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Helm: Personal Email Server

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Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#251

Post by TrueDuality »

openbasic wrote: post #234
TrueDuality wrote: post #225

You mention that you use a hardened Linux OS, but you don't discuss any of the other opensource software that you use. While you technically only have to distribute the sources to the people that receive your hardware, it would be nice to know these kinds of things before purchasing. This is a niche market you're marketing to that has a history of researching these kinds of things. Are you using a custom distro or on…

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/files.thehelm.com/legal/H...

Thanks, I'll dig through this and post answers to my questions so others don't have to.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#252

Post by garry »

yingbo wrote: post #118

I always own my email. The title itself is misleading and decreases my trust to the Helm.

Well the point is that if you trust a cloud provider, you don't own your email because Google owns it too. They have it all, in plaintext.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#253

Post by gsreenivas »

TrueDuality wrote: post #225

You mention that you use a hardened Linux OS, but you don't discuss any of the other opensource software that you use. While you technically only have to distribute the sources to the people that receive your hardware, it would be nice to know these kinds of things before purchasing. This is a niche market you're marketing to that has a history of researching these kinds of things. Are you using a custom distro or on…

Hi TrueDuality - Giri Sreenivas, co-founder and CEO of Helm here.

We will be publishing more details to answer your questions in depth in a series of coming posts. I'll give you some quick answers right now.

We use Yocto to spin our own Linux build. Key projects we utilize: OpenLDAP Postfix Dovecot Darwin Calendar and Contacts Certbot OpenDMARC OpenDKIM OpenSSL Python SPF Policy Sieve SpamAssassin Duplicity StrongSwan Docker

We're using duplicity for backups. So you can use it to decrypt backups as you will have the keys as well. Backups are stored on a service we run using S3 and will always be accessible for the user even if something happens to the company.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#254

Post by garry »

paraditedc wrote: post #241

I read the whole tech page and some of the comments here. I might be willing to pay for this service, but not in its current form. I wouldn't want to spend 500USD on a proprietary hardware in addition to paying a subscription fee. What needs to happen to convince me to pay: Open up the hardware component as a platform for anyone to extend (allowing direct ssh, or using my own hardware). It's fine to not open source t…

This is extremely valuable feedback and worth strongly considering.

When the iPhone came out, it didn't support apps - just built-in features like Mail and Mobile Safari. I agree with you that an app store for Helm could be valuable.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#255

Post by latentpot »

garry wrote: post #237
rntz wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Stolen? The data is secure - keys are stored in secure enclave, and storage is encrypted. Down? There's continuity of service if you have a 2nd box online, and it's as easy to restore from a live backup as an iPhone from iCloud. Email is the first app, and there will be more.

Why do I need to buy a physical box? Cant they give me a dedicated EC2 Micro instance instead? Solve the ISP issue, and the speed/ connectivity/ power etc?

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#256

Post by gsreenivas »

paraditedc wrote: post #241

I read the whole tech page and some of the comments here. I might be willing to pay for this service, but not in its current form. I wouldn't want to spend 500USD on a proprietary hardware in addition to paying a subscription fee. What needs to happen to convince me to pay: Open up the hardware component as a platform for anyone to extend (allowing direct ssh, or using my own hardware). It's fine to not open source t…

Hey paraditedc - thanks for your feedback. We will be launching a developer program next year. We are very interested in a community of people like you hacking on Helm to build new services/features.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#257

Post by FunnyLookinHat »

cwyers wrote: post #114
garry wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because with Helm only you hold the encryption keys.

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?

You're right. It's because devices / IOT make more sales than completely open source software - e.g. it's more valuable to invest in.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#258

Post by gambler »

rntz wrote: post #201
garry wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you absolutely here. Yes, literally Helm does this: encrypted automatic backups.

You say Helm literally does this. But what the grandparent was asking for wasn't just backups. They suggest (as I see it) an open standard for backups, ubiquitously implemented so it's easy to switch your provider and easy to set up new devices. Does Helm use one of those? I suspect not, because I don't know of any such ubiquitously implemented open standard for automatic encrypted backups. So: is Helm going to put i…

>I don't know of any such ubiquitously implemented open standard for automatic encrypted backups

Here is a question for the parent poster and anyone else. Do you think it would be worthwhile to gather some people and try to design such open protocol? Without having an implementation first? Or would that be just a waste of everyone's time?

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#259

Post by sjs382 »

gsreenivas wrote: post #230
sjs382 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could run a managed cloud e-mail service where only the users hold the encryption keys, too. How is this a hardware problem? This is the key question, in my mind. There's only one reason I'd want to own the hardware—to manage/add/create my own services and handle my own backups because I don't trust a company's involvement in these[0]. If this is so tightly controlled that I can't add my own services and I can'…

We use duplicity for backups so there's nothing proprietary in our approach. There will be more transparency coming in a series of technical posts about how the product works, what open source software we use, etc. Appreciate the feedback - we'll keep this in mind as we move forward.

I understand that this is a new product launch and you can't have all answers to all questions front-and-center on the website on day one. With that in mind, kudos to you and garry for being so active in these threads.

I definitely look forward to these posts!

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#260

Post by lvh »

garry wrote: post #243
lvh wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't debating your point; I was pointing out how this service accomplishes it without tripping over that problem. FWIW: I'm not sure that's actually how it works.

The device talks to an AWS EC2 proxy IP that Helm makes sure isn't on an IP blacklist. All traffic that goes through that is TLS encrypted using Lets Encrypt keys.

Like Spamhaus?

Elsewhere in the thread, Giri says it uses a VPN connection. Is it TLS + something else?

helm.garrytan.com:3333 for example responds with a self-signed localhost cert, not LE keys. IMAPS (still not sure why that’s there but I asked that in a different comment so let's have that thread there) and 8443 do answer with LE though :)

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