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

Helm: Personal Email Server

thehelm.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 592 posts

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#331

Post by balladeer »

gsreenivas wrote: post #256
paraditedc wrote: post #241

I read the whole tech page and some of the comments here. I might be willing to pay for this service, but not in its current form. I wouldn't want to spend 500USD on a proprietary hardware in addition to paying a subscription fee. What needs to happen to convince me to pay: Open up the hardware component as a platform for anyone to extend (allowing direct ssh, or using my own hardware). It's fine to not open source t…

Hey paraditedc - thanks for your feedback. We will be launching a developer program next year. We are very interested in a community of people like you hacking on Helm to build new services/features.

Related feedback, you might to launch it well before the year 1st subscription year ends, otherwise customers who bought the setup assuming they won't opt for subscription and would still be able to use the device will left with no option for possibly a long time.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#332

Post by the_common_man »

paraditedc wrote: post #241

I read the whole tech page and some of the comments here. I might be willing to pay for this service, but not in its current form. I wouldn't want to spend 500USD on a proprietary hardware in addition to paying a subscription fee. What needs to happen to convince me to pay: Open up the hardware component as a platform for anyone to extend (allowing direct ssh, or using my own hardware). It's fine to not open source t…

Have a look at https://cloudron.io. They let you run apps on your own hardware - email being one of them

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#333

Post by Alex3917 »

dpedu wrote: post #321
Alex3917 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be especially valuable as a way to build email apps for enterprise. Especially if there were a good API that returned email data in JMAP format. I know Nylas tries to do this, but their model doesn't really work for me.

Why JMAP over something universal like JSON?

JMAP returns data in JSON, but with a standardized schema. It's better than the current status quo, where each email provider returns API data in JSON but using their own schema, meaning you need to build different endpoints and methods to work with each email provider. The spec is about to be finalized, so there is no reason why email providers who haven't yet released an API shouldn't be using it.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#334

Post by the_common_man »

OJFord wrote: post #286
latentpot wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I need to buy a physical box? Cant they give me a dedicated EC2 Micro instance instead? Solve the ISP issue, and the speed/ connectivity/ power etc?

It's easier to convince someone that it's securely 'theirs' with hardware than if it seems like just another cloud email service?

But then they spend a lot of time being a hardware company, no?

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#335

Post by dragonwriter »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #10
dragonwriter wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have independent redundant internet connections and reliable backup power at your home?

I suspect everyone here has at least multiple redundant internet connections if they have a cell phone.

While I have a cellphone, and can and do use it as a hotspot, I wouldn't exactly say it could provide a fallback connection for a server in my home, because it usually spends a significant part of the day out of WiFi reach of my home.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#336

Post by megous »

To me there are these risks to e-mail:

1. e-mail address loss (domain loss, service termination if you don't own the domain, ...)

2. email service loss (server goes down, ...)

3. delivery mechanism compromise (someone gets to read future messages, can be used to hijack online accounts)

4. sending mechanism compromise (partial impersonation, etc.)

5. e-mail archive compromise (someone gets to read old messages)

6. archive loss

You have to think hard about each point:

- how it can happen,

- how would you detect it,

- what it could lead to,

and then prepare for those circumstances via preventive measures, and by having a plan for when it happens.

For example if you register your domains under an account where email that was used for registration comes from one of those domains 3. can easily lead to 1. and you're hosed. You have to have way to restore 2. without access to e-mail addresses that will not work while 2. is happening. You will most probably have no way of detecting 3./4. before bad things start happening. etc. etc.

E-mail is not really something to fuck with, because of how important it is for authentication on the web.

Helm website doesn't work for me, but if you're thinking about an easy way to have a personal email server, and don't have experience, be careful.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#337

Post by dheera »

jawns wrote: post #9

Don't most ISPs ban residential accounts from running something like this? Comcast terms: > use or run dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network (“Premises LAN”), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited equipment and servers include, but are not limited t…

I've run public-facing servers on residential connections numerous times. (I did once yesterday just so I could watch my 3D printer from remotely.) If you aren't hogging bandwidth or committing crimes, it's unlikely they will care.

Also IANAL but "services to anyone outside" does not sound like it includes un-firewalled, password-protected, services for personal use. The word used is "anyone outside" not "any machine outside". The resident themself would presumably be an insider regardless of their physical or network location.

Also I think a reverse proxy with end-to-end encryption could solve the problem with no public-facing open ports. That doesn't count as a server in my book.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#338

Post by blacksmith_tb »

jawns wrote: post #9

Don't most ISPs ban residential accounts from running something like this? Comcast terms: > use or run dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network (“Premises LAN”), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited equipment and servers include, but are not limited t…

Hmm, the terms for my CenturyLink fiber connection explicitly allow running servers (with some reasonable limitations): "Service may be used to host a server, personal or commercial, as long as such server is used pursuant to the terms and conditions of this Agreement applicable to Service and not for any malicious purposes. Malicious purposes include without limitation Spam, viruses, worms, Trojans, Denial of Service (DoS), etc."[1]

1: http://www.centurylink.com/legal/en/highspeedinternetsubscri...

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#339

Post by CosmicShadow »

garry wrote: post #254
paraditedc wrote: post #241

I read the whole tech page and some of the comments here. I might be willing to pay for this service, but not in its current form. I wouldn't want to spend 500USD on a proprietary hardware in addition to paying a subscription fee. What needs to happen to convince me to pay: Open up the hardware component as a platform for anyone to extend (allowing direct ssh, or using my own hardware). It's fine to not open source t…

This is extremely valuable feedback and worth strongly considering. When the iPhone came out, it didn't support apps - just built-in features like Mail and Mobile Safari. I agree with you that an app store for Helm could be valuable.

Seems similar to https://ciceronetech.com/about, I know they were building similar app style features on their similar style box.

Re: Helm: Personal Email Server

#340

Post by ChuckMcM »

jawns wrote: post #9

Don't most ISPs ban residential accounts from running something like this? Comcast terms: > use or run dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network (“Premises LAN”), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited equipment and servers include, but are not limited t…

First, anyone who has talked with me for any length of time will have no doubt heard my rant that data belongs at the edge :-) so I'm a big fan.

And yes, the no servers clause is an issue, it was raised initially by people doing peer to peer torrenting, and some folks running servers.

Enforcement is a bit tricky though because folks like Comcast and Verizon get so much value from being able to see all of your Internet traffic that they won't actually cut you off for running a local server but they will be passive aggressive about it. For example, they will start changing your IP every couple of hours (they set the DHCP lease time to be low and force the DHCP server to always give you a different IP).

The common solution is a VPN tunnel which is what Helm is doing, but that tunnel has to end up somewhere so that can be a problem if that 'somewhere' is commonly used by bad actors. (Like say in Ukrainian data centers)

I expect that this restriction will go the way of paid SMS messages eventually but for now it is going to be troublesome.

Post reply on HN