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On 09/02/2010 05:44 PM, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ian@churchkey.org">ian@churchkey.org</a> wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4C7FC649.402@churchkey.org" type="cite">Maybe the
way to do email in a social network uses something like<br>
<pre wrap="">distributed storage /instead/ of SMTP.
</pre>
</blockquote>
The internal e-mail is not a problem, the problem is bringing in the
rest of the world on this.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4C7FC649.402@churchkey.org" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
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.<br>
__________<br>
<br>
On 09/02/2010 11:21 PM, Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTind4mTYx1EyYA=f8Bo-QDZZ0F_rBhynXGxO5qgP@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">I wrote:<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">P.S.
Nobody replied yet on the possibility of alternative SMTP servers at
friends'. Does this mean it can't be done?</blockquote>
<div><br>
Of course it can,</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
How, who's keeping DNS record after you go off-line? Or am I missing
something?<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTind4mTYx1EyYA=f8Bo-QDZZ0F_rBhynXGxO5qgP@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div> 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:<br>
<br>
I personally think I might *prefer* that a complete stranger relayed my
clear-text, unencrypted e-mail, than someone I know.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTind4mTYx1EyYA=f8Bo-QDZZ0F_rBhynXGxO5qgP@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div>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.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
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%.<br>
<br>
Still, things do not look good for distributed e-mail.<br>
<br>
--Luka Marčetić (aka the parentheses man)<br>
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?<br>
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