[Dovecot] Sending email over IMAP?

[Marc Perkel]

Jan Kundrát wrote:
> Marc Perkel wrote:
>   
>> I can spoof Bill Gates email address and send it. But I can't do that
>> with this protocol.
>>     
>
> You haven't answered my question I asked in the first response in this
> thread. Your proposal specify that the first server on the way would
> know if you're allowed to send email for one particular account (that
> won't work anyway, think about the aliases etc, there's really no way to
> know "what e-mail addresses is this guy allowed to receive" for an IMAP
> server). What about other servers throught them the message will have to
> travel?
>
> Cheers,
> -jkt
>
>   

What I'm picturing, and I haven't figured out all the details, is that 
the IMAP server would also have an SMTP server associated with it and 
that the IMAP would hand outgoing email to the SMTP server. And that the 
SMTP server would have the alias information for that user account so it 
would be able to determine that the email address is real or a 
configured alias for that account. You do raise a good point.

I'm also am thinking about senders like Paypal and banks who are often 
spoofed. If the limited all their outbound email to sending over IMAP 
then they might be able to create a more secure sytem and because of 
their restrictiveness be able to somehow create a less spoofable more 
identifyable system.

I think the main advantage here isn't for people like us but for 
companies who are trying to avoid fraud. I think there will be other 
side benifits to it as well that will be discovered once it becomes 
popular. So - I'm thinking that the convience factor, the ease of setup 
being the initial reason to do it and that once it's in place that other 
things will be discovered.

I don't have all the answers, but my gut tells me this is a good idea.
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