Outlook Email as a BBS server

[ChrisGreaves]

Back in the good old days of 3.25" floppy disks, I ran a private BBS. When I was off-site, I could dial my data line at home, log in to my BBS, grab a utility file, and get back to work at the client site.

I am not contemplating actually doing this, but it seems to me that from a technical view, it should be possible to set up a system using Outlook (or similar) on a home-based machine, and program Outlook to respond to incoming emails.

Cries of "SECURITY!" I can hear; OK.

I think that Outlook-VBA could examine the InBox and process any incoming email with a special subject line (e.g. "73ptca" being today's auto-generated password-of-the-day) and then examine the content for two specific commands:-
LIST <foldername>
SEND <fullname>

From a remote site, I could issue an email that said "send me a LIST of this folder", or I could issue an email that said "SEND me this file".

I understand that the security risks are there, but it seems to me that this would make an interesting project for a programmer.
Cheers
Chris

[PJ_in_FL]

There are a lot of things that Outlook VBA CAN do but triggers a user warning dialog that requires a user input. I'd expect this type of activity to trigger something like that, but don't have anything to back that up.