OmniMix • Tutorial • Remailing • Scanning Different Mailboxes

OmniMix offers you to define one incoming mail (POP3) account within the program. If you need to collect mails from several mailboxes, the parameters for the single POP3 hosts have to be transmitted with the authentication data. At the side of your mail client you integrate them into the OmniMix username by using the 'extended' syntax. Here's a list of the supported parameters:

ht	(Host)	IP address or URL of the external server

pt	(Port)	Port number of the external server

un	(Username)	Username to access the external server

pw	(Password)	Password to access the external server

au	(Authentication)	Method to transmit login credentials:
	'u'	Unencrypted plaintext transmission of username and password
	'a'	APOP challenge/response protocol using a hash function
	's'	SASL Simple Authentication and Security Layer framework

pl	(Polling)	Switch whether the POP3 and/or nym related NNTP server has to be polled:
	't'	No external server connection - only for testing
	'p/P'	POP3 server polling (if accessible / mandatory)
	'n/N'	Polling of the nym related NNTP server (if accessible / mandatory)
		So a value of 'Pn' would mean no error message, if the news server isn't available

tl	(TLS)	Necessity of a TLS encrypted server connection:
	d	Disabled - no TLS-secured connection
	e	Enabled - TLS-secured connection if offered by the server
	r	Required - no data exchange without encryption
	i	Implicit - implicit SSL

to	(Tor)	Usage of Tor to communicate with the server:
	n	Disabled - normal connection
	4	Connection through Tor using SOCKS version 4
	4a	Connection through Tor using SOCKS version 4a (accepts host name)
	5	Connection through Tor using SOCKS version 5 (accepts either the host's IP address or host name)

Thus a username string including all server access data looks like

username;ht=mail.my_isp.com;pt=110;un=my_alias;pw=my_pwd;ap=y;pl=P;tl=e;to=n

Apart from the username and password any parameter which isn't defined is replaced by the internal OmniMix setting. This may be relevant especially if the 'Username' field within the client application doesn't provide enough space for all parameters (usually about 80 characters), so that at least the assignment of a standard port number like '110' for POP3 can be left undone.

If the extended username syntax is activated ('Ext.S' at the 'Server' tab), and you transmit an extended username (indicated by a ';' somewhere in that name), all separator characters (';') within the username itself or a parameter have to be preceded by an asterisk '*' (as well as an asterisk itself of course)!

So OmniMix user 'john', who has to fetch messages for his nyms, sent to a newsgroup, as well as mails from 'pop3.yahoo.com' (port 110, username 'eagle@yahoo.com', password 'eagle;pwd') using the predefined TLS and Tor settings has to authenticate with the username

john;ht=pop3.yahoo.com;pt=110;un=eagle@yahoo.com;pw=eagle*;pwd;pl=PN

whereas if he only intends to pick up his nym messages from the corresponding newsgroups

john;pl=N

would suffice.

The extended username syntax isn't limited to the POP3 server. The NNTP server is able to handle those parameters as well, though of course 'ap' (authentication schemes) and 'pl' (polling) aren't relevant in that case.

For example your news client logged into OmniMix with the extended username

john;ht=ruxuklsvo4pk74m5.onion;pt=119;tl=r;to=4a

gets anonymously connected with the Mixmin news server's Hidden Service.