[629] in magellan
Web Mail Discovery Status Report as of 4/12/01
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Matt Brody)
Thu Apr 12 11:27:52 2001
Message-ID: <3AD5C9B7.AB6E0F7D@mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 11:28:55 -0400
From: Matt Brody <mbrody@MIT.EDU>
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Project Name: Web Mail
Project Leader: Matt Brody
Report Date: 4/12/01
Submitted by: Matt Brody
URL: http://web.mit.edu/is/discovery/webmail/index.html
Accomplishments past period:
- Usability testing for IMP completed; informal comments received from
Usability Team Leader. A formal summary of the results has been
requested.
- IMP testing has continued; we continue to receive good feedback from
team members which is being collected in a Discuss archive for eventual
use by a future Delivery effort.
Goals for the coming period:
- Finish installation of the Silky Mail web mail product (still in
progress and significantly delayed from original project timeline).
- Begin testing of Silky Mail
- Begin testing IMP from the wireless platform (e.g. digital cell phone,
PDA)
Issues:
- In testing the IMP web mail solution while traveling, I ran into a
problem running it from a PC which had Microsoft IE installed. After
further research, we realized the cause was that this PC had IE
installed with only 40-bit SSL encryption instead of 128-bit. Our web
mail server only permits access with 128-bit SSL encryption enabled at
the client. Since web mail will be accessed from any number of platforms
and devices, many not owned or controlled by the user, we need to
carefully consider whether 128-bit encryption should be required for
authentication in all cases. The potential of our customers using web
mail during international travel also makes this a relevant question.
This issue will be raised with our project sponsor.
Key learnings:
- Patience is vitally important when encountering unexpected technical
delays. Know when to make a big issue of time line slippage and when
doing so would do more damage than good.
Team dynamics:
- Doing fine.
Additional comments:
- None.
