[Chandler-dev] Edit/update (email sharing) model thoughts

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 11:02 AM 12/8/2006 -1000, Brian Kirsch wrote:
>To prevent this I propose that each Chandler instance should have a
>unique application level UUID. This UUID would be included as the
>mail header X-Chandler-ID.
>When a message is received if the sender is the same Chandler (the X- 
>Chandler-ID matches) then ignore the message. This works nicely since
>one of the proposals
>for Preview is to have an option where Chandler only downloads mail
>from an IMAP or POP server that is sent from another Chandler. For
>this case, we can leverage
>  the X-Chandler-ID as the key to determining if the message is from
>Chandler. Thus allowing users to continue working with traditional
>email clients while
>leveraging Chandler for intercommunication as is the case with the
>Edit / Update workflows.

Just FYI, but the protocol we've defined doesn't actually need this, in 
that receiving an already-applied update is a silent no-op.  Having this 
header would allow us to skip some steps, but it's not strictly necessary.

Note also that there are privacy issues involved in having a UUID that gets 
carried in all communications.  I would also suggest that if we do this for 
sharing purposes, it should be a different and *secure* UUID (i.e., one not 
generated using the Ethernet hardware address) for each effective sharing 
conduit, to minimize the amount of trackable information being distributed 
about the person's machine.