204132 - Alert dialogs have no signature IMAP Server Notice

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[timeless]

jglick/mstoltz/sspitzer, please take a moemtn to look at the following
attachment.

Answer the following questions:
What application created this dialog?
Why did it create the dialog?
Was this dialog from a browser window?
(why not?)
If this message came from a remote source, what source?
Is this dialog a hoax?
What protocol triggered this message? [file, http, javascript, nntp, news, imap, native code, visualbasic]

I consider this diaalog a security concern.

Comment 1

[timeless]

Attachment: What is this dialog?

Comment 2

[jglick]

Over to default owner. I don't know what would be causing this dialog.

Comment 3

[timeless]

jglick: yeah that's exactly the problem, a user won't know.

if my admin didn't say 'IMAP' in his comment, or if he happened to say 'POP' or
if he said 'Alert you have a virus, please reformat your computer' (a better
example would be if my admin told me to empty my inbox because i was over my
quota, -- i would have no idea which inbox to empty and as a naive user i might
delete everything from the wrong one)...

We need a ui spec for what to do when we get such a notice.

I actually have some ideas but in the interim someone who owns the mailnews ui
spec should consider the problem.

Comment 4

[jglick]

>Answer the following questions:
>What application created this dialog?
>Why did it create the dialog?
>Was this dialog from a browser window?(why not?)
>If this message came from a remote source, what source?
>Is this dialog a hoax?
>What protocol triggered this message? [file, http, javascript, nntp, news,
imap, >native code, visualbasic]

What I meant was, I don't know the answers to these questions. Need that info
first in order to make any recommendations. If its an alert wording issue, robin
can suggest more appropriate wording.

Comment 5

[Ere Maijala (slow)]

The wording is by server admin or such, but there should be something like
"Notification from IMAP server, account [e-mail]: ".

Comment 6

[Ere Maijala (slow)]

I believe the message comes from IMAP server response code ALERT
(nsImapServerResponseParser.cpp line 1791).

Comment 7

[timeless]

Application: Bezilla (Mozilla/5 for BeOS)
Reason for dialog: As per ere in comment 6 - IMAP server response code ALERT
From Browser Window: No :)
Reason it wasn't: there was no [JavaScript Application] in the window title,
but would your average user really think about that when they get a window
with the simple title 'Alert'?

Remote/Local: Remote
Source: localhost (yes, it's a remote source)
Hoax: No :)
Protocol: IMAP

At the very least if we continue to use a dialog, there needs to be evidence
that mozilla mail is the owner,
and an indication of what server triggered the dialog

Ideally we should display the account pretty name

imo we should indicate the (intended) username for the server too
(in my case i got the alert before bezilla tried and failed to login)

Comment 9

[David Ascher (:davida)]

Current thinking is to solve this problem w/ the activity manager.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

could be wrong, but I'd rather doubt that (seamonkey) message would still have the same form.