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The Battle for Power on the Internet

schneier.com

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Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#21

Post by kgosser »

rsync wrote: post #9

"Our e-mail, photos, calendars, address books, messages, and documents are on servers belonging to Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on." That's not a given. Not only is it trivially easy to host your own email, there are a number of very positive side-effects of doing so. For instance, when I email my wife, it's just a local copy operation - no network traffic is generated, and thus nothing can be intercept…

> In 2013 the Internet traffic I actually do generate is much more secure than the Internet traffic I generated 20 years ago.

For someone to be successful in 1993 to use the Internet, you had to be knowledgable enough to do the things you're talking about. I'd wager roughly 97%+ of the population is not smart enough, which is why Bruce's statements are in effect true.

Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#22

Post by vorg »

> So who wins? Which type of power dominates in the coming decades?

Institutional power will win in the coming decades, but fringe power in the coming centuries as humans colonize the solar system. Each planet/moon will eventually have control of its technical infrastructure. In the coming millenia, as humans journey out to the stars, it will be almost impossible for one star system to control another. Thank God for the Speed of Light!

> Medieval feudalism evolved into a more balanced relationship in which lords had responsibilities as well as rights.

I'm not sure "evolve" is the best word. Diseases killed many surfs in both Europe and China, often many all at once (e.g. Black Death) which gave the survivors more power suddenly.

Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#23

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

rsync wrote: post #9

"Our e-mail, photos, calendars, address books, messages, and documents are on servers belonging to Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on." That's not a given. Not only is it trivially easy to host your own email, there are a number of very positive side-effects of doing so. For instance, when I email my wife, it's just a local copy operation - no network traffic is generated, and thus nothing can be intercept…

Serious question: is there any point until everyone encrypts their email?

Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#24

Post by Theodores »

claudius wrote: post #19
CodeMage wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's trivially easy to host your own e-mail, but isn't it pretty hard to convince other servers to accept e-mail originating from your host? I haven't been following things closely, but I remember reading about stuff like DKIM and SPF and I seem to recall that you need a static IP for some of the stuff involved. All in all, sounds like a non-trivial hassle and non-trivial cost. On that note, is there a down-to-…

You need a static IP, yes, but any VPS will get you one, so that can hardly be an issue. In seven years of hosting my own email I never had issues with delivering mail to other providers. Setting up an SMTP daemon and IMAP/POP3 server is rather easy, the most difficult decision being which SMTPd to choose (I like Postfix, but Exim is Debian’s default and hence supposedly good as well, others like Courier) and then re…

I don't understand why email hosting has to be so difficult. You say it is easy, which it is if you know what you are doing, but it is not really that simple, is it? There is no out of the box solution that just works, even the microsoft effort called exchange is not that. You should be able to configure a mail server with the ease that you can configure a mail client.

Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#25

Post by devicenull »

Theodores wrote: post #24
claudius wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need a static IP, yes, but any VPS will get you one, so that can hardly be an issue. In seven years of hosting my own email I never had issues with delivering mail to other providers. Setting up an SMTP daemon and IMAP/POP3 server is rather easy, the most difficult decision being which SMTPd to choose (I like Postfix, but Exim is Debian’s default and hence supposedly good as well, others like Courier) and then re…

I don't understand why email hosting has to be so difficult. You say it is easy, which it is if you know what you are doing, but it is not really that simple, is it? There is no out of the box solution that just works, even the microsoft effort called exchange is not that. You should be able to configure a mail server with the ease that you can configure a mail client.

Spam is the reason. Mail servers are easy to set up, it's all the crap you need to do to actually get your mail accepted that's hard.

Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#26

Post by rsync »

devicenull wrote: post #25
Theodores wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why email hosting has to be so difficult. You say it is easy, which it is if you know what you are doing, but it is not really that simple, is it? There is no out of the box solution that just works, even the microsoft effort called exchange is not that. You should be able to configure a mail server with the ease that you can configure a mail client.

Spam is the reason. Mail servers are easy to set up, it's all the crap you need to do to actually get your mail accepted that's hard.

In 16 years of running my own mail server(s) I have never done anything to "get my mail accepted", other than make sure relaying is turned off, which I think it is by default in just about every implementation since 1998.

Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#27

Post by rsync »

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #23
rsync wrote: post #9

"Our e-mail, photos, calendars, address books, messages, and documents are on servers belonging to Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on." That's not a given. Not only is it trivially easy to host your own email, there are a number of very positive side-effects of doing so. For instance, when I email my wife, it's just a local copy operation - no network traffic is generated, and thus nothing can be intercept…

Serious question: is there any point until everyone encrypts their email?

Yes, I think so - especially for intercompany email and your family.

It may interest you to know that not one piece of intercompany email at rsync.net has ever traversed any network. It's all just a local copy operation.[1] So, no encryption, but ... that's not relevant in this case.

The same could be true for your family, or small social circles that share an email server. If you use a secure mail client to connect to the server, and all mail on that domain doesn't traverse a network ... that's a win, even without "email encryption".

Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#28

Post by InclinedPlane »

vorg wrote: post #22

> So who wins? Which type of power dominates in the coming decades? Institutional power will win in the coming decades, but fringe power in the coming centuries as humans colonize the solar system. Each planet/moon will eventually have control of its technical infrastructure. In the coming millenia, as humans journey out to the stars, it will be almost impossible for one star system to control another. Thank God for…

I think institutional power is on the wane. The fact that so many institutions are flexing their muscle is a prime indication. There's a saying "when you're taking flak you know you're over the target".

I'd say the biggest problem right now is one of awareness and direction. But as people become more atuned to these latent problems that are becoming more obvious it will drive ideas and action. Since the problem is not a lack of know how or resources, it's that growing awareness which will make all the difference.

Consider the amount of work that has gone into open source projects (like firefox, linux, apache, rails) and crowd sourced projects (like wikipedia or stack exchange). With the right kind of well directed projects the tables can, and will, be turned.

Imagine, for example, a web that was designed to prevent evesdropping and designed to ensure maximum longevity of content (through duplication). Something closer to bittorrent than today's web. It would be technologically challenging, but doable. Then imagine what happens if the equivalent of the worldwide workforce developing, say, linux was dedicated to developing tools to decentralize the network.

Over the next few decades the cost of wireless APs will become trivial even as their capabilities increase vastly. It won't take long before it's possible for unregulated internetworks with wireless backbones owned by many individuals to become possible, among many other innovations. At some point centralized control over communications becomes untenable. And that's just square one.

Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#29

Post by e12e »

claudius wrote: post #19
CodeMage wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's trivially easy to host your own e-mail, but isn't it pretty hard to convince other servers to accept e-mail originating from your host? I haven't been following things closely, but I remember reading about stuff like DKIM and SPF and I seem to recall that you need a static IP for some of the stuff involved. All in all, sounds like a non-trivial hassle and non-trivial cost. On that note, is there a down-to-…

You need a static IP, yes, but any VPS will get you one, so that can hardly be an issue. In seven years of hosting my own email I never had issues with delivering mail to other providers. Setting up an SMTP daemon and IMAP/POP3 server is rather easy, the most difficult decision being which SMTPd to choose (I like Postfix, but Exim is Debian’s default and hence supposedly good as well, others like Courier) and then re…

> You need a static IP, yes, but any VPS will get you one, so that can hardly be an issue.

At which point all your data is up for grabs by your VPS provider?

I host my own mail (for values of "my own" where mail server is hosted on a vps on a foreign server), but I think it's a stretch to say it's trivial to do so.

I think one of the most serious problems the Internet is facing is the growing split between "servers and hosts" and "consumers and clients" -- and the asymmetric bandwidth (both adsl and cable). It favours designs that are centralized, not because of sound architectural reasons -- but because of inferior infrastructure.

Re: The Battle for Power on the Internet

#30

Post by zachlatta »

rsync wrote: post #26
devicenull wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spam is the reason. Mail servers are easy to set up, it's all the crap you need to do to actually get your mail accepted that's hard.

In 16 years of running my own mail server(s) I have never done anything to "get my mail accepted", other than make sure relaying is turned off, which I think it is by default in just about every implementation since 1998.

Consider yourself lucky. I made the mistake of not setting up my email with OpenDKIM and virtually all of my mail went to spam for a few months.
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