3rd Party interface... the easy way?

Just had this idea while I was replying to a different thread.  This might be a super-easy way to really expand how things interface with the SmartApp.  My idea is that every account or Hub would have an associated email address.  Essentially this address would just listen for specific email titles, which would trigger certain events/actions.

The idea here is to make it very easy to expand what can work with SmartThings.  Because many things can be setup to send an email, and even more can be setup with “recipe” like services (Zapier, IFTTT) to send emails, which would allow SO many things to trigger events in the SmartThings world.

There would have to be some controls and limitations of course.  The biggest concern would be to ensure security.  If someone happens to figure out what your email address is for your hub, he might try sending a variety of things like “open” or “unlock” or “home” to see if he could trigger a macro that might include opening door locks.  No sure how to secure it…  Maybe a combination of need to send an email with the macro command along with a pin code… like instead of just “unlock” I’d need to have the macro title in my subject line, but a pincode for just that macro (like unlock 1234).  And additionally it would need to receive that email from a specific address.

Nagios detects my web server down.  sends email to turn on all of my firealarms, sirens, turns the heat up to 150 F, and flushes all of my toilets at the same time.

I like it.

Like you said, it would be necessary to have tighter restrictions on security though.  like mac address verification for the sender.

Good observation that many “third-party” things come with the ability to automatically send email alerts. Foscam cheap IP cameras, for example, can either FTP or Email image snapshots upon motion detect.

Can Email be a reliable protocol? Hacking & spam risks?

How do these products handle these risks currently?