[Freedombox-discuss] Introductions + failsafe e-mail
paxcoder
paxcoder at gmail.com
Fri Sep 3 22:29:15 UTC 2010
On 09/02/2010 05:44 PM, ian at churchkey.org wrote:
> Maybe the way to do email in a social network uses something like
> distributed storage /instead/ of SMTP.
>
The internal e-mail is not a problem, the problem is bringing in the
rest of the world on this.
> If we setup the mail server to prefer delivering to the TahoeLAFS
> maildir folder for all recipients that are in your social network, we
> might be able to get external "email" and internal "distributed+secure
> message" delivery done rather simply.
>
Not sure if TahoeLAFS is added to the wiki at FreedomBox/Examples.
Anyway, we're trying to avoid any additional servers, we're trying to
host our own. The internal part is easy, but for "external" e-mail, I
really don't know how to do it without any central servers at all. To be
honest, I don't know if we can solve this, other than abandoning SMTP
:-( And keep in mind this old timer has survived delayed IM messages,
and the likes of Google Wave.
__________
On 09/02/2010 11:21 PM, Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson wrote:
> I 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,
How, who's keeping DNS record after you go off-line? Or am I missing
something?
> 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.
See, I never thought about this e-mail *not* being encrypted.
Unencrypted private mail is a bad idea anyway, but they didn't have PGP
when they thought of a POP server. Yes, we would of course make it
automagical (eg. add friend's e-mail address to the list of alternate
mailboxes, the stack would contact your firend's box and take care of
the rest after a confirmation), but for the aforementioned reason, it'd
still be an opt-in thing in the beginning, rather than opt-out. Later
on, when there are more Freedom Boxes around, we can just assume
everyone is going to make their newcomer friends configure encryption,
while old friends will already be using it. Then we can make it opt-out.
> 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.
I guess that makes some sense in pre-omniencrypted mail period if we can
guarantee delivery via signed confirmation (otherwise, your non-friend
can discard your e-mail). But even if SMTP can somehow make that
happen(don't think so, remember - it must be signed), for the reason of
there being those who will still use clients that do not bother
requiring confirmation (eg newcomer friends from above example), friends
are a better choice, since unencrypted e-mails should only come from new
contacts. Two or three trusted ones would suffice - I mean how long is
your personal server off-line? Reliability with just a few alternative
mailboxes grows exponentially. To give you an illustration, if systems
were only be reliable 3 out of 4 times on average (that's really bad and
your friends still only get 1/4 of all your e-mail - encrypted or not),
with only 2 redundant mailboxes (two close friends), the mailbox
availability would rise to 98%.
Still, things do not look good for distributed e-mail.
--Luka Marčetić (aka the parentheses man)
P.S. I don't know why, I keep imagining a guy sitting on a train holding
his Freedom Box in his lap. Where is he going with it? Out of China?
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