[Discuss] Temporarily disable check for messages in Thunderbird

[David Bronaugh]

Adam Parkin wrote:
> Does anyone know if there's a way to temporarily disable checking for 
> new mail in Thunderbird at startup?  When I come into my office at 
> school I usually start up Thunderbird which causes it to automatically 
> send my name & password for my Telus accounts out on the UVic network 
> in plain text (obviously a security problem, UVic is smart enough to 
> support SSL encryption for their POP accounts).  So it would be nice 
> to be able to start Thunderbird and not have it automatically check 
> for new messages on my insecure POP accounts (but only on a temporary 
> basis as I do like it to check for new mail when I get home).
Evil idea...

Why not set up a script to connect to UVic wifi? Running the script 
would do three things:
1) Set the ESSID to "UVicOpen" or whatever
2) Run dhclient on the wireless interface
3) (the trick) Add a route for Telus' SMTP server routing it to 127.0.0.1

Then you could do any number of evil things, including but not limited to:
a) Dropping the SMTP connection
b) Creating an SSH tunnel to home that forwards the request over a 
secure link, so you can check your mail securely
c) Likewise, send mail using Telus' server from UVic.

Anyhow, these are my evil ideas.

David