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Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

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Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#121

Post by peawee »

cyrus_ wrote: post #95
mseebach wrote: post #27

One point about privacy: E-mail is unencrypted and is delivered over public networks. Assume that any government, be it your own, US or other will read your email if they so please, and encrypt anything you don't want them to read.

This trumps all the other privacy arguments. If the government wants to read your email, it need not access it at the endpoints -- it already has access to it in transmission over the compromised backbone. You would need to encrypt your emails to avoid this.

Someone I know once told me crypto is funny because all you have to do is compromise the OS's socket implementation.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#122

Post by bwarp »

Drbble wrote: post #116
bwarp wrote: post #83

I took "the pragmatic UNIX way" about 15 years ago with email. It works. I've not had to change it and don't feel compelled to bother changing it. I host my own mail server. It's not hard regardless of the platform you use. I use debian+postfix+mutt as it pretty much works out of the box. I've changed perhaps two lines of postfix configuration (to set up maildir) and added a couple of lines to my muttrc to pick up ma…

If you email anyone ever, or use any ecommerce site, your email hits the spam databases when they are compromised.

That's never happened to me. Perhaps I use more reputable commerce sites (so far anyway).

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#124

Post by pyre »

davidw wrote: post #108
mike-cardwell wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really easy to install SpamAssassin and point your MTA at it. Even the default configuration is highly effective.

I did that, back in the day, but it just wasn't enough.

One could always mooch off of Gmail's spam filtering... Use SpamAssassin in conjunction with a gmail account that is only used as an attempt to attract as much spam as possible. Then just download the spam folder over IMAP and use it to teach SpamAssassin...

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#125

Post by furyofantares »

Email isn't secure and should not be treated as such. None of the author's suggestions change this. The only way to be sure private email communication is private is to use encryption and only communicate over email with others who will do so and will keep their system secure.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#126

Post by ohgodthecat »

klodolph wrote: post #72
mrschwabe wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for willing to pay for secure email.

So... why don't you buy something like Rackspace email, which costs $2/mo?

Because the minimum cost is $10/mo for Rackspace email.

I personally have switched between payed google apps for domains and fastmail (those are both $50/yr and under).

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#127

Post by pyre »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #33
pavel_lishin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. No open source webmail servers that I've seen come close to Gmail's functionality, and I don't have time to write one that is. Obligatory comment pointing out an opportunity for disruption, etc., why aren't we all millionaires., etc. etc.

The business model isn't there. I have yet to see a large group of consumers willing to pay for secure email and the only other alternative, advertising, leads to the exact same problem that you face with GMail.

  >  advertising, leads to the exact same problem
  > that you face with GMail.
Not necessarily. For some people that largest factor is that Gmail brings all of your email under US jurisdiction. It may be enough to just do advertising-funded Gmail clone that is solely based out of another jurisdiction.

You may even be able to convince non-US businesses that this is a better alternative.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#129

Post by pyre »

rdtsc wrote: post #85
Zirro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is another problem, US govt' need to get access all these messages." You're assuming the service has to be located within the US. Why?

It doesn't have to, but unless it is located in Iran, NK or other US-unfriendly place, US govt can always pressure the local govt to pressure the local business to turn things over. I wouldn't, for example, count on countries like Switzerland, US is already getting to its banks to turn over US accounts, and is supposed to be one of the most independent and un-influenced countries. With the current legislation trend,…

  > US govt can always pressure the local govt
That depends. In some places, the privacy laws are better than in the US. You would just have to choose wisely.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#130

Post by erikano »

jws wrote: post #31

1) Black listing - if someone in your IP neighborhood sends spam you can be silently blacklisted by Comcast, AOL, some random crazy zealots running a blacklist that other random people choose to use… et.al. and people stop getting your mail. Good luck getting unlisted. Wasted hours. Sometimes it's futile. 2) Spam filtering - If you are the sort of hacker that publishes their email address in order to interact with th…

I hosted my own e-mail on a VPS for a few months before going back to Google Hosted e-mail, mainly for the two reasons you list here. I do want to go back to hosting it myself though.
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