How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers • Hacker News Board

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#131

Post by im3w1l » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 5:18 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #76

bosch wrote: post #41

People who do this are really annoying and have no concepts of separating business and personal life. If you don't mix business with pleasure then why are you doing it with your e-mail? How hard is it to check two accounts or have two accounts setup on your phone? There are some lines where business and personal shouldn't cross and e-mail is one of them. How does the appearance look? You send e-mail to foo@business.c…

> How does the appearance look? You send e-mail to foo@business.com and then funkyjizzbeats20@gmail.com replies to you! What could be more professional than that? If you configure your GMail account correctly, it will reply via the other account's own SMTP servers. There will be no evidence of your private GMail account, even in the headers. (This is not the same thing as just configuring GMail to set a particular "F…

How would I make gmail use the smtp servers?

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#132

Post by ams6110 » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 5:24 PM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #79

ars wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. It should either send the email to the recipient or return it to sender. But it should never just drop the message (except for bounces which can be dropped since there is nowhere to send them if delivery fails).

I think you and the parent are using different meanings of "guarantee." Yes, everything in the protocol leads to the fact that nothing should drop an email unless it has passed responsibility of it to another server which has accepted the message. In practice, lots of times things don't work.

Yes, one misconfigured server between source and destination can "eat" email and you'll never be the wiser. Doesn't happen often, but it can and the protocol does not detect it.

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#133

Post by im3w1l » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 5:28 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #117

prodigal_erik wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some, maybe all, of those words used to be diagnoses of intellectual disabilities. I don't think laymen distinguish them much at all; I was never taught to do so. If the goal is to deter everyone from showing contempt for lack of intelligence (though I don't think that's going to happen) I don't see another word with the same connotation as progress. Am I overlooking something?

The goal is not to deter people from showing contempt for lack of intelligent action. (Unless that contempt is for someone who lacks intelligence because of a disability). When someone does something stupid it is fine to call them stupid. The goal is to ask people to consider using words that are not recently (even currently) used for learning disabilities. Retard has strong links with learning disabilities. Enough t…

What is the difference between being retarded due to a disability, and being stupid due to genetics?

Is it just a difference of degrees? I mean both are cases of "factor outside of individuals control -> (extremely) low intelligence"

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#134

Post by phpnode » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 6:53 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #117

prodigal_erik wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some, maybe all, of those words used to be diagnoses of intellectual disabilities. I don't think laymen distinguish them much at all; I was never taught to do so. If the goal is to deter everyone from showing contempt for lack of intelligence (though I don't think that's going to happen) I don't see another word with the same connotation as progress. Am I overlooking something?

The goal is not to deter people from showing contempt for lack of intelligent action. (Unless that contempt is for someone who lacks intelligence because of a disability). When someone does something stupid it is fine to call them stupid. The goal is to ask people to consider using words that are not recently (even currently) used for learning disabilities. Retard has strong links with learning disabilities. Enough t…

The only reason words like "moron" are no longer deemed grossly offensive is precisely because people started using those words to describe things other than their literal meanings and over time their impact as slurs and insults has been reduced, and this is exactly what has happened with the word retarded. For probably the majority of the English speaking world the word has already reached this watered down status. Languages evolve, meanings change, sometimes rapidly, any attempt to regulate it will fail.

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#135

Post by overbroad » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:57 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #121

overbroad wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta love that Spamhaus logic. Spammers use cheap dynamic IP's therefore anyone with a cheap dynamic IP that sends an email is a spammer. Is it cheaper for you to get a static IP from a VPS than from your ISP?

"Spammers use cheap dynamic IP's therefore anyone with a cheap dynamic IP that sends an email is a spammer." That's not what they're saying. "Very many spam emails come from people running an email server on a dynamic IP. Some companies were happy to host spam sending companies, and would put them in dynamic ranges so they could continue to get money from those spam sending companies and keep changing the IP address.…

What they're doing is making a very dodgey assumption. They might stop a few hundred potential spammers but they also stop millions of people who could potentially be using email more effiently and reliably (and Spam Free) by sending and/or receiving mail directly between their machines.

Email could be even more decentralized than it already is in practice. This could potentially make spam far more difficult.

Reading that quote (from SpamHaus?) two things come to mind:

1. We are entrusting the rules on our mail delivery to someone who begins sentences with "Very many" and lacks the attention to detail to spell "reasonable" correctly. Make of that what you will.

2. The "problem" is not the existence of "bad email servers" on dynamic IP's, it is the lack of "good email servers" on dynamic IP's. Why the heck aren't the millions of people on dynamic IP's using this capability? Answer: They do not know it exists.

To "replace email", we do not necessarily need to fundamentally change anything about how email works. What we need to do, perhaps, is replace the people controlling it and instruct "good" people how it works. As it stands, in general, the only folks who understand how email works are a. email providers (e.g. ISP's), b. spammers and c. spam fighters.

If the vast majority of email sent directly to recipients from dynamic IP's was low volume and noncommercial, the "bad apples" would be overshadowed by the good ones. And so would the anti-spam zealots be overshadowed by reasonable people who just want to communicate with each other (not necessarily trying to sell ED treatments to the whole of humanity).

Education is the way forward. People arguing against any sort of consumer education on something so basic as internet messaging are an interesting spectacle to behold. Their attitude should fuel the fire of anyone working on this "dangerous idea" of "replacing email". You know who you are.

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#136

Post by overbroad » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 8:20 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #118

overbroad wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that is a smart idea? To black list entire netblocks? I mean, can we assume that every person using EC2 for email is sending spam? It would seem to degrade the usefulness of EC2 for anyone wanting to run their own mailserver.

> It would seem to degrade the usefulness of EC2 for anyone wanting to run their own mailserver. People chose whether or not to use a block list. Thus your problem isn't really with the person creating the list, but with the mail admin choosing to use that list to filter email. That person feels it works for them. Very few people should run their own mail server. Email is, now, toxic. Spammers pretty much destroyed e…

Spammers destroyed an open email system that relies on a centrally controlled DNS. Probably because they were among the only ones who learned how email works. We never made the effort to teach the population at large, preferring instead to let email be centralized via "email providers". And now, after decades of spam, we still have people who argue it is the best, or even the only, way to do things.

Spammers did not destroy the protocol or well-designed email servers and clients.

"Very few people should run their own email server"

That mindset is why we have a problem, in my opinion. We have actively tried to prevent people from learning.

The history of block lists is a history of the failure of the "email provider" (i.e. "very few people should run email servers") idea. Of course, anti-spam is a career for some people, so "failure" is relative. They've succeeded in trying to exert control over a common internet capability, for profit.

The internet began as peer-to-peer. There was no "DNS". And there were no "email providers". Everyone had a responsibility to learn how to use the network and the basic services it could provide e.g. messaging. Then some people got some bright ideas about how to make money. "Spammers" were not the first ones.

Enjoy that spam in you inbox. It is the product of ignorance.

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#137

Post by overbroad » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 9:24 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #120

overbroad wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Alice and Bob agree to run their own SMTP daemons, closed to the public and not necessarily on port 25, and they each agree to put the other on their "whitelist", how is this functionally different from the current third party controlled system? Answer: 1. Immediate delivery, assuming Bob and Alice keep their machines online. 2. No spam. 3. No third parties exerting control over their mail. No idiosyncratic delive…

White listing a single IP address is the functional equivalent of block listing the rest of the Internet? You claim it's not a closed ecosystem, but it appears to be totally closed and locked off. The only way to get access to it is to be invited in. > The point is that if someone wants a better solution than what "email providers" offer, she can get it. Not if they want email.

Where did I claim it's not a closed ecosystem?

It's starts closed and it is opened by invitation. Yep. That is exactly how it works.

If you cannot understand that approach, then that just means it's not how you think. It does not mean that the approach makes no sense or has zero utility.

Maybe a stupid analogy can be made if we pretend "Facebook" is the internet (of course it's not, but it does present a messaging system so play along for a moment). On the one hand you could make every Facebook user your "friend" and thus able them to send you messages, and then when people abused that privilege - and we know from experience some would - you could block them. On the other hand, you could only make a select number of people who you know and trust your "friends" and thus only give a select number of people the privilege to send you messages. Chances are, they won't try to sell you Viagra.

On the one hand there are times you may want to enable the entire network to be able to send you messages. On the other, there are times you may only want to allow a small subset to send you messages. Not sure about you, but I don't receive important email from all that many different people. People's social circles are only so big. There is a certain carrying capacity beyond which it becomes unmanageable.

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#138

Post by overbroad » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 10:05 PM UTC

doesnt_know wrote: post #116

overbroad wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Alice and Bob agree to run their own SMTP daemons, closed to the public and not necessarily on port 25, and they each agree to put the other on their "whitelist", how is this functionally different from the current third party controlled system? Answer: 1. Immediate delivery, assuming Bob and Alice keep their machines online. 2. No spam. 3. No third parties exerting control over their mail. No idiosyncratic delive…

Your proposed solution isn't really email though. What you are describing has already been solved by instant messaging/jabber/twitter/facebook PM etc. Some of the solutions that already exist need a third part provider, others don't. The problem to solve is how do you have a fixed address where anyone can contact you, spam doesn't get though and you don't have to maintain personal black/white lists. This is what emai…

Yes, you defined the problem in the opening sentence of your second paragraph. But I disagree that you should not have to maintain a whitelist. What are your email contacts i.e. what is your email address book? You already maintain a list of people you correspond with, whether you think of it that way or not. And when you want to correspond with someone new, you have to give them your email address. As it stands, there is no _reliable_ way for them to look it up. There is no worldwide directory of email addresses. In fact, what do we do? We try to hide lists of email addresses.

If everyone had a fixed address with a mail server running, "lookup" i.e. simple MX lookup, might be possible, e.g. if your IP address is 1.2.3.4, anyone could send mail to inquiries@[1.2.3.4] or something like that. But I'm not sure that alone really solves the problem.

Email still works without a worldwide directory. People exchange email addresses and they keep lists of them known as address books.

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#139

Post by DanBC » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 12:52 AM UTC

overbroad wrote: post #135

DanBC wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Spammers use cheap dynamic IP's therefore anyone with a cheap dynamic IP that sends an email is a spammer." That's not what they're saying. "Very many spam emails come from people running an email server on a dynamic IP. Some companies were happy to host spam sending companies, and would put them in dynamic ranges so they could continue to get money from those spam sending companies and keep changing the IP address.…

What they're doing is making a very dodgey assumption. They might stop a few hundred potential spammers but they also stop millions of people who could potentially be using email more effiently and reliably (and Spam Free) by sending and/or receiving mail directly between their machines. Email could be even more decentralized than it already is in practice. This could potentially make spam far more difficult. Reading…

Your position is baffling.

It's not a quote from spamhaus. It's me re-wording your text.

> Why the heck aren't the millions of people on dynamic IP's using this capability? Answer: They do not know it exists.

No. Millions of people have no interest in running their own email server. What benefit do most people get from running their own server? (Where most people are those who have one or two email addresses, which they use for a couple of hundred contacts.) What benefit do small businesses get from running their own email server, rather than paying someone else to host the server?

> If the vast majority of email sent directly to recipients from dynamic IP's was low volume and noncommercial, the "bad apples" would be overshadowed by the good ones.

You clearly have no idea just how many spam emails were being sent. Something like 90% - 95% of all email was UBE. Much of this was sent from botnetted machines, and many of those would have been on dynamic IPs.

> anti-spam zealots

Conversation is fruitless if you attack the people who have the same aims as you.

> People arguing against any sort of consumer education on something so basic as internet messaging are an interesting spectacle to behold

But you're not suggesting to educate people on internet messaging. You're suggesting that people are educated on installing and maintaining a mail server.

Re: How to use Gmail to destroy your relationship with your investors and customers

#140

Post by DanBC » Mon, Oct 08, 2012, 1:06 AM UTC

overbroad wrote: post #137

DanBC wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White listing a single IP address is the functional equivalent of block listing the rest of the Internet? You claim it's not a closed ecosystem, but it appears to be totally closed and locked off. The only way to get access to it is to be invited in. > The point is that if someone wants a better solution than what "email providers" offer, she can get it. Not if they want email.

Where did I claim it's not a closed ecosystem? It's starts closed and it is opened by invitation. Yep. That is exactly how it works. If you cannot understand that approach, then that just means it's not how you think. It does not mean that the approach makes no sense or has zero utility. Maybe a stupid analogy can be made if we pretend "Facebook" is the internet (of course it's not, but it does present a messaging sy…

Your posts contain a baffling mix of incompatible ideas.

You argue against block listing, but then suggest blocking the entire Internet except the few people you want to send you email.

You say that only people who you have given your email address to should be able to send you email, and then you say there should be a lookup system to get email addresses. (But what's the point of the email directory system if you can't send email to someone because they haven't white listed you yet?)

> but I don't receive important email from all that many different people.

Eh, depending what you mean by "important" I do receive a lot of important email from lots of different people. My email addresses have been used on the public Internet for many years, and I've had a lot of communication to those email addresses, and those communications have brought me great joy. And I also have a variety of people who email me about work related stuff - I won't have prior knowledge of those people.

I think I'm missing something about your system. Please, is it something that you already have well planed out? (Even if not in a state that can be deployed yet) Or is this something that you've just started thinking about?

So long as you're not suggesting Challenge Response we can have a discussion about it.