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Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

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Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#211

Post by frank_boyd »

mburns wrote: post #133
frank_boyd wrote: post #49

Sounds like another reinvention of the wheel, the "email" part of http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/

Dismissing or deriding a project because it is not completely novel is unhelpful. Since 'retroshare' hasn't taken the world by storm, maybe that wheel needs to be reinvented.

FYI, RetroShare has a solid and solidly growing community.

Of course, if you want to talk about "taken the world by storm" as in "Microsoft Windows 95": You're right, no encryption software has ever taken the world by storm. And that has to do with the fact that the general public doesn't care about privacy, b/c they have no clue how it works and most of all what the mid- and long-term consequences of losing privacy will be for their lives.

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#212

Post by jawr »

shazow wrote: post #190
natch wrote: post #81

My Fucking Mail would be a better name. As in, it's mine, do fucking not read it. Sorry for the profanity but I think it fits how many people feel about this.

FMail has a cute ring to it. The next version after EMail.

Then full circle to GMail.

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#213

Post by amirmc »

quotha wrote: post #210
sandstrom wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree, I really think you should change the name. Some suggestions: - Locke Mail [from John Locke] - Mill Mail [from John Stuart Mill] - Hobbes Mail - Liberty Mail

I like the name - after all it is just a name - is the Patriot Act patriotic??

As a counterpoint, who could possibly argue against passing something called the 'Patriot Act'? To do so would almost be un-patriotic, right? DarkMail, however, is a bit different. Is that what the bad-guys are using these days?

My point from the above is that names do matter.

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#214

Post by herbig »

chris_mahan wrote: post #63
chadillac83 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "Dark" in "Dark Mail Alliance" is meant more in the sense that it's "off the grid" of NSA spying capabilities, not that it's meant to be used for nefarious purposes.

Plus it's impossible to be sure that whatever you're doing electronically is not being spied on by the NSA.

Being open source and having faith in the soundness of the cryptography is about as good as it can get.

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#215

Post by malandrew »

natural219 wrote: post #45

I appreciate the cheekiness of calling it the "Dark Mail Alliance", but from a purely PR perspective, it would make sense to reconsider your name if you are taking the position that encrypted end-to-end email is not solely an interest of those pursuing shady or deviant activities.

I agree. I would prefer something like the "MyMail" alliance, because that's really what this is about. It's about making mail mine again. Mainly has been totally owned by people who are not us, whether it is the NSA owning it via dragnet surveillance or Google using it to serve ads. It's not just our mail, but their mail as well.

This name also appeals to ego. Ego matters. Talking about freedom and ideals will appeal to a minority, but you need a name that appeals to people's ego if you want to succeed.

This is not the same but is related to the ideas that Seth Godin expoused in his TED talk about being remarkable. Nobody likes receiving email, but they like receiving MeMail. Me. Me. Me. Me. I want my email to be about me. If it is not, it is noise and tedium. Never underestimate an appeal to ego.

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#216

Post by natch »

krutulis wrote: post #123
natch wrote: post #81

My Fucking Mail would be a better name. As in, it's mine, do fucking not read it. Sorry for the profanity but I think it fits how many people feel about this.

I do share your sentiment! The shorter "MyMail" makes the same point without needing the profanity, and your more emphatic name would then be available for the most desirable MyMail client...

I did think of that while posting, but edited it out of my comment as 1) too cheesy and 2) it doesn't really make the point, because it just sounds like your typical big-corp lame name.

It's a bit late for the HN thread now, but how about MFM protocol, but pronounced as "My Mail" just as RTFM is sometimes pronounced as "Read The Manual."

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#217

Post by junto »

balabaster wrote: post #201
junto wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the greatest barrier will be Exchange and other corporate email servers software. Without corporate buy-in, this will never take off. Corps "need" to have an overview of the messages unsecured. There is no such thing as personal privacy in the corporate world, only corporate privacy.

I disagree somewhat with this, if it needs to be secure end to end, then the server just needs to support that protocol. The question is, if you don't want to leak any metadata, then how do you put it in the right mailbox? You need a pub/sub type protocol where you can go in and grab the messages meant for you, but the server must not know they're meant for you and you must be able to do so completely anonymously. Ho…

Indeed. The two requirements aren't complementary. Therein lies the problem.
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