alandgton/activism-mailbot

Activism Mailbot

In light of recent events, I have created this Python script to send emails to a list of 542 elected US officials.

The script sends a unique message to each lawmaker by varying sentence structures and switching out nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives with synonyms. Each email is constructed to roughly follow the template from nomoreracistcops.github.io. Please report bugs to [email protected]!

This script only works for gmail accounts.

NOTE: there is a per-minute limit on SMTP messages sent via google's servers. to appease our corporate overlords, i've decreased the speed of our operations.

If you're going to use this tool in one of your projects, I'm hoping that you'll have enough self-respect to give credit where it is due. Please do not monetize this script. Thanks!!

Setup

1. Download the source code

   • Option 1: click the green "Clone or download" button on the upper-right, then "Download ZIP"
     • Then, decompress the files somewhere on your computer
   • Option 2: git clone https://github.com/alandgton/activism-mail-bot.git
     • Requires: a Github account, a terminal, and git installation

2. Temporarily grant mailbot permission to send emails on your behalf

   • Turn Allow less secure apps to ON for your gmail account.
     • Be aware that this makes it easier for others to gain access to your account.
     • After running the script, you should switch this back OFF.
     • Your name, gmail, and password aren't being stored on a server anywhere, this script is run from your own computer!
   • If you have 2 Factor Authentication enabled on your gmail account:
     • Follow these instructions

Running the script

• Option 1: Use Docker (RECOMMENDED)

  • Shoutout to darrylbalderas for setting this up!

  • Install docker-engine

    • Mac or Windows (Catalina, Mojave, or High Sierra; Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education)
      • For older Mac and Windows systems install Docker Toolbox
    • Linux

  • Run the command: ./exec-docker

    • Make sure you're in the activism-mailbot/ or activism-mailbot-master/ directory
      • Use cd activism-mailbot/ or cd ~/activism-mailbot/ or cd /path/to/activism-mailbot/
    • If that doesn't work, then execute the following sequence of commands:
      • docker build -t activism-mailbot .
      • Might need to remove the old container: docker rm -f activism-mailbot
      • docker run --name activism-mailbot -d activism-mailbot
      • docker exec -it $(docker ps -aqf "name=activism-mailbot") /bin/bash

  • Run application: python send.py

• Option 2: Legacy Method

  • Install python3

  • Mac Users: you can double-click the install-osx-python3 file instead

  • Windows Users: TBD

  • Mac Users: you may need to install certificates for SSL to work

    • ⌘ + space, search for a file named "Install Certificates.command"
    • double-click the resulting file
    • Read more here

  • Run python3 send.py

    • Make sure you are in the activism-mail-bot directory
    • If you aren't, use the command cd activism-mail-bot/

How to use mailbot

1. Choose which officials you would like to send emails to

   • Enter the number corresponding to the state/city/county of your choice
     • Enter 0 to Select All (current total: 542 recipients)
   • Enter blank (nothing) when finished selecting
   • NOTE: some city councilmembers may ask for your address to confirm that you are their constituent

2. Enter the subject (title) of your emails.

   • If blank, mailbot will randomly generate a spicy title for you

3. Would you like to write your own email or have mailbot do it for you?

   • If you want mailbot to write the emails, answer y.
   • Else if you have your own email message, answer n.
     • Mailbot will now read from a .txt file
     • Please write your own email in a .txt file
       • Easiest way: edit the contents of example.txt
       • Tell mailbot the name of your .txt file
       • Example: example.txt

4. Enter your full name

5. Enter your gmail

6. Enter your gmail password

   • i'm not logging this anywhere or anything, feel free to look at my code if you're paranoid

Final Steps

• Please add more recipients!
  • Use this Google Form or add to recipients.py and submit a pull request
• thank you for your time, we did some good work :^)
• activism++
• Please remember to switch Allow less secure apps to OFF.

Footnote

This is a critical time for the rights and freedoms that we cherish as American citizens. Check out this compilation of activism resources and notes (credit: Jemma Kwak)!

Listed below are organizations gladly accepting donations and petitions to sign.

• Organizations:
  • List of Bail Funds
  • Reclaim the Block
  • Official George Floyd Memorial Fund
  • Black Visions Collective
  • Minnesota Freedom Fund
  • Campaign Zero
  • National Bail Out
• Petitions
  • Checkout this petition signing bot my friend Eshani Mehta created!
  • Justice for George Floyd (1)
  • Justice for George Floyd (2)
  • Justice for Breonna Taylor
  • Justice for Tony McDade
  • #DefundThePolice

activism-mailbot's Issues

feat: add support for windows users

Use Python's 'Logging' module instead of print statements

https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/logging.html

fix: Add an indicator that says the script finished sending all emails.

After the script is finished running, we should add an indicator that says the script finished successfully.

feat: Be able to runt the script without having to switch`Allow less secure apps` to OFF

This is probably a big one, I'm not sure how we can do this actually, but thought this would be a good place for discussion

Use f-string formatting instead of %-formatting

f-strings are faster than %-formatting because f-strings are expressions evaluated at runtime rather than constant values.

https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0498/#abstract

bouncebacks I got

Thanks so much for this. Just reporting back on how things went for me:

Message blocked

Your message to [email protected] has been blocked. See technical details below for more information.

Richard N. Gottfried [email protected] auto-reply includes this info: **If your e-mail did not include your postal address, please re-send it with that information.
**If the issue that you wrote about is a federal matter, I urge you to contact your U.S. Representative and our U.S. Senators.
(so maybe some location fill-in is useful? especially because a few of the emails that were sent said "as a concerned constituent" for places I am not a constituent of)

Your message to [email protected] couldn't be delivered.

A custom mail flow rule created by an admin at minneapolismngov.onmicrosoft.com has blocked your message.

Dockerize to avoid having to come up with installation instructions for every OS

https://docker-curriculum.com/

feat: Website version for easier access and reach

Could we rebuild this as a webpage? I imagine we could get a lot of reach and use from people who are unfamiliar with the command line.

It doesn't seem insane to port this over to a js script , and have users wait and let the script run clientside. We could host it as a Github page, maybe even use GAuth instead of turning on less-secure apps.

Happy to help build the front end, would need help to port the python to js script though.