobile email with a different
delivery mechanism than SMS.
Of course you can always use a yahoo email account which you can divert to
your mobile or access directly from the mobile (using WAP on KDDI au) then
send to untrusted parties accessing Yahoo! rather than sending off the
mobile's email client. Well, that's what I am doing with my KDDI au phone,
anyway. Has the benefit that I can keep the address even if I change mobile
companies and handsets/SIM cards, which I do regularly whenever I cross a
border.
regards
benjamin
>
>Once the incoming e-mail is relayed through my mail server, I can
>block all e-mail to the phone that doesn't come from there. Docomo's
>blocking is based on the envelope sender (the address in the SMTP "MAIL
>FROM:" command), so all I need to do is pick an appropriately unlikely
>envelope sender (jkd743orjetdeoemehyd7694mrl@cynic.net, or something
>similar) for the mail I relay, and block all e-mail that's not from that
>sender. Conveniently, what's displayed in the "From" field on the phone
>is the address in the "From:" line in the message itself (the "message
>sender"),so I leave that set at whatever it was before, and the e-mail
>looks identical when it reaches the phone.
>
>It is possible for spammers to attempt to work out the envelope sender
>I'm using and use that information to send spam directly to the phone
>anyway, but it's not likely to be worth the trouble to them to forge an
>envelope sender just for me even if they know what it is.
>
>The only problem now is outgoing mail, which still has my @docomo.ne.jp
>address in the From: line. I get around this, currently, by sending
>mail back to a cynic.net address with the real recipient in the Subject
>header. A program on my mail server processes the mail to give it a new
>from line, subject (ÅuÉJÅ[ÉgÇ©ÇÁÅv, in this case) and makes the old
>subject line the new To: line and envelope recipient, then forwarding it
>on to that address. The only hitch here is that the maximum length of a
>recipient e-mail address on my phone is 50 bytes, but the maximum length
>of a subject is only 30 bytes. I've already run into this limitation,
>so I'm going to have to change my system so that the first line of the
>message is the desired recipient, I suppose.
>
>From a user interface point of view, this process isn't as bad as you
>might think, at least on my P209i. When I want to reply to a message,
>I first copy the sender before I reply, then I paste the sender in the
>subject field and recall my special cynic.net address from my phone
>book to the recipient field. (I start its reading with a space, so just
>hitting the down button in the recall-by-name screen brings it up.)
>
>Much better, of course, would be if I could convince Docomo to put in
>my cynic.net address on all e-mail I send, but I don't anticipate this
>happening any time soon.
>
>Of course, at this point I'm not sure all this work is really necessary
>just to prevent spam, if you're not using an 090nnnnnnnn@docomo.ne.jp or
>otherwise excessively simple address. But I like getting my mobile e-mail
>copied to my regular mailbox, and the potential to switch phone vendors
>without changing my address. As well, if the spammers ever grab a brain,
>they'll have no problem discovering a lot of the non-number addresses as
>well. (You can sit there all day giving SMTP "RCPT TO:" commands to the
>Docomo SMTP servers, with it conveniently telling you for each one whether
>or not the address exists. It would be not even a day's work to write a
>perl script that would check all combinations of 1-4 Japanese syllables,
>and that would run through them all in a couple of weeks or so.)
>
>cjs
>--
>Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.net> +81 3 5778 0123 de gustibus, aut bene aut
>nihil
>
>Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the laws
>of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure yourself.
> --Dave Barry
>
>
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Received on Wed Jul 25 06:14:53 2001