Asymmetric signature generation has been a solved problem for more than a quarter of a century. So are distributed hash tables. I can't believe email hasn't been replaced. My take on it is to follow the money. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have a vested interest in being the only big identity providers along probably with some 3 letters agencies.
Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
81–90 of 165 posts
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends how it's designed. I've been doing something similar for almost a decade. If I get an email from a non-whitelisted person, they get an auto reply asking them to go through a simple hoop. Once they do that, the email lands in my inbox. Yes, many people go through that hoop! I can still see their emails if they don't. They site in a Quarantine folder. I used to look at it frequently to catch the occasional stra…
ah, quarantine makes sense i handle the overload a different way... i age everything out of my inbox one day at a time, each gets a label showing the remaining days; they start at 7 and count down. that way i only ever have 7 days of email to look at. it also makes it clear who the big offenders are... if 10% of the emails are some new marketing thing it's easy to see and unsubscribe. i do hate that there's still so…
> if 10% of the emails are some new marketing thing it's easy to see and unsubscribe
I built my system because I tired of finding ways to unsubscribe.
Now I can subscribe without abandon and never worry about any of those emails coming into my inbox.
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
ah, quarantine makes sense i handle the overload a different way... i age everything out of my inbox one day at a time, each gets a label showing the remaining days; they start at 7 and count down. that way i only ever have 7 days of email to look at. it also makes it clear who the big offenders are... if 10% of the emails are some new marketing thing it's easy to see and unsubscribe. i do hate that there's still so…
> if 10% of the emails are some new marketing thing it's easy to see and unsubscribe I built my system because I tired of finding ways to unsubscribe. Now I can subscribe without abandon and never worry about any of those emails coming into my inbox.
Do you have a writeup somewhere about how this system works?
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#84The irony here that HTTP headers are descended directly from RFC822 email headers.
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
ah, quarantine makes sense i handle the overload a different way... i age everything out of my inbox one day at a time, each gets a label showing the remaining days; they start at 7 and count down. that way i only ever have 7 days of email to look at. it also makes it clear who the big offenders are... if 10% of the emails are some new marketing thing it's easy to see and unsubscribe. i do hate that there's still so…
> if 10% of the emails are some new marketing thing it's easy to see and unsubscribe I built my system because I tired of finding ways to unsubscribe. Now I can subscribe without abandon and never worry about any of those emails coming into my inbox.
i like it in theory but there’s something in me that doesn’t want emails just discarded like that… i want to be off the list. a personal failing, i’m sure. :)
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#86I 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…
> we deserve better email however we can build it
Let's start with grouping messages into conversations reliably. Whatever black magic they are currently using is almost there, but has it's flaws.
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#87I don't want to replicate email. I want to fix it. Sending email should not be free. It should be really, really cheap to send an email to one person (like a fraction of a fraction of a cent), but get exponentially more expensive the more you send. People shouldn't be able to send emails to you without your prior approval (which you can revoke at an instant). The recipient should be able to charge a tack-on fee for h…
This is impractical because micropayments are impractical.
I have a better idea; split the problem into two. First, require all messages to include an `Automated: 0|1` header; eventually downranking / banning providers that don't include it, like we now do with DKIM, SPF, DMARC and such.
For messages with `Automated: 1`, require informed consent, mediated and verified through the recipient's provider.
It's impractical to require pre-approvals on every message, because many people genuinely want human-to-human contact from semi-strangers. On the other hand, requiring consent without verification is ineffective, because it is too easy to pretend consent. This design splits the spam problem into two much more tractable su-problems, detecting lying senders that mark automated messages as non-automated (easy with modern AI + basic statistical analysis), and verifying consent for honest automated senders (just requires a protocol).
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely possible, a few companies do it, and let me tell you: People hate it.
I've been doing it for almost a decade. Only one person has complained. I'm surprised by the hoops people are willing to go through to contact me. https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2018/Sep/solving-my-email-probl...
I'm glad it works for you, but the overwhelming majority of people are not you, and they hate it.
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been doing it for almost a decade. Only one person has complained. I'm surprised by the hoops people are willing to go through to contact me. https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2018/Sep/solving-my-email-probl...
I'm glad it works for you, but the overwhelming majority of people are not you, and they hate it.
Citation needed.
Re: Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if 10% of the emails are some new marketing thing it's easy to see and unsubscribe I built my system because I tired of finding ways to unsubscribe. Now I can subscribe without abandon and never worry about any of those emails coming into my inbox.
Do you have a writeup somewhere about how this system works?