Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
en.andros.dev
Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
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Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#2> First-contact consent: an unknown sender doesn't get into the mailbox; they land in a "requests" box with their first message visible (like Signal's message requests). You accept, and the thread opens forever. A stranger can knock on your door, which is the essential property of mail, but they can't fill up your living room.
I like this.
Question: can this e-mail specification/implementation also replace direct-messaging protocols (like WhatsApp)?
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#3> First-contact consent: an unknown sender doesn't get into the mailbox; they land in a "requests" box with their first message visible (like Signal's message requests). You accept, and the thread opens forever. A stranger can knock on your door, which is the essential property of mail, but they can't fill up your living room. I like this. Question: can this e-mail specification/implementation also replace direct-mes…
Is there any reason they shouldn't be the same?
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#4> First-contact consent: an unknown sender doesn't get into the mailbox; they land in a "requests" box with their first message visible (like Signal's message requests). You accept, and the thread opens forever. A stranger can knock on your door, which is the essential property of mail, but they can't fill up your living room. I like this. Question: can this e-mail specification/implementation also replace direct-mes…
This is the way hey.com operates. It's nice.
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#5I'm very excited by this idea. I feel like email/chat is ripe for reinvention.
I don't agree with "Domain control as a fallback", as the author said "a domain is not owned, it is rented" and I want to normalise the idea that if you lose your private key, you need to start again. I hate that we keep giving so much authority to domains, it's such a big weakness. The author even left the key rotation chain out of the initial implementation.
I still think root/signer keys or sigchains are decent options.
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#6I think the network effects make email hard to replace, virtually everyone online has an email address. If this could include a migration path, with backwards compatibility with SMTP, I think it would have a better shot of getting adoption.
Modern email already depends on HTTP, with protocols like MTA-STS (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8461/) using HTTPS/TLS to improve transit encryption, or Web Key Directory (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-koch-openpgp-webkey-s...) which uses HTTP for public key distribution. Personally I think these incremental improvements of SMTP are more promising than replacements, but we deserve better email however we can build it.
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#7> Optional postage for strangers: the server can answer a first contact with a 402. Configurable per mailbox; the cost of cold spamming stops being zero.
Interesting take re putting a cost on spam. Perhaps another take would be functionally implementing introductions.
> First-contact consent: an unknown sender doesn't get into the mailbox; they land in a "requests" box with their first message visible (like Signal's message requests). You accept, and the thread opens forever. A stranger can knock on your door, which is the essential property of mail, but they can't fill up your living room.
Unfortunately, this will only move the problem, and only reduce it in the case when all outside communication is ignored.
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#8> First-contact consent: an unknown sender doesn't get into the mailbox; they land in a "requests" box with their first message visible (like Signal's message requests). You accept, and the thread opens forever. A stranger can knock on your door, which is the essential property of mail, but they can't fill up your living room. I like this. Question: can this e-mail specification/implementation also replace direct-mes…
> I like this.
Honestly, I'd want this as a default. I wonder if a mailserver can be configure like this. Doesn't sound too hard, does it?
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#9still better than CoI
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#10Content-addressed email breaks mailing lists, as those need to be able to add headers for subscribe/unsubscribe/list id, etc. There is a reason DKIM allows you to pick which headers to sign.