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35a32c5
(Get the code!)
From the bup bug:
Some users have their own (sub)domain name and generate email addresses on the
fly to track, what is being done with the addresses they give out to various
entities (like Amazon, Usenet etc.), esp. via webforms. When they communicate
with that entiry per email, they want to use that address as From in the email.
Other users have so many so rarely used addresses that they don't want to create
an account for each of them (I currently have about 20 accounts and still not
all my addresses covered).
It would be useful to specify a certain From address to be used not by the
read-only dropdown, but by a textfield which can be edited right in the
composer. The addressing pane normally used for recipients offers itself, for
code reuse reasons (e.g. can autocomplete to (my own) addresses in my address book).
I propose the following UI:
In the From dropdown, add a new special item "Custom" (or other wording). That
enables a "From" item in the header type dropdown in the addressing pane (under
"To", "cc", "bcc" etc.), which is otherwise invisible (not to confuse normal
users). It also creates a new row in that addressing pane, preselected to "From"
and maybe (!) the focus sat to it.
Security considerations:
I am aware that this makes forging emails much easier, esp. with autocomplete to
(all) existing addresbook entries.
It is not a new threat, however, because forging email addresses is already
trivial - you can create an account with an arbitary email address in Mozilla,
and pretty much all mails allow you to do similar.
Maybe this feature makes this existing threat even more widely known, which is a
good thing. Not many people are aware that emails can be forged that easily and
may trust the From line in incoming emails. I have even seen ISPs (jfax for
example) who use the From address for accounting (i.e. any fax sent as email to
a certain mail server with a customer email address as From is sent as fax and
billed to that customer). Such a feature may place an end to that insecurity.