Subject: 24.0.92; smtpmail-{auth,starttls}-credentials changes

From: Jay Berkenbilt <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:26:18 -0500

>From the NEWS file for 24.0.92:

**** The variable `smtpmail-auth-credentials' has been removed.
**** The variable `smtpmail-starttls-credentials' has been removed.

The NEWS file goes on to explain that passwords are stored in
~/.authinfo.

I think this is a bad change as it forces me to store passwords in clear
text on a file on disk, which I am not willing to do.  I had written
emacs lisp code (years ago, actually) to pull my password from an agent
and pass it via smtpmail-auth-credentials or
smtpmail-starttls-credentials.  That way, the password neither had to
exist in the emacs lisp code nor on a file on disk.  While reading the
password from/storing the password in ~/.authinfo, assuming .authinfo
has appropriate permissions, is marginally better than putting it in the
lisp code itself and potentially allows emacs to not cache the password
in memory (I haven't looked at the code), it means that I now have to
trust people who have the ability to read my ~/.authinfo file.  Anyway,
I think any change that requires people to store clear-text passwords in
a file on disk is a bad change.  I'm not yet sure what I'm going to do
about this.  I'm sure I'll be able to find a way to work around it, but
I hope there will be better flexibility in 24.1.

In GNU Emacs 24.0.92.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.6)
 of 2011-12-01 on jberkenbilt-linux
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11004000
configured using `configure  '--prefix=/opt/emacs-24.0.92''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Outline

Minor modes in effect:
  which-function-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
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  auto-composition-mode: t
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Recent input:
C-v C-v C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n 
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C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-SPC C-n C-n 
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n M-+ M-= C-n 
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-l 
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-x C-l C-h v d e l e t 
e SPC a c <tab> <return> C-x b <return> C-x b C-g C-x 
1 C-x 2 C-x o C-x b N E <tab> <return> C-n C-n C-n 
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C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-h z C-g C-h c C-z 
C-o C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v C-v 
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C-x o C-v C-v C-v M-x r e p o r t SPC e m a c s SPC 
b <tab> <return> s <tab> C-g C-g M-x r e p o r t SPC 
e m a c s SPC b <tab> <tab> <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
Quit [2 times]
C-z C-o runs the command vc-next-action
Starting new Ispell process [default] ...
Sending...
Sending via mail...
Opening STARTTLS connection to `mail.tigertech.net:587'...done
Opening STARTTLS connection to `mail.tigertech.net:587'...done
Quit [4 times]
Making completion list...
Scanning for dabbrevs...100% [2 times]

Load-path shadows:
/home/ejb/elisp/startup hides /opt/emacs-24.0.92/share/emacs/24.0.92/lisp/startup

Features:
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