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Helm: Personal Email Server

thehelm.com

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Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#211

Post by j45 »

alphakappa wrote: post #164
j45 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cloud ultimately is someone else's computer, abstracted away to feel good. Data loss occurs in the cloud too and it sucks. It's also dangerous to say because you don't understand or see the value in something, that there possibly can't be any. Today's home connectivity + LTE fail over is reasonable to rely on. One could put a vps proxy in front of it if you really wanted. Running a home appliance is not out of th…

So what happens when you are traveling and there's a power issue or maybe some other connection issue that knocks this box out of service? Looks like you'll be stuck without email until you can physically get back to this box. This isn't a scenario you worry about with regular email. The challenge with email is that once you give out any mail address to people, you are on the hook to ensure that it's a functional add…

What do you do when gmail goes down?

Not sure if you have spent any time around data centres, but they have to deal with power outages just the same. My power doesn't go out often, how about you?

Backup batteries (UPS') are trivially cheap as well, especially for equipment that sips electricity. Everyone should have one on their internet connection and wifi anyways. A $200 ups can give a few hours of power.

Your offsite worries could be alleivated by mirroring 2 devices, or mirror one to a cloud. Realistically, incoming email is queued for redelivery from 24 to 48 hours until it can be delivered. Beyond that, outgoing email can be sent thru a third party temporarily (migadu, etc). Next question?

Migrating email isn't hard. Most services have import feature. I suspect you may not have done this before.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#212

Post by ThePhysicist »

gsreenivas wrote: post #195
ThePhysicist wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, since you're here already, I have some questions (in case you're able/allowed to answer them): What's the base operating system and hardware architecture the box is based on? It says "Linux" on the page but doesn't go into specifics. Why not just use regular hardware, e.g. Intel NUCs, or even allow people to run your software on their own hardware (like OwnCloud does)? In Germany there was/is a startup, Protonet…

We spin our own build of Linux using Yocto. We are using an ARM-based SoC from NXP. We chose this to ensure that the device can only run signed, trusted code by implementing secure boot and signature verification of software updates. We will make a developer program available in the future. I didn't use Protonet so I shouldn't speculate about what's similar or different about the products. I think we are in a time ri…

Cool, thanks for sharing that info! While I think your approach is a bit extreme I hope you'll succeed, we need more solutions that put privacy, security and transparency first. It would be awesome if one could run your software on regular hardware though, as I really prefer a securely hosted server at a local data center to a computer sitting in my living room. Also, one year of limited warranty seems rather short for a product that is supposed hold my most important data.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#214

Post by j45 »

garry wrote: post #174
alphakappa wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happens when you are traveling and there's a power issue or maybe some other connection issue that knocks this box out of service? Looks like you'll be stuck without email until you can physically get back to this box. This isn't a scenario you worry about with regular email. The challenge with email is that once you give out any mail address to people, you are on the hook to ensure that it's a functional add…

An upcoming release should have continuity of service with a 2nd box, which is not a perfect solution I realize.

It is a perfectly serviceable solution. What do we do when Gmail goes down? :)

If there was a way to run a zero knowledge vm in the cloud that was fully encrypted that might be an option too.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#215

Post by TrueDuality »

freen wrote: post #122
freen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, if you want something a bit more, well, everything and the kitchen sink: https://yunohost.org

Or Homebox: https://github.com/progmaticltd/homebox Ansible, yaml config, I think only a single domain.

Now this is interesting... Appreciate it

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#216

Post by rntz »

garry wrote: post #105
andr wrote: post #65

I never understand why people think having your files physically in their homes is somehow more secure than a data center. - You run the risk of hardware failure, which would take days to recover. When your warranty expires, it'd cost you, too. - Disk failure may lose all your data. - Fire, theft, or hurricanes may destroy it. - You still give access to your data to a company, which controls software updates and the…

I'm the first and biggest investor in Helm and I'm on the board. I created email-based Posterous previously (YC funded) and was a YC partner for 5 years. I funded this team because they're high integrity software engineers first, and we built this out of need— a company like this needs to exist because for this to work, you need both great user experience as well as great software. Helm actually solves this exactly -…

You say Helm solves or will solve all these problems.

But if I don't actually need to be able to reach the box in order to use my email - if it will work even when the box is offline, powered-down, stolen, or destroyed - then what, exactly, is the point of the $500 box itself?

It's not privacy, it seems. If it were private, how could it work when the box is offline?

I'm not opposed to a "pay for your email instead of it being ad-and-surveillance-supported" model. I just don't see the point of paying $500 for a box that you're telling me the service will function just fine without.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#217

Post by Tepix »

If you feel like doing this yourself, get something like a Raspberry Pi 3 (or better, like the Asus Tinker Board) and use sovereign (from github) to automatically install your own mail server/owncloud on it.

Then get a dirt cheap VPS (less than $15/yr) from lowendbox/lowendtalk and run a OpenVPN tunnel.

So what's the advantage of having this at home instead of an ISP? For one, backup and restore is fast and easy. You can use your NAS that's at home. You may want to have an additional offline backup in case your home network gets completely compromised. A box at home is also more difficult to tamper with. If you're paranoid, put it into a tamper resistant box.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#218

Post by sjs382 »

hawski wrote: post #197
cwyers wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's completely orthogonal to owning a piece of hardware. You could run a managed cloud e-mail service where only the users hold the encryption keys, too. How is this a hardware problem?

Then the keys are on the premises of the cloud company. Also data has to be at one time unencrypted in computer's memory. When there is a physical access to the computer you can't do much to ensure your data's safety.

With public key encryption, a cloud provider doesn't need your private keys to encrypt data that can be only viewed by you—they need your public key.

In the parent, the private keys are not on the premises of the cloud company.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#219

Post by int0x80 »

specialp wrote: post #102
dagi3d wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that sending email from EC2 instance was not allowed and only option was using their SES service.

You can send email from an EC2 instance but good luck getting anyone to accept it. A lot of email providers block EC2 wholesale, or if they do accept it you are going to have to have a long standing reputation.

This is not a god situation. So, EC2 are handy and flexible servers, but not really because some arbitrary internet services are banned, and in all of a sudden your whole setup depends on the cloud provider. Talk about tight coupling. We go backwards. This is really sad.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#220

Post by jxy »

I can't help but feel that this is something that Apple should do with their AirPort Time Capsule. Give user the choice of hosting their own iCloud instance on the AirPort Time Capsule. It feels like a great way of selling more hardwares.
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