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Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

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Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#11

Post by irixusr »

derefr wrote: post #10
irixusr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years (almost two decades!!!) when the filters weren't as good I read a proposal to make an email system that charges $0.01 to the sender. Spammers would be bankrupt. It was difficult to implement and up against an already entrenched tech. With Bitcoin I've been thinking of that idea again. Could a payment system on top of existing email be created? The receiver of the email could get the senders penny and Bitc…

It could be even more convenient, if it only charged for unauthorized contacts. Emails back and forth between friends/coworkers? No charge. Email newsletter you signed up for? One-time cost to them to send you the opt-in message. Random spammers? Never get authorized; have to pay every time. It would also put a slight amount of friction in place for contacting people out-of-the-blue (when e.g. sending fan-mail to fam…

You're assuming people want to be contacted by people in their address list :D

For me there's an annoying aunt who periodically send the latest get-mad-at-this email.

Or, how many times do we receive a mass email from friends who use CC instead of BCC and then we're flooded by everyone's replies?

If you're in my address book, then you should be charged more!

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#13

Post by peterhunt »

tkinom wrote: post #8
bluecmd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spam is also a problem. How do you do spam detection if you cannot read the message?

If you have the public keys of all senders, one can easily white/black list the known known/non-spammers. All the undecided goes into just one folder. Probably not be that hard to sort out.

This is actually very hard to sort out and is a deal-breaker for end-to-end email encryption. https://moderncrypto.org/mail-archive/messaging/2014/000780....

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#14

Post by superuser2 »

kodablah wrote: post #5
amelius wrote: post #2

It is unfortunate that encryption systems for email never really found widespread use.

As mentioned by other posters, it opposes convenience too much. I say it's unfortunate that SMTP/IMAP was not made easy/free enough to self-host. I understand cost, uptime, and admin challenges, I am just saying these communication mechanisms will continue to be centralized while there is financial incentive to make them better and appeal to the masses.

Self-hosting is not a solution, in particular because it simply pushes the "entity you have to trust" from Google to your VPS provider or residential ISP.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#15

Post by [deleted] »

superuser2 wrote: post #14
kodablah wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned by other posters, it opposes convenience too much. I say it's unfortunate that SMTP/IMAP was not made easy/free enough to self-host. I understand cost, uptime, and admin challenges, I am just saying these communication mechanisms will continue to be centralized while there is financial incentive to make them better and appeal to the masses.

Self-hosting is not a solution, in particular because it simply pushes the "entity you have to trust" from Google to your VPS provider or residential ISP.

[deleted]

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#16

Post by omouse »

api wrote: post #7
amelius wrote: post #2

It is unfortunate that encryption systems for email never really found widespread use.

It's all about ease of use. https is probably the only user-friendly / good UX crypto solution in common/widespread use (unless you count transparent drive encryption), and it achieves this in part by being centrally controlled via registrars to eliminate the need for the user to understand PKI. This in turn makes it kind of a joke from a crypto-snob POV, though it's good enough for most routine stuff. Even MacGPG pl…

I'm trying out TutaNota (not the easiest to remember name :/) and they do encrypted email: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/tutanota-end-to-end-encrypt...

Recipents basically receive a password from you in another channel (email, IM, phone convo, face to face) and can use it to decrypt the email from TutaNota when they receive it. I tried it out myself and the only clunky thing is that they load up their whole web app just to read one message, but it's kind of a clever piece of marketing because the web app works pretty well so the recipient who doesn't use encryption gets exposed to an interface that's just as easy to use as what they're used to.

For everyone using TutaNota, the decryption is transparent which definitely is encouraging.

I've seen some people sending around credit card info or social security info and forcing the intended recipient to use a password when receiving that info is a small price to pay for piece of mind. It's almost criminal to send signatures on documents and social security/credit card info in plain-text!

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#17

Post by dang »

ISL wrote: post #12

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731022 (thanks for the new clickable site-history link; it makes resurfacing the duplicate posts much easier) Also: (2014)

You're welcome! That's one of the reasons we added it. (The other is that it's fun to explore HN's history.)

Since it has been over a year since that thread, though, we won't bury the repost as a dupe.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#18

Post by colechristensen »

irixusr wrote: post #6
bluecmd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spam is also a problem. How do you do spam detection if you cannot read the message?

A few years (almost two decades!!!) when the filters weren't as good I read a proposal to make an email system that charges $0.01 to the sender. Spammers would be bankrupt. It was difficult to implement and up against an already entrenched tech. With Bitcoin I've been thinking of that idea again. Could a payment system on top of existing email be created? The receiver of the email could get the senders penny and Bitc…

It's pretty simple, create an email client and/or server which bounces emails from new addresses indicating delivery costs 1¢ paid to the receiver.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#19

Post by kpcyrd »

irixusr wrote: post #6
bluecmd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spam is also a problem. How do you do spam detection if you cannot read the message?

A few years (almost two decades!!!) when the filters weren't as good I read a proposal to make an email system that charges $0.01 to the sender. Spammers would be bankrupt. It was difficult to implement and up against an already entrenched tech. With Bitcoin I've been thinking of that idea again. Could a payment system on top of existing email be created? The receiver of the email could get the senders penny and Bitc…

Obligatory: http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#20

Post by devit »

bluecmd wrote: post #4
trjordan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most systems never found a good way to encrypt data at rest. You either have to let the user manage the keys / passphrase, giving up things like search and password recovery, or you have to manage the keys in a service, which doesn't provide privacy from the service that manages the keys.

Spam is also a problem. How do you do spam detection if you cannot read the message?

Do spam detection on the local machine, although unfortunately it will performs worse.
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