Emailing within Rev

[Bernard Devlin]

George, I assumed that what you were doing was connecting to some SMTP
server  within an organization's network, and that it was the security
up to the point of connection that you were worried about.

>From your description, it sounds like you are going to have a secure
connection up to the point you send stuff to Google. AFAIK, there's no
guarantees of security beyond that connection - either within Google's
network, or between the Gmail network and the ultimate email
servers/clients used by the parents.

It sounds to me that if security really is your number 1 concern, you
would be better to have a web app available over https, and send links
out to this web app via email.  Then secure SMTP is not your problem -
the browser would ensure that the connection was encrypted. The issue
then comes down to authentication.

The email you send out could contain some token in the URL sent in the
email such that each email would contain a unique token so that the
parents would only be able to view their own kid's report.

Bernard.

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 1:30 PM, George C Brackett
<gbrackett at luceatlux.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Bernard, for your good ideas.  My problem has been that I DON'T have
> an SMTP SSL server of my own, but maybe I can set one up. I'm working on
> this because my behavior-reporting software needs to be able to send email
> reports to kids and parents via my school's gmail account, which requires
> (a) a different port -- no problem and (b) an SSL connection.  But I'm
> setting up a mail server at the school and can now experiment as you
> suggest. As usual, though, the more I know the more there is to know!  I
> appreciate your help!
>
> George
>