[Freedombox-discuss] Email on the FreedomBox Discussion

[John Walsh]

 Hi Bjarni,

> > First of all, I would be gratefully if somebody could explain how an
> > smtp+imap email service does not align or promote many of 
> the desired
> > attributes of a FBX?
> 
> I personally would consider a good e-mail, and especially 
> *webmail* experience to be a very valuable addition to the 
> FreedomBox.  I would like to break my GMail habit, but the 
> availability and user interface make that hard.  A FreedomBox 
> which stored my e-mail, but allowed me webmail access from 
> outside when I am on the go would be very awesome.
> 
> I spent 6 years writing and running a spam/virus filter 
> service for e-mail, and before that I ran an ISP's e-mail 
> infrastructure, so I have some insight into how this all fits 
> together, although it might be a little dated by now - 
> corrections are very welcome.
> 
> Here are my takes on what makes SMTP e-mail a hard and/or a 
> poor fit for the FreedomBox, in order of severity:
> 
>    1. The FreedomBox reference plug will have very limited storage
> space: e-mail accumulates unless you make people download and 
> delete from server (which means no webmail).
I have always assumed I would have to plug a USB drive into the FBX for
storage. This is what you have to do for TonidoPlug.

> 
>    2. Spam has made it common practice to reject and block 
> direct SMTP communication from non-ISP-run servers.  Machines 
> on home DSL/Cable/... lines will have much difficulty getting 
> their mail delivered and will effectively be dependent on ISP 
> mail servers for delivery. ISPs also often filter incoming 
> SMTP, making people dependent on ISP servers for receiving 
> mail as well.  Configuring the box to match each ISP's 
> settings will rapidly become a messy usability problem.
I have no answer to this question. Why do ISP's block home servers if all
the spam is coming from corporate servers? 

> 
>    3. People who currently depend on their ISPs for e-mail 
> (instead of using a cloud service like GMail) usually 
> download their e-mail anyway, so from a privacy/control point 
> of view, adding the FreedomBox as an extra hop (note the 
> e-mail will still have to go through the ISP servers because 
> of 2.) provides little real value unless it does funky things 
> like automatic opportunistic GPG encryption/decryption, which 
> might be a bad idea anyway for security reasons. So 
> attempting to replace ISP services has little real-world 
> benefit - but replacing the webmail providers would be a 
> massive improvement.
I think the extra hop for encryption is a good thing, especially when my ISP
can eavesdrop on my email. Why is encrypting my email a security risk? 

> 
>    4. Aside from storage, replacing the webmail providers is 
> a UI problem.  If our UI is much worse than GMail's, people 
> won't want to switch.  If we are focusing on what exists 
> today, it's entirely possible that there is no existing free 
> software that can really do the job. Off the top of my head, 
> these are the ones I remember and my opinion on them:
> 
>    - Squirrelmail - ancient, with an inferior UI
>    - RoundCube - looks fancy, not sure how good it really is
>    - Zimbra - fancy, modern... bloated. Nowhere near as nice as GMail.
> 
> Zimbra might be worth considering for the FreedomBox, as it 
> would provide e-mail and calendaring and such, and it's being 
> actively improved.  Maybe someday it will get close to 
> matching GMail's usability. :-)
Now I understand the constant reference to UI :0 Personally, I chose privacy
before "Gmail Man" UI and I guess that's why I use my ISPs server and their
Squirrelmail webmail server. Still, I see FBX is selling privacy about UI.

> 
> Storage and overall horsepower of the plug server remain an issue.
An email server would kill a plug too. Sigh :(

Thanks for your response. It has been so insightful.

-- fiftyfour