ParrotBot reads your GMail to you (opens in new tab)

(parrotbot.com)

47 pointsyanda14y ago23 comments

I drive to work and wanted to check and sort through my email without looking at my screen (which is not only illegal in California but dangerous as all hell). I wrote a little phone-based service that lets you dial a number and have a robot read you your email. You can take some pretty basic actions like Ignore, Archive, or Star so that your email looks cleaner by the time you get to your desk. It's definitely still rough on the edges, but curious what the HN community thinks of it. Would you guys & gals use it?

23 comments

r00fus14y ago

If someone balks at the warning: "This website has not registered with Google to establish a secure connection for authorization requests. We recommend that you deny access unless you trust the website.", and clicks [Deny], they will receive a really ugly trace dump.

jordanroher14y ago

You don't even have to do that much. Just click the Get Started button without typing in anything.

yandaOP14y ago

Yes yes...there are bugs. :-)

1 more reply

EvanK14y ago

Very interesting idea. Though, this seems like it would be much better suited as an Android/iOS/etc app to live on the phone itself.

swah14y ago

Perhaps it still makes sense not to assume everyone on a car has internet access?

yandaOP14y ago

The reason I went with a phone number is that phone calls generally play well with cars (in-car bluetooth headsets, etc...) whereas audio for apps usually has a harder time connecting to in-car devices.

r00fus14y ago

This is awesome.

Now if you could only do Google Reader or RSS I might find a use for all those "rollover minutes" in my account.

auston14y ago

my question is... would you pay to have someone read your RSS to you while you're driving/running/working out/etc ?

yandaOP14y ago

That's a good question. I'm obviously curious about the answer as well. ;-)

r00fus14y ago

Yes, but how much would depend on quality.

sylvinus14y ago

When I read the title I believed an AR.Drone from Parrot (http://www.parrot.com/usa/) would fly to me and read my mail ;-)

(They have an API I think so that may actually not be too far-fetched...)

alanh14y ago

Great idea, BUT —

Isn’t it true that it is fairly trivial for attackers to spoof the number they are calling “from”? If so, this could be a serious security weakness, couldn’t it?

yandaOP14y ago

Spoofing the phone number is not very hard. That said, you'd still need the PIN to gain access to the email. A 4 digit pin is not the most secure thing around, but the combo of the phone number and the PIN seems reasonably safe. Thoughts?

alanh14y ago

Wasn’t aware of the PIN step. That does help. [You]† should definitely report failed attempts to log in, at least in an opt-in capacity.

† Edited from “they”

1 more reply

jberryman14y ago

A 4 digit pin isn't good enough if you care at all about thwarting serious attackers. Do a quick calculation of how long it would take an attacker with a script and 10 phone lines to get access.

Maybe you could translate a longer password into the corresponding touchtones?

davidradcliffe14y ago

Cool idea. Works pretty well if the message has a text version but if the message only has an HTML version it doesn't try to read it.

yandaOP14y ago

It manages to read _some_ HTML emails but there are definitely still tons of rough edges. Turns out email parsing is not fun. :-)

xtacy14y ago

I guess it should possible to run HTML emails through lynx (or some equivalent library) that just dumps the text?

If the email's a picture, oh well.

1 more reply

krupenin14y ago

Very cool. If you add "respond with a voice message", it can help spread the Parrot goodness :)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

23 comments

r00fus14y ago

jordanroher14y ago

You don't even have to do that much. Just click the Get Started button without typing in anything.

yandaOP14y ago

Yes yes...there are bugs. :-)

1 more reply

EvanK14y ago

Very interesting idea. Though, this seems like it would be much better suited as an Android/iOS/etc app to live on the phone itself.

swah14y ago

Perhaps it still makes sense not to assume everyone on a car has internet access?

yandaOP14y ago

r00fus14y ago

This is awesome.

Now if you could only do Google Reader or RSS I might find a use for all those "rollover minutes" in my account.

auston14y ago

my question is... would you pay to have someone read your RSS to you while you're driving/running/working out/etc ?

yandaOP14y ago

That's a good question. I'm obviously curious about the answer as well. ;-)

r00fus14y ago

Yes, but how much would depend on quality.

sylvinus14y ago

When I read the title I believed an AR.Drone from Parrot (http://www.parrot.com/usa/) would fly to me and read my mail ;-)

(They have an API I think so that may actually not be too far-fetched...)

alanh14y ago

Great idea, BUT —

Isn’t it true that it is fairly trivial for attackers to spoof the number they are calling “from”? If so, this could be a serious security weakness, couldn’t it?

yandaOP14y ago

alanh14y ago

Wasn’t aware of the PIN step. That does help. [You]† should definitely report failed attempts to log in, at least in an opt-in capacity.

† Edited from “they”

1 more reply

jberryman14y ago

A 4 digit pin isn't good enough if you care at all about thwarting serious attackers. Do a quick calculation of how long it would take an attacker with a script and 10 phone lines to get access.

Maybe you could translate a longer password into the corresponding touchtones?

davidradcliffe14y ago

Cool idea. Works pretty well if the message has a text version but if the message only has an HTML version it doesn't try to read it.

yandaOP14y ago

It manages to read _some_ HTML emails but there are definitely still tons of rough edges. Turns out email parsing is not fun. :-)

xtacy14y ago

I guess it should possible to run HTML emails through lynx (or some equivalent library) that just dumps the text?

If the email's a picture, oh well.

1 more reply

krupenin14y ago

Very cool. If you add "respond with a voice message", it can help spread the Parrot goodness :)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse