[Freedombox-discuss] don't write code - user-friendly configuration

[Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson]

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 11:19 AM, paxcoder <paxcoder at gmail.com> wrote:

> P.S. Nobody replied yet on the possibility of alternative SMTP servers at
> friends'. Does this mean it can't be done?


Of course it can, but every additional thing which has to be configured and
understood by the owners of the Boxes makes them less useful to the average
person. Making this happen automagically would be possible, but might
actually be a terrible idea:

I personally think I might *prefer* that a complete stranger relayed my
clear-text, unencrypted e-mail, than someone I know.

The people I know might be interested in spying on me or tampering with my
e-mail - they might be sleeping with my wife or suspect I'm sleeping with
theirs, or they might just be bored and looking for gossip.  Complete
strangers wouldn't care, and I probably wouldn't care much if they *did*
take a peek.

Privacy can be weird that way.

Since e-mail is generally sent in the clear, relaying through friends might
not be the sort of thing we could configure without carefully asking the
user permission first and explaining why that might suck. And that makes it
a big usability problem.

-- 
Bjarni R. Einarsson

http://beanstalks-project.net/
http://bre.klaki.net/
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