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Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

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Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#11

Post by sen »

necovek wrote: post #3

I've got a personal email server and an old gmail address from gmail-beta days. I've never used gmail itself (that model doesn't fit my mind), but O do use that Google account for some minor stuff. Unfortunazely, I've repeatedly gotten email targetted at someone else having same first name initial and same last name on gmail (address is in the form of FLastname@gmail.com). I've usually been able to get through to tho…

I have a very short gmail address from the beta days and get probably 5-10 emails a day addressed to accounts that absolutely aren’t mine, Eg my username then a dot and another word, or my username spelled differently. I don’t know why google thought fuzzy-matching emails was a smart idea, but it really isn’t. I’ve gotten a lot of very private information and direct login links to a lot of stuff. I also get countless people putting my email address as theirs, to the point where I’ve given up trying to fix it and just delete it instantly.

To even use that gmail address I need to basically whitelist senders and filter them into folders and ignore the inbox completely.

Gmail, like so many of Googles services these days, is an absolute mess. Features no one asked for, blatant spam that gets through their checks while your actual emails go to the spam folder, and a constantly degrading UI that seems to be an experiment in how much you can annoy the user.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#12

Post by 300bps »

h2odragon wrote: post #2

Could've said this in 2007. The wild west days of email, with bang paths and "store and pray" delivery systems, those were fun. By the time `sendmail.cf` hacking was no longer a necessary skill, email had become industrialized. Today, why would you even want to try routing internet email through an RBBS net to WWIV net to some hackers custom Amiga board? SMTP was the Ford Model T of electronic messaging. It slaughter…

I would’ve said email was deceptively complicated in 1996 when I set up qmail on Slackware Linux for my ISP clients.

I never linked it to WWIV though I was my area code coordinator for WWIVLink. That had to be around 1988 or 1989?

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#13

Post by [deleted] »

throw0101a wrote: post #8
nkrisc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you can stop it. I have to imagine that this woman doesn’t have an email address and just gives out what she thought was a fake one, since so many things require it. Otherwise, how could she not notice she never receives anything?

> Otherwise, how could she not notice she never receives anything? She may be getting it at f.lastname@gmail.com. I signed up for Gmail the first or second day it came out with first.last@gmail.com, but hardly ever log(ged) in over the years. A little while ago I did go into it and noticed getting a bunch of message to firstlast@gmail.com. Now Gmail allows for 'customized' addresses in that you can drop a period anyw…

[deleted]

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#14

Post by scandox »

upofadown wrote: post #4

Wait, is email spam still a thing? I only get a few spam a day and Spamassassin easily identifies them. I had assumed that the spammers had moved off to other mediums. Either that or they are specifically targeting big servers like Gmail and are leaving the smaller servers, with their varied (artisanal) anti-spam approaches alone.

A lot of it is luck. You can go years not seeing much of the really malicious spam and then one day you're on the list and you'll find yourself being bombarded with stuff Spamassassin doesn't touch.

Especially if your organization is a potential financial target.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#15

Post by jacob019 »

rwmj wrote: post #9

I run my own email server and it's not so bad. gmail is obviously the most troublesome "peer" - if it wasn't for the fact I need to communicate with some gmail users regularly then I'd just cut gmail off. You have to set some headers and DNS stuff, having a static IP helps, and obviously not allowing that IP to send spam too. Largely it works fine.

I do too, gmail is not a problem at all, but I have had the same static IP on AWS for about a decade, reverse DNS is mandatory for deliverability. My problem with Gmail is it is difficult to filter SPAM coming from their servers.

My biggest problem with mail delivery is sending mail to Microsoft properties. I've had to resort to sending those messages via SES.

Open source webmail solutions suck, so now I'm paying fastmail and forwarding incoming messages there.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#16

Post by h2odragon »

300bps wrote: post #12
h2odragon wrote: post #2

Could've said this in 2007. The wild west days of email, with bang paths and "store and pray" delivery systems, those were fun. By the time `sendmail.cf` hacking was no longer a necessary skill, email had become industrialized. Today, why would you even want to try routing internet email through an RBBS net to WWIV net to some hackers custom Amiga board? SMTP was the Ford Model T of electronic messaging. It slaughter…

I would’ve said email was deceptively complicated in 1996 when I set up qmail on Slackware Linux for my ISP clients. I never linked it to WWIV though I was my area code coordinator for WWIVLink. That had to be around 1988 or 1989?

the time frame sounds about right, yes.

It was wilder before that, think "B news" times.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#17

Post by multjoy »

necovek wrote: post #3

I've got a personal email server and an old gmail address from gmail-beta days. I've never used gmail itself (that model doesn't fit my mind), but O do use that Google account for some minor stuff. Unfortunazely, I've repeatedly gotten email targetted at someone else having same first name initial and same last name on gmail (address is in the form of FLastname@gmail.com). I've usually been able to get through to tho…

>Unfortunazely, I've repeatedly gotten email targetted at someone else having same first name initial and same last name on gmail (address is in the form of FLastname@gmail.com).

That's a user problem, not a technical one. (there is, of course, an XKCD for that).

I've got a popular initials/surname combo and I have a number of doppelgängers giving it out. The one I feel most sorry for is the trumpist and his scary NRA/pro-gun mail. It's really fierce stuff, I'm glad it's going into my spam folder rather than in front of a real human!

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#18

Post by beebeepka »

rmdes wrote: post #6

Someone should try "artisanal email server" using cloudron or yunohost ! the bigger problem is that "authoritative" email monopolies such as Gmail, 365 and the other big ones arbitrarily define and impose what is a legit email server or not and even with better score than gmail an "artisanal" email server can suffer from being classified into spam by the big tech players just because they can and will do anything to…

Indeed. Only that's not the bigger problem. It is the actual problem with email.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#19

Post by gbuk2013 »

jacob019 wrote: post #15
rwmj wrote: post #9

I run my own email server and it's not so bad. gmail is obviously the most troublesome "peer" - if it wasn't for the fact I need to communicate with some gmail users regularly then I'd just cut gmail off. You have to set some headers and DNS stuff, having a static IP helps, and obviously not allowing that IP to send spam too. Largely it works fine.

I do too, gmail is not a problem at all, but I have had the same static IP on AWS for about a decade, reverse DNS is mandatory for deliverability. My problem with Gmail is it is difficult to filter SPAM coming from their servers. My biggest problem with mail delivery is sending mail to Microsoft properties. I've had to resort to sending those messages via SES. Open source webmail solutions suck, so now I'm paying fas…

Also run my one server for years without too much trouble. Hotmail is the one giving me the most hassle - for some reason they periodically block my IP address for apparently belonging to an ASN they block … except it belongs to an entirely different ASN. My provider (RamNode) say they’ve been trying to get someone there for years to fix their system but didn’t help, so I just fill in their unblock form now and again.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#20

Post by lixtra »

> … general security will not be as good as they have.

> Entirely "on premise" email is now an inferior thing for almost everyone.

I disagree on this one. Placing your email with a big player means that by definition, they have access to your mailbox (with sensitive stuff hopefully encrypted). To allow that you have to trust the big player and the countries where they reside.

They can drop you any time for political reasons, for dealing with a country that is considered an enemy of the host country of your provider. They may sell out your data.

You may still choose a big player, but understand how screwed you are.

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