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Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

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Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#41

Post by somat »

deepdriver wrote: post #26
somat wrote: post #25

It is a bit overkill, but the closest you can get to owning your online identity is to "own" your own domain. sarcastiquotes used because you don't really own a domain you only rent it. I run my own mail server because I am a sys-admin and running a mail-server is something I do for fun. but the amount of agency you gain once you have a domain is staggering. people without a domain are pretty much second class net ci…

I think I have a good idea of what you mean, but for those who don't, could you elaborate on the benefits?

once you have a domain you now have the ability to own stuff online. that is, independent of any corporation. The main benefit this gives your average person is the ability to move email around between server providers. but you can now have a web presence that is not (facebook, twitter, hackernews). nothing against sites, they are fine, but it is nice to have an online existance that is independent of them.

Unfortunately the bar is a bit high for most to realize most of this. I miss the days when your isp would offer web, ftp and email hosting.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#42

Post by imgabe »

tommica wrote: post #32
somat wrote: post #25

It is a bit overkill, but the closest you can get to owning your online identity is to "own" your own domain. sarcastiquotes used because you don't really own a domain you only rent it. I run my own mail server because I am a sys-admin and running a mail-server is something I do for fun. but the amount of agency you gain once you have a domain is staggering. people without a domain are pretty much second class net ci…

What if you move to another place?

It will be like phone numbers where your area code for the rest of your life is wherever you lived when you first got a phone.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#43

Post by xedrac »

exolymph wrote: post #3

For me it's Fastmail with a side of Namecheap (or maybe vice versa). Thankfully I pay both companies, thus there's an incentive to keep me happy so I keep paying... In particular, Fastmail has real support staff, which provides at least a modicum of peace of mind.

I've been using the same setup for several years now. I purchased my own domain, and have Fastmail do all the email hosting for me. Super simple. I also forward my gmail to my custom domain email, because I was only able to transition about 95% of my various services to my new email.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#44

Post by somat »

tommica wrote: post #32
somat wrote: post #25

It is a bit overkill, but the closest you can get to owning your online identity is to "own" your own domain. sarcastiquotes used because you don't really own a domain you only rent it. I run my own mail server because I am a sys-admin and running a mail-server is something I do for fun. but the amount of agency you gain once you have a domain is staggering. people without a domain are pretty much second class net ci…

What if you move to another place?

just like mail you would have to get a new address. under my imaginary scheme if you wanted better you would pay for a domain. but everyone would always have a local address to use if you wanted to participate(not just consume) online.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#45

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

superchroma wrote: post #17
daenz wrote: post #7

State-funded email with E2EE. Every citizen gets an email address. You don't have to use it (and it will probably suck compared to competitors), but you'll have it as a permanent fallback address. And presumably it will come with some legal protections and due process.

Then conservatives win, sell off state assets to reduce government/patch a deficit and suddenly a private company is data mining anonymized emails for money again :(

As opposed to the progressives tracking everything you do, and suppressing/removing rights if you have wrongthink.

Don't believe me? Check out how many progressives said you shouldn't be able to participate in society if you didn't get the COVID vaccine.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#46

Post by hamstergene »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #9

Another solution that the article doesn't mention: separate the email address from the email provider. It really is the domain name that is your legal identity. Make it as easy for people to register a personal domain name as it is for them to sign up for free email so they can switch from Gmail to Hotmail to Protonmail without changing their email address. Edit: We then need a standard for discoverable DNS settings…

But what credentials do you use to log into the personal domain name provider, to manage it? Another email?

Unless there is state-guaranteed ownership of a domain name, this will remain to be chicken-and-egg problem: to manage a domain one needs an account with an email, and to have an independent email one needs a domain. Even then, moving between countries is normal now which poses a huge challenge to the concept of "online identity", because what one state guarantees is not necessarily what another recognizes.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#47

Post by ezoe »

somat wrote: post #25

It is a bit overkill, but the closest you can get to owning your online identity is to "own" your own domain. sarcastiquotes used because you don't really own a domain you only rent it. I run my own mail server because I am a sys-admin and running a mail-server is something I do for fun. but the amount of agency you gain once you have a domain is staggering. people without a domain are pretty much second class net ci…

How do you own a domain? If you rely on a registrar, it just move the identity owner from an email provider to a registrar.

Real overkill method is own a TLD. It's unrealistic for an individual though.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#48

Post by exodust »

irjustin wrote: post #4

This is largely true for myself as well. 1Password helps me and my family from going full in, but if I lost my gmail i would have a lot of problems. The recent discussion of CP flagging wreaking havoc[0] has caused us to start evaluating because we do have young children and we do take pictures for healthcare providers. Feels like a ticking time bomb for us. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-su…

Google stood by their decision even when the police cleared the man. Wow, that's hostile. Google's motto: Guilty until never.

The software Dad probably should have known better than to assign Google the task of handling that type of image. But still, that he lost his account when valid explanation provided is unforgivable.

I don't understand how people can ignore the big "eye" of Google and other tech giants, watching everything we do, treating everyone like a low-life suspect. Scanning our shit and forcing our content through a kind of twisted police line-up. I stopped using Google for anything personal years ago, but feel sorry for people caught up in their clumsy joke of a service.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#49

Post by TekMol »

The solution I hope for:

A crypto based toplevel domain like the Ethereum Name Service. But with a twist:

If I lose my private key, the domain is not lost, but locked for 3 months and nobody, not even the registry can move it. After the 3 months, if I stay "silent" and not confirm my ownership via my private key, the registry can move the domain.

The registry should have this process: During these 3 months, I have to start an expensive process at the registry to validate my identity and ownership of the domain. When completed successfully, the registry will move the domain to my new public key.

So the worst thing that could ever happen to my domain (and my emails under that domain) is that I end up in a situation that is normal for domains today: That the registry has control over it.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#50

Post by pa7ch »

daenz wrote: post #7

State-funded email with E2EE. Every citizen gets an email address. You don't have to use it (and it will probably suck compared to competitors), but you'll have it as a permanent fallback address. And presumably it will come with some legal protections and due process.

Also would be cool to have a distinguished (via UI) inbox for government only communications that can't be phished. This way people can access more government services online. And if there are any security problems they can be resolved by the DMV.
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