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Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

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Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#161

Post by abruzzi »

mseebach wrote: post #27

One point about privacy: E-mail is unencrypted and is delivered over public networks. Assume that any government, be it your own, US or other will read your email if they so please, and encrypt anything you don't want them to read.

Which is why it baffles me that so few people use S/MIME--other than the trending preference for webmail which isn't well suited for encryption. S/MIME is simple to setup on most email clients, and offers encryption of the body of the mail if the recipient is uses S/MIME as well. There are several of us at work that send encrypted emails all the time.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#162

Post by jff »

a3_nm wrote: post #152

Setting the privacy and security issues aside, I wonder why do so many self-respecting hackers use the Gmail web interface (instead of, say, fetching their mail via IMAP and use another client). Dedicated mail clients like mutt can be much more efficient (keyboard-driven) and are a lot more customisable (run macros, pipe mail through external commands, etc.). I wonder why so many hackers aren't put off by Google's "o…

Gmail's keyboard shortcuts are really pretty nice. hjkl to move around, enter to view a message, y to archive, m to mute, r to reply. That's a pretty damn good start.

off-topic, it's a little weird how it's expected that "true hackers" must become ill at the very sight of a mouse.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#163

Post by tennineten »

bwarp wrote: post #83

I took "the pragmatic UNIX way" about 15 years ago with email. It works. I've not had to change it and don't feel compelled to bother changing it. I host my own mail server. It's not hard regardless of the platform you use. I use debian+postfix+mutt as it pretty much works out of the box. I've changed perhaps two lines of postfix configuration (to set up maildir) and added a couple of lines to my muttrc to pick up ma…

"My contacts list is a text file called contacts.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped. My calendar is a text file called cal.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped."

I really like the sound of that. Can you elaborate a bit on the format, or provide a couple of sample lines from each?

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#164

Post by jff »

I have messed with running my own email server from time to time, but it generally takes about a day before I get an email bounced back thanks to the overzealous IP blacklists--for instance, as I recall, all Comcast dynamic IPs are blocked automatically by Spamhaus. Great, so I either need to pay extra for a static IP which might be non-blacklisted, or I can pay for hosting and just hope that's not blacklisted. Gmail is big enough and rich enough to stay off the blacklists, I'm not. So I use Google Apps hosting, even though I'd rather not.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#165

Post by acdha »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #106
davidw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one that got me was spam filtering. Google does a pretty good job at that, and I was really drowning in it. I think they deserve a lot of credit for creating a product that both my mother (definitely not a 'power user') and I (previous email client: Emacs' Gnus) can both be reasonably productive with.

It's really easy to install SpamAssassin and point your MTA at it. Even the default configuration is highly effective.

It's still a service which you have to maintain and there's constant config & upgrading required since some spammers are smart enough to test their messages with it first.

I've run SA professionally for modest (low hundreds) of users. It works reasonably well but it's a job and I'm not paid to do it personally.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#166

Post by Niten »

api wrote: post #92

1. Running a mail server is an unbelievable pain in the rear from an IT perspective. Note that by "mail server" I mean a good setup with spam filtration, webmail, SMTPS, IMAPS, etc. 2. Really good rich webmail. I personally use Mac Mail.app most of the time, but having that rich webmail is nice. 3. Filters mail at the server side. 4. Very good spam filtering... I post my gmail addresses on web pages with no obfuscati…

I disagree on most points...

1. It takes a few hours to set up, sure, but it isn't difficult – setting up a mail server on a *nix box isn't exactly uncharted territory, every possible aspect of it is documented to death on the web. And once it's up and running it takes practically no effort to maintain. Yes, even with spam filtering that keeps my inbox spam free, despite my address having been used in several public newsgroups and forums.

2. It's a matter of preference. I too use Mail.app primarily, but I like being able to SSH to my server and read my mail in Mutt. As nice as Gmail's UI is in many regards, it's useless for threaded discussions on mailing lists.

3. Err, ever heard of procmail or maildrop, among (many) others? This is one of the major advantages of running your own mail server, actually; Gmail gives you very limited filtering options, especially when it comes to mailing lists.

4. Gmail has great spam filtering, but I find my Postgrey + SpamAssassin setup to work just as well.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#167

Post by icebraining »

bwarp wrote: post #119
fbuilesv wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I unlike you, took the pragmatic way (without quotes or Unix). Email is part of my life and I don't want it going down. I don't spend time configuring servers, updating packages, guaranteeing uptime. My email is federico@mheroin.com, and I write it everywhere. I still don't get any spam. If I need an alias I just append characters to the email address and I don't have to fiddle with anything else. I can get it quite…

Some more info... Email augments my life but does not control it. That's where the distinction is. Much as writing letters is a tool, so is email. If it went away, the world would not end for me and I intend to keep it that way. Availability? If mail doesn't get delivered immediately, thanks to the joys of SMTP, it will come later (when my ADSL line is back up). If it's urgent, someone can put mouth to phone rather t…

Can you _send_ emails from your ADSL line? Mine are rejected since I have a semi-dynamic IP address.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#168

Post by icebraining »

tobiasu wrote: post #146

This is a pointless comment, but with all the whining here I feel like making a counterpoint. I run my own mail/irc/web/file/etc -server. Postfix on OpenBSD with maybe 10 config variable changes to add a DNS blacklist of my choice + secondary MX for a friend. FDM for sorting mail and piping stuff through bogofilter. Mutt and SSH to read mail from anywhere. I post my email address everywhere and get about 10-15 spam m…

The maintenance time this setup "costs" is recovered in less than a week of not having to click through the slow gmail interface.

Nothing forces you to use the Gmail interface to use their mail servers, though. I certainly don't, unless I'm away from my machine.

Re: Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

#170

Post by icebraining »

ary wrote: post #55

When people have to choose between usability, accessibility, and reliability VS security and privacy they almost always choose the former. My response to this would be "Why do self-respecting open source and security advocates refuse to do the hard work of making security and privacy easily available to everyone?" Laziness, disinterest, and fear of killing off lucrative security consulting.

There's no privacy in either case. Every single email passes in clear text through some ISP who may very well be storing copies of them. If you want privacy, you use PGP.
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