Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

utcc.utoronto.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 255 posts

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#181

Post by feldrim »

pydry wrote: post #94
jamespwilliams wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s partially the result of the 2007 cyberattacks they endured. After that, they started taking cybersecurity very seriously. https://www.bbc.com/news/39655415

Their e voting system source code looked pretty bad. Quite apart from that, if they really took cyberattacks seriously theyd be voting with pen and paper.

I haven't seen the code nor read about it. But I'll have a look at it after this comment. Thanks.

The e-vote thing seems like an issue of reputation now. I don't think any politician would dare to change this. It would be possible only if a huge campaign involving a foreign interference becomes successful among the voters.

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#182

Post by bullen »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #166
bullen wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both HTTP and SMTP are client/server because you cannot read SMTP without a "client"... The crucial part of these protocols are simple text that use DNS for distributing the connecting. HTTP can be used for server to server too... and I recommend it. So to repeat you need to implement HTTP, SMTP and DNS in you server software so that you can self host all 3 on your own hardware. This means asking your fiber ISP to op…

I'm not saying you can't do it, I'm saying it won't help you because nobody will want to "play" with you. Open protocols mean nothing if the playing field is not level and the big guys can just bully around smaller players in whichever way they wont. That's not a problem that can be solved by technology (IMHO).

I have my own domains and people play with me all the time?

The big players are going to get pretty mean when electricity costs rise.

So the playing field will level by itself.

I use Raspberry 2/4 in my home cloud that I can keep powered through a 48 hour power failure.

There is no economic power, there is only energy (coal, oil and gas that is turned into electricity (the grid, wind, solar and hydro requires hydrocarbons to make/sustain)); the way to compete is to lower your energy costs by making better systems.

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#183

Post by feldrim »

101008 wrote: post #117
cycomanic wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always discover how Estonia is really amazing for lots of technology things. AFAIK they are by quite a margin the most advanced country in Europe when in comes to egovernment services. Moreover my (admittedly outside) impression is that they often go for technologically sound solutions not the ones which some large lobby organisation pushed for. This is particularly remarkable considering how small the country is,…

Estonia is the one that also provided digital citizenship, right?

Not citizenship but residency, hence e-residency[1]. It actually means you can start a business here and pay your taxes here but you can be anywhere else in the world.

[1] https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#184

Post by throwaway6734 »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #120
feldrim wrote: post #40

Well, in Estonia, they have a different approach. 1. If you are a citizen or a resident, you get an ID card to use for every public service. It's just a smart card with a government PKI. 2. The public services provide an email account that can only be used within the e-government services. The card is used for accessing those services. 3. The email service accepts either identity number or registry number of the reci…

I still have a vague hope that the United States Postal Service could be "pivoted" into being a PKI provider and distribute physical tokens to citizens. They already have substantial procedures and infrastructure for verifying identity. There would be problems, to be sure, but I'd much rather get my ubiquitous PKI for citizens from the USPS than the banks or "tech giants".

It's a real shame the USPS didn't jump on email at the start and become an email provider

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#185

Post by b3morales »

Bud wrote: post #150
Sebb767 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the public demands younger and younger political classes, with lower and lower salaries Looking into the US senate, I fail to see that trend. In the last presidential election, both candidates were older than my grandparents. Even in my country, seeing a really young person in a political position is very rare. They exist (if you define "young" as under 40), but they are rare. I don't think age worries are a fac…

You're not paying attention to the salaries part, though. Look at the pay for members of the House and Senate, in real dollars, over the last 50 years. Also pay attention to how much stupid noise there is about how members of Congress are supposedly overpaid. The pay for all US Senators combined (under $18M) is less than half of what LeBron James makes (over $41M) in salary alone in a year.

That's not a very informative comparison. LeBron James is a outlier's outlier in a sector that already has exceptional pay. Senators' salaries would more usefully be compared to the (upper) middle-class white-collar workforce that they would most likely occupy if they weren't in office.

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#186

Post by jeffbee »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #184
EvanAnderson wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have a vague hope that the United States Postal Service could be "pivoted" into being a PKI provider and distribute physical tokens to citizens. They already have substantial procedures and infrastructure for verifying identity. There would be problems, to be sure, but I'd much rather get my ubiquitous PKI for citizens from the USPS than the banks or "tech giants".

It's a real shame the USPS didn't jump on email at the start and become an email provider

Nothing about their organization prepares them for doing this. Having 50000 branch offices and half a million employees is their superpower.

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#187

Post by jrgaston »

mcdonje wrote: post #113
tarkin2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "playing golf with government minister" should be called out for what it is: a probable or possible bribe. It won't be money in a brown paper bag but the result will be the same. It's endemic. We like to think bribery and corruption happens to other countries but there's plenty of it in the UK: it's just higher up the totem pole and largely accepted.

Same thing in the US. I always laugh whenever I see a list of corrupt countries and the US isn't near the top. Codifying bribery into law as lobbying and superpacs doesn't make it not bribery.

Spot on: "Codifying bribery into law as lobbying and superpacs doesn't make it not bribery"

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#188

Post by mdavis6890 »

I always have this feeling that email is flawed and due for a complete overhaul or replacement - and then I think about it a little harder and I realize that it's actually really good at it's intended purpose.

Other than fiddling around the edges with security improvements, spam filtering, and a few other nice-to-haves, there's not really much that need improvement.

Some features of email that are nice:

- It's completely open standard

- I can host it myself if I want, or not.

- It is completely decentralized and roughly point-to-point, subject to email routers.

- Other than getting an email address, no other 'linkage' or prepwork with that person is required.

- My address is not tied to any other service, like a phone number. (in contrast to e.g. WhatsApp)

- It supports unsolicited communication from unsolicited sources (e.g. marketing)

- It's easy to ignore communication I don't care about. (e.g. marketing)

- Non-people are supported, like group emails/aliases (support@...)

- I can trivially attach files, subject to some practical constraints

- Email can be handled by the recipient in a wide variety of ways using different client mechanisms.

- I can front-end my email in a variety of ways, such as with a contact form.

Those are just the few I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#189

Post by mdavis6890 »

mdavis6890 wrote: post #188

I always have this feeling that email is flawed and due for a complete overhaul or replacement - and then I think about it a little harder and I realize that it's actually really good at it's intended purpose. Other than fiddling around the edges with security improvements, spam filtering, and a few other nice-to-haves, there's not really much that need improvement. Some features of email that are nice: - It's comple…

More:

- It is designed well for medium-length content, say a few paragraphs or so per message.

- It works well, and is mostly understood to be used for asynchronous communication.

- Easily and usefully searchable.

- Captures state/context well.

- Threaded

Re: A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

#190

Post by amaccuish »

nottorp wrote: post #171
EvanAnderson wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't rightly say that I am able to navigate the maze of standards and acronyms associated with smart cards, but the OpenSC tools on Linux have worked for me with a couple different smart cards (Nitrokey HSM and Taglio PIVKey). There are quirks. The Taglio PIVKey can't load certificates using OpenSC, but I've always generated the certificates on the device anyway.

Just because there is smart card software for Linux it doesn't mean it will work with $SOME_GOVERNMENT's interfaces. Ofc in this case feldrim above pointed us to the mac/linux/etc downloads so the estonian government has actually heard there are other platforms besides Windows.

Yes, I use the eID software on Linux all the time. It is based on OpenSC and the main stuff in the browser is all standardised. OpenSC is loaded as a plugin to say Firefox, and most of the authentication is standard TLS client cert stuff.

The app is used for changing PINs and there's another one for signing documents.

Signing in the browser uses a extension, code here https://github.com/open-eid/chrome-token-signing

Post reply on HN