[Dovecot] Idea: POP3 deletion as a flag

[Timo Sirainen]

On 4.5.2013, at 15.29, Professa Dementia <professa at dementianati.com> wrote:

>> Incidentally, the last time I read the pop3 RFC, admittedly some decade
>> or so ago (and yeah it's likely been updated since?) I can not recall
>> there ever being a  "MUST" or "SHOULD" when it comes to deleting
>> messages (it might have been deliberately omitted)  apart from the
>> server MUST NOT delete messages that are not marked for deletion.
> 
> FYI:  In addition to the significant privacy and legal concerns, adding and enabling this option makes the server non-compliant.  The section under "The UPDATE State" is clear about the behavior of the server:
> 
> "The POP3 server removes all messages marked as deleted from the maildrop"
> 
> Also note that I am only referring to the public version of the server.  Whatever Timo wants to do for a special version for his client is up to him.  It is he and his client who are legally responsible for their actions.  Similarly, if some third party wants to take the source and modify it for themselves to make it non-compliant, then that is their business.  They are legally responsible for their actions and have to answer for those actions if they end up violating any laws.  I do not feel that an option like this should be in the public version of the server, however, even if it is off by default.

Kelsey already mentioned that lazy_expunge plugin has similar issues, and nobody has mentioned privacy concerns related to that.. I guess there should be something about it in the wiki. Also mdbox format doesn't physically delete the data until doveadm purge is run (if ever). So this isn't the first such feature.