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Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

tutanota.de

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Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#11

Post by noinsight »

brongondwana wrote: post #6
masida wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've forgotten to include the plug for FastMail. And maybe you should include the fact that you work for FastMail (it's not that you're hiding it, it's in your profile, but it's nice to mention in the text if you're working for the competitor). Personally, I stay clear from any hosted e-mail services. I don't care if their backend is open source or not. RMS explains all problems with SaaS in his essay "Who does tha…

I figured the "we" after FastMail said that I work here. Quite a lot of our backend source is open too (particularly the Cyrus IMAP server, which makes up the bulk of my work now that I have people with a more dedicated ops role for day-to-day tasks). We encrypt everything to disk, and everything on the wire that is practical (connecting to other providers still falls back to plaintext if they don't support STARTTLS,…

> The only sane alternative that I can see is to run your own server, on your own hardware, preferably hosted inside your own home for maximum legal protection. Of course, unless you really know your stuff then your data could well be at greater risk from both legal and illegal intercept.

This is what I do. At home I have a Chromebox with FreeBSD and a fully encrypted disk. I have a VPS with an OpenVPN server and the required ports are forwarded to my own box. IMAP and SMTP submission require TLS so those are fully covered. Like you said though, the only thing you can't reasonably forcibly encrypt is SMTP itself. Most of the mail I receive comes with STARTTLS but not all.

With this setup the VPS provider can't see anything when SMTP happens with STARTTLS. Obviously if they really want to read my mail they can start MITM'ing the STARTTLS away because it isn't forced but this is the best setup that's reasonable.

My ISP for my home can only see encrypted OpenVPN traffic too. In fact the VPS is in another country but that's only a consequence of the silly VPS prices in my country.

Obviously with this setup I don't have to surrender my private key to anyone either, it sits on my own box (and I use a legitimate CA-issued certificate).

Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#12

Post by masida »

brongondwana wrote: post #6
masida wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've forgotten to include the plug for FastMail. And maybe you should include the fact that you work for FastMail (it's not that you're hiding it, it's in your profile, but it's nice to mention in the text if you're working for the competitor). Personally, I stay clear from any hosted e-mail services. I don't care if their backend is open source or not. RMS explains all problems with SaaS in his essay "Who does tha…

I figured the "we" after FastMail said that I work here. Quite a lot of our backend source is open too (particularly the Cyrus IMAP server, which makes up the bulk of my work now that I have people with a more dedicated ops role for day-to-day tasks). We encrypt everything to disk, and everything on the wire that is practical (connecting to other providers still falls back to plaintext if they don't support STARTTLS,…

You're right about you're being clear about working there, I'm sorry if I've sounded a bit harsh. Thank you for your analysis BTW. I think it's always useful to provide constructive review to fellow developers.

I agree with you that the only alternative is self hosting. That's why I'm anticipating a new wave of low power mini-computers with solid state memory, a fully configured embedded GNU/Linux or *BSD distro, and a webbased interface for management which would make it possible to host our own services at home using OSS only. The FreedomBox is an example of this.

Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#13

Post by gablegab »

noinsight wrote: post #11
brongondwana wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figured the "we" after FastMail said that I work here. Quite a lot of our backend source is open too (particularly the Cyrus IMAP server, which makes up the bulk of my work now that I have people with a more dedicated ops role for day-to-day tasks). We encrypt everything to disk, and everything on the wire that is practical (connecting to other providers still falls back to plaintext if they don't support STARTTLS,…

> The only sane alternative that I can see is to run your own server, on your own hardware, preferably hosted inside your own home for maximum legal protection. Of course, unless you really know your stuff then your data could well be at greater risk from both legal and illegal intercept. This is what I do. At home I have a Chromebox with FreeBSD and a fully encrypted disk. I have a VPS with an OpenVPN server and the…

You wouldn't happen to have that set up available via Docker/Packer etc? I like being able to stand on the shoulders of giants :)

Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#14

Post by alfiedotwtf »

Numberwang wrote: post #10

Probably just a personal preference, but I must say this looks a lot better than the Fastmail interface. And it's not US based either which is another plus.

FastMail isn't based in the US (we are in Melbourne, Australia).

For those who will point out that some of our servers are in the US, see:

    http://blog.fastmail.com/2014/12/15/security-confidentiality/
For those who will point out about the new Australian data retention laws:

    http://blog.fastmail.com/2015/04/09/fastmail-is-not-required-to-implement-the-australian-metadata-retention-laws/

Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#15

Post by mrmondo »

Numberwang wrote: post #10

Probably just a personal preference, but I must say this looks a lot better than the Fastmail interface. And it's not US based either which is another plus.

While fastmail's interface may indeed be a bit clunky they are certainly not US owned or based as you've stated.

Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#16

Post by Numberwang »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #14
Numberwang wrote: post #10

Probably just a personal preference, but I must say this looks a lot better than the Fastmail interface. And it's not US based either which is another plus.

FastMail isn't based in the US (we are in Melbourne, Australia). For those who will point out that some of our servers are in the US, see: http://blog.fastmail.com/2014/12/15/security-confidentiality/ For those who will point out about the new Australian data retention laws: http://blog.fastmail.com/2015/04/09/fastmail-is-not-required-to-implement-the-australian-metadata-retention-laws/

Thank you for a comprehensive answer. Another final question if you find the time. Do you have any Americans on your team?

Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#17

Post by brongondwana »

Numberwang wrote: post #16
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FastMail isn't based in the US (we are in Melbourne, Australia). For those who will point out that some of our servers are in the US, see: http://blog.fastmail.com/2014/12/15/security-confidentiality/ For those who will point out about the new Australian data retention laws: http://blog.fastmail.com/2015/04/09/fastmail-is-not-required-to-implement-the-australian-metadata-retention-laws/

Thank you for a comprehensive answer. Another final question if you find the time. Do you have any Americans on your team?

Not directly, though we collaborate with Americans on open source projects - one of the main contributers to Cyrus is based at CMU (which is where it came from in the first place) and of course we run plenty of other software developed by people all over the place!

Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#18

Post by vincvinc »

Numberwang wrote: post #16
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FastMail isn't based in the US (we are in Melbourne, Australia). For those who will point out that some of our servers are in the US, see: http://blog.fastmail.com/2014/12/15/security-confidentiality/ For those who will point out about the new Australian data retention laws: http://blog.fastmail.com/2015/04/09/fastmail-is-not-required-to-implement-the-australian-metadata-retention-laws/

Thank you for a comprehensive answer. Another final question if you find the time. Do you have any Americans on your team?

Is this an OK question to ask? Should I value firms according to which nationalities they hire?

Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#19

Post by brongondwana »

mbubb wrote: post #9
brongondwana wrote: post #4

I think this service proves the lack of value of code review or code release in isolation. They give you the option to save your login on a "private computer", which stores a cookie that will be sent over non-encrypted connections. Which means that if the user connects to a wifi connection that you control, you can trivially inject something which will cause the browser to make a http connection to www.tutanota.com a…

Genuine questions - I do not know as much as I should about this stuff: How do you send encrypted mail with Fast Mail? How is the following different from how Gmail (for example) does it? https://www.fastmail.com/help/ourservice/security.html

We don't allow a way to send encrypted email directly, because the intersection between people who wanted it and the people who would trust us with their private keys was too small to be worth it. Instead, we provide standard protocols (IMAP/POP/SMTP) so you can run the crypto software on your own computer and submit and receive through us. This gives you full encryption support.

We're probably similar in security to gmail - they're very good as well - most of the big services are. The main comparison at that level is the unpatched server running in the basement of a business somewhere - or indeed the "roll your own" where it gets updated once every few months if the person running it remembers and isn't on holiday at the time... it's nice having a team and always someone on duty for security.

Re: Open-sourcing Tutanota: Why it was important to us

#20

Post by higherpurpose »

newsboard wrote: post #3
lmb wrote: post #2

Has anyone tried this? How does it compare to https://www.mailpile.is/ ?

Indeed, it would be great to have a review of several projects in that space. Open source: - Mailpile ( https://www.mailpile.is/ ) - PEPS ( https://github.com/MLstate/PEPS ) Proprietary: - Protonmail ( https://protonmail.ch/ )

There's also https://whiteout.io/ (open source)

and https://lavaboom.com/ (also open source I think)

Tutanota, Whiteout and Lavaboom are also all from Germany, which I find pretty interesting.

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