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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)

#111

Post by colordrops »

formerly_proven wrote: post #105
fuzzy2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re living in a country with reasonably low levels of corruption and a somewhat functional judiciary, why not use your country’s TLD? It also helps when verbally relaying your mail address.

Also, you're familiar with whatever laws govern that TLD already, and your local registrars will be by most familiar with them when any issues come up and likely have the quickest turnaround for solving issues. I'd probably avoid using one of the huge registrars (because big companies invariably have poor and slow support that's unable to account for exceptional cases), and of course avoid resellers.

This all seems too vague. Is there no registrar making more specifc availability and stability guarantees backed by law or at least believable rationale? Or is there some technical solution that bypasses the entire registrar system altogether?

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

#112

Post by OkGoDoIt »

juniperplant wrote: post #109

Somewhat tangential, but I wonder where do people using their own domain draw the line. I personally use a "stable" firstname@lastname.com for supposedly trusted, long-term services (e.g. bank, utilities, etc.) and for services that require my identity for obvious reasons (e.g. shipping/billing address). For sites where I prefer not to reveal my identity (not even to the site operator), I use Fastmail’s Masked Email…

I also use firstbame@lastname.com for personal and professional communication. But for signing up for services, I have a custom domain name with a catchall email address. Then I register with something along the lines of servicename@mycustomdomain.com. All of those emails go to the same place. The only downside is sometimes a person I work with or whatever will go ahead and sign me up for some third-party service using my main first name last name email address, which is kind of annoying.

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

#113

Post by rekabis »

NavinF wrote: post #107
dusted wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run my own mail server as well, on my own domain, own server, physically present in my home. It's increasingly becoming a hassle.. Especially sending mail from a "consumer" line is tricky, they block outgoing port 25 and no longer really provide a relay host for you to go through either.. I basically had to infiltrate my current ISP to get access to people in netops and gaslight them into configuring reverse-dns an…

> Nation states absolutely should provide and host, e-mail accounts for their citizens Because nation states are well known for producing usable software at a reasonable cost to tax payers? IRL this would cost billions and everyone under 60 would forward their gov’t mail to gmail.

>Because nation states are well known for producing usable software at a reasonable cost to tax payers?

The largest transfer of public property into the hands of private enterprise in human history was the Internet. At that time it was wild and limitless and full of promise. It’s pretty much stagnated from there.

Just like scientific and medical research, tech research is the most effective and has the largest societal benefit when done at public universities on the taxpayer’s dime.

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

#114

Post by Grimburger »

gitgud wrote: post #64
greazy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish municipality offered domains, for example: you move to St Louis you would get name.stlouis.mo.us this would give you the same agency online that a mail address gets you offline. Australia kinda does this with their `.id.au` second level domains for 'Individuals (by real name or common alias)' Not many folks use it or know about it.

> Australia kinda does this with their `.id.au` Interesting, is there any links/documentation on this? Is it for every citizen or something?

https://www.auda.org.au/au-domain-names/domain-name-help/ida...

It costs more wholesale than a regular .com, requires handing over PII to a small company and isn't subject to the same price increase limits.

Obviously won't work for everyone but I bought .com instead and its 50% cheaper per year than the equivalent .id.au which should have maybe a few dozen other people in Australia vying for it with first/last name and I assume no one else with my middle names included.

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

#115

Post by ckcheng »

juniperplant wrote: post #109

Somewhat tangential, but I wonder where do people using their own domain draw the line. I personally use a "stable" firstname@lastname.com for supposedly trusted, long-term services (e.g. bank, utilities, etc.) and for services that require my identity for obvious reasons (e.g. shipping/billing address). For sites where I prefer not to reveal my identity (not even to the site operator), I use Fastmail’s Masked Email…

> Then there are those awkward in-person situations when somebody asks my email and I have to say firstname@lastname.com.

I suggest making up a domain name unrelated to your actual name exactly because of this.

Saying "homer@juniper plant.com" feels less awkward to me than saying "homer@homer simpson.com".

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

#116

Post by dariusm5 »

yonrg wrote: post #52
Shared404 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do this, and it's very nice to tell who lost/sold my email. Also it's funny to see people react to their business name being in my email :P .

Yes, I got once a discount because the phone agent thought I am a colleague :)

I've had a few occasions that employees thought I worked for the company based on my email.

On one occasion, I was checking into a Hilton hotel and the employee thought I worked for corporate due to my email, hilton@domain.tld.

In the past, I used to explain to them how I control the domain and I have separate emails for every company due to spam reasons. However, this usually caused confusion so now I sometimes go along with what they think or hint that I'm some 'mystery shopper'.

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

#117

Post by nine_k »

hamstergene wrote: post #46
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 o…

More than that, your spare email to control your main domain needs to be on a different domain, else you risk to be unable to solve any problems with your domain, because your email won't be accessible.

Ideally your domain registrar would allow to use a username, multiple emails, a phone number, and a 2FA not connected to any of them, like TOTP.

Managing this all is a tall order. This is why gmail and hotmail are so popular.

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

#118

Post by can16358p »

NavinF wrote: post #107
dusted wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run my own mail server as well, on my own domain, own server, physically present in my home. It's increasingly becoming a hassle.. Especially sending mail from a "consumer" line is tricky, they block outgoing port 25 and no longer really provide a relay host for you to go through either.. I basically had to infiltrate my current ISP to get access to people in netops and gaslight them into configuring reverse-dns an…

> Nation states absolutely should provide and host, e-mail accounts for their citizens Because nation states are well known for producing usable software at a reasonable cost to tax payers? IRL this would cost billions and everyone under 60 would forward their gov’t mail to gmail.

They might be forwarding their mail to Gmail but at least they can easily switch from Gmail to an alternative and theie identity isn't locked to using Google services this way.

Not perfect, but better than what we have today.

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

#119

Post by Iolaum »

Timshel wrote: post #104
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…

While less private if you have a domain instead of hosting youself you can delegate the handling to a mail provider. This way you retain the ability to seamlessly change mail provider. And you gain other benefits like infinit number of alias while requiring a low level of technical knowledge and maintenance.

Agreed. And Migadu has quite cheap plans and very good service during the two years that I use them. Not affiliated, just a happy customer.

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

#120

Post by sgjohnson »

Timshel wrote: post #94
ezoe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Big difference you can fransfer your domain to another registrar if you are unhappy with it.

Not always. Most nation-state NICs won't let you.
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