Welcome!

Hi there,

I'm Sean Halloran - currently a M.S. Cybersecurity student at NYU Tandon. For the past few years, I've been the engineer for a mobile privacy/security app called Lockdown. Check it out here: lockdownprivacy.com.

A little background - while working with Johnny Lin on Lockdown, he and I did a bunch of research using Lockdown's firewall, and published a story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/23/iphone-tracking/ We wanted to highlight how Apple's App Tracking Transparency worked (or didn't) and you can read more of the research here: https://blog.lockdownprivacy.com/2021/09/22/study-effectiveness-of-apples-app-tracking-transparency.html. TL;DR: it doesn't work.

I'm broadly interested in how online privacy and security are underrepresented in the media. My goal here is to create digestible [not so hot] takes on important stories around technology. I'm not a journalist, but I do believe in the importance of [computer] science communication and holding people and gigantic companies accountable for their impacts on society.

I'm going to try this whole writing thing. If you like what I'm doing, send me a note or pay a little bit of money.

Best,

Sean

import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart

def reach_out(sender_email, sender_password):
    recipient_email = "hi@halloran.blog"
    
    # Set up the MIME
    message = MIMEMultipart()
    message['From'] = sender_email
    message['To'] = recipient_email
    message['Subject'] = 'Hello from your new customer!'
    
    # Email body
    body = 'This is a test email sent by the reach_out function in Python. Have a nice day!'
    message.attach(MIMEText(body, 'plain'))
    
    # SMTP server details (this example is for Gmail)
    smtp_server = 'smtp.gmail.com'
    smtp_port = 587
    
    # Send the email
    try:
        server = smtplib.SMTP(smtp_server, smtp_port)
        server.starttls()  # Secure the connection
        server.login(sender_email, sender_password)  # Login to the SMTP server
        text = message.as_string()
        server.sendmail(sender_email, recipient_email, text)
        print("Email sent successfully!")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Error: {e}")
    finally:
        server.quit()

# Usage
# Replace with your email and password and run this locally only.

reach_out('your_email@example.com', 'your_password')

This blog © 2024, by Sean Halloran is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0