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Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

schneier.com

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Re: Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

#71

Post by jbapple »

adnam wrote: post #12
pragmatic wrote: post #5

Could anyone recommend a hosted email service that does not allow spying on users? Alternatively I wonder what Bruce Schneier recommends? Do you have to host your own email server?

Yes: sdf.lonestar.org. Been running since 1987.

I had a sdf.lonestar.org account. Once, when their mail servers appeared to me to be down for a day, I asked on the discussion forums if I was the only one experiencing problems. The site administrator posted a response right away on the forums.

He told me to stop whining, then explained to everyone that I received too many emails per day. (I was receiving Not only would I not trust SDF not to leak the content of your emails to unauthorized parties, I would not trust SDF not to simply read your emails for shits and giggles, or leak their contents in order to teach you a lesson for asking rude, nosy questions like, "Hey, is anyone else having problems with the mail server?"

Re: Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

#72

Post by windsurfer »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #48
beagle3 wrote: post #36

Some people on this discussion mention that they simply run their own mail servers -- that's dandy for incoming mail. But how do you guys make sure your outgoing mail is not blacklisted/ignored/considered spam? That's been a non trivial problem for me in the past when I was running a mail server (and spam was not such a big problem back then). Also, is there any mail server you can run/recommend that has gmail-speedy…

I use a mail server stack that includes Postfix + Dovecot + RoundCube; RoundCube's search function isn't as good as Gmail's, but the ability to filter messages by literally any part of the message content just blows Gmail's tagging out of the water, IMO. (You need managesieve + a plugin for RoundCube to do this.) I so far haven't had the mail server blacklisted even once since I started using it 18 months ago. I have…

Hear hear! I use a similar set up, and it truly is great. It's even caused me to seriously consider a service that sets up a Linode for people that wants something as awesome.

Re: Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

#74

Post by jackowayed »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #48
beagle3 wrote: post #36

Some people on this discussion mention that they simply run their own mail servers -- that's dandy for incoming mail. But how do you guys make sure your outgoing mail is not blacklisted/ignored/considered spam? That's been a non trivial problem for me in the past when I was running a mail server (and spam was not such a big problem back then). Also, is there any mail server you can run/recommend that has gmail-speedy…

I use a mail server stack that includes Postfix + Dovecot + RoundCube; RoundCube's search function isn't as good as Gmail's, but the ability to filter messages by literally any part of the message content just blows Gmail's tagging out of the water, IMO. (You need managesieve + a plugin for RoundCube to do this.) I so far haven't had the mail server blacklisted even once since I started using it 18 months ago. I have…

How are your backups? And what happens if it goes down for a few hours? Would you not get that mail?

Re: Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

#75

Post by ars »

jackowayed wrote: post #74
thaumaturgy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a mail server stack that includes Postfix + Dovecot + RoundCube; RoundCube's search function isn't as good as Gmail's, but the ability to filter messages by literally any part of the message content just blows Gmail's tagging out of the water, IMO. (You need managesieve + a plugin for RoundCube to do this.) I so far haven't had the mail server blacklisted even once since I started using it 18 months ago. I have…

How are your backups? And what happens if it goes down for a few hours? Would you not get that mail?

The sending mailserver will (usually) keep trying to send the email for 5 days.

Re: Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

#76

Post by pilif »

forwardslash wrote: post #35
pragmatic wrote: post #5

Could anyone recommend a hosted email service that does not allow spying on users? Alternatively I wonder what Bruce Schneier recommends? Do you have to host your own email server?

A good bet might be a Swiss hosted e-mail service such as Neomailbox which is what I use. Lavabit is another one which might be what you're looking for.

Living in Switzerland and knowing the laws, I would strongly recommend against that: since 2000 we have a law that forces all email providers to hand out communication logs to the authorities and to retain them for at least 6 months.

Granted: that's not the message contents, but it's bad enough. Also, from my experience I can tell you that the authorities do make use of this law even if it's just to track down a student anonymously badmouthing their teacher.

No. Stay away from Switzerland if you want your correspondence to be hidden.

Re: Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

#77

Post by thaumaturgy »

jackowayed wrote: post #74
thaumaturgy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a mail server stack that includes Postfix + Dovecot + RoundCube; RoundCube's search function isn't as good as Gmail's, but the ability to filter messages by literally any part of the message content just blows Gmail's tagging out of the water, IMO. (You need managesieve + a plugin for RoundCube to do this.) I so far haven't had the mail server blacklisted even once since I started using it 18 months ago. I have…

How are your backups? And what happens if it goes down for a few hours? Would you not get that mail?

> How are your backups?

A server in another data center does differentials of the entire mail server every hour on the hour, and weekly fulls. Differentials are stored for 14 days and weeklies are stored for 120 days. If a customer accidentally deletes an individual message, we can probably restore it; if a customer nukes their entire mailbox, we can restore it.

> And what happens if it goes down for a few hours? Would you not get that mail?

SMTP servers by convention are supposed to retry for at least a day if the destination server is down. A few miscreants (ahem Washington Mutual...) don't retry at all though.

Worst-case scenario, I can have another mail server up and running in 20 to 30 minutes, with most of the mailboxes restored to it. Since I also admin our own name servers, and I keep a short TTL, we could update the DNS for the mail server and have most mail services back online for most customers pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, true fail-over mail services is a challenging nut to crack, especially if you want duplication between distant data centers.

Re: Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

#78

Post by thaumaturgy »

windsurfer wrote: post #72
thaumaturgy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a mail server stack that includes Postfix + Dovecot + RoundCube; RoundCube's search function isn't as good as Gmail's, but the ability to filter messages by literally any part of the message content just blows Gmail's tagging out of the water, IMO. (You need managesieve + a plugin for RoundCube to do this.) I so far haven't had the mail server blacklisted even once since I started using it 18 months ago. I have…

Hear hear! I use a similar set up, and it truly is great. It's even caused me to seriously consider a service that sets up a Linode for people that wants something as awesome.

Yeah, I've been sorely tempted to make a Stackscript for this setup and make it public.

There are two downsides: it's at least $20 a month to do it, and having your own mail server really isn't quite a set-it-and-forget-it deal. It requires an amount of attention that wouldn't make sense for a lot of people (or businesses).

Re: Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

#79

Post by mziulu »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #78
windsurfer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear hear! I use a similar set up, and it truly is great. It's even caused me to seriously consider a service that sets up a Linode for people that wants something as awesome.

Yeah, I've been sorely tempted to make a Stackscript for this setup and make it public. There are two downsides: it's at least $20 a month to do it, and having your own mail server really isn't quite a set-it-and-forget-it deal. It requires an amount of attention that wouldn't make sense for a lot of people (or businesses).

Still, there might be considerable interest in at least some tutorial blog posts ;-) Consider this a subtle request :-) I've been toying with this idea for a while, but haven't really started looking into it seriously, mainly because, as you said, at least at a cursory glance there are not a lot of in-depth and accurate resources for setting up a mail server with security in mind.

Re: Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

#80

Post by hoggle »

windsurfer wrote: post #72
thaumaturgy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a mail server stack that includes Postfix + Dovecot + RoundCube; RoundCube's search function isn't as good as Gmail's, but the ability to filter messages by literally any part of the message content just blows Gmail's tagging out of the water, IMO. (You need managesieve + a plugin for RoundCube to do this.) I so far haven't had the mail server blacklisted even once since I started using it 18 months ago. I have…

Hear hear! I use a similar set up, and it truly is great. It's even caused me to seriously consider a service that sets up a Linode for people that wants something as awesome.

Please do!

I think something like this could be valuable to a lot of small to medium companies who atm can't resist subscribing to Google Apps (50,- per user you could have instead). I think with a service like that, the main goal would be to stay as simple as possible while still offering the "Exchange" integration with people's current infrastructure.

I would do the user side web frontend last and concentrate on a simple but empowering foundation plus administration interface first.

Clearly with the PSN breach and all the bad press Google, Apple & Co. are getting with location/mobile I can see a shift in people's minds towards more privacy and security similar to when people started to get used to anti-virus/firewall software.

2011 - Devops galore.

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