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A realization of why email is critical infrastructure for the Internet

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

#71

Post by gjvc »

lwhi wrote: post #36

I really hope that we end up moving back towards supporting open protocols. I was heartened (and a little surprised) that Jack Dorsey recently mentioned that the draconian control of the Twitter API was the worst thing Twitter had done [1]. The corporatisation of the Internet, has undone a lot of the great work that had traditionally underpinned the network. It feels like the slow, laborious and fundamentally equitab…

It feels like the slow, laborious and fundamentally equitable nature of standards ratification in the open has been seen to be at odds with the OKRs of tech businesses.

At the risk of sounding like I'm trivialising this comment (with which I completely agree), this difference in behaviours has as its root the difference between a long- vs short-term mindset.

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

#72

Post by MattJ100 »

zaik wrote: post #63
Arathorn wrote: post #52

> As j. b. crawford notes, the prospect for another federated, Internet wide communication system seem very remote at this point in time, so email is it. I really don’t think this is true, and is defeatist at best. SIP and XMPP both had a good shot at creating a federated Internet-wide communication system, and we are doing our best to build one with Matrix or die trying.

What's wrong with XMPP except Google decided to shut their instance down?

Nothing. XMPP has an active community, mature servers for every kind of deployment, and many clients under active development for a range of platforms.

My personal focus within the community these days is with improving the ecosystem UX through initiatives like https://docs.modernxmpp.org/

You can follow XMPP development via the community newsletter (email or RSS): https://xmpp.org/newsletter/

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

#73

Post by teekert »

Vinnl wrote: post #70
teekert wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands we do have an inbox from the government ("Berichteninbox" which is optional, the alternative is snailmail), it's coupled to the Digital ID system (DigiD), both are apps and webservices. You can use DigiD to access information on your pension, or healthcare insurance etc. The inbox can be (optionally) coupled to many government organizations and you receive information on taxes for example. I like t…

Importantly, though, that inbox is not an email inbox. This is what the process might look like (i.e. I've been through this): 1. You can an email in your regular email stating that there is a new message in your Berichteninbox. (No clickable link, presumably to avoid phishing.) 2. You go to mijn.overheid.nl to access your Berichteninbox. You sign in with DigID. 3. You open the mentioned message, which says a PDF wit…

Yes, that is the process, it's pretty involved indeed, biometric auth and apps opening other apps on mobile makes it bearable. But indeed, if you look at the number of successive actions in such a seemingly simple thing, it's quite a lot.

BTW, if said PDF contains an iDeal payment link, you can switch to yet another app (your banking app) and back (probably via website in between) and immediately pay things. Which is nice, but again watching over the shoulder of someone going through these actions it may seem that the phone is going crazy switching between apps :)

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

#74

Post by magpi3 »

lwhi wrote: post #36

I really hope that we end up moving back towards supporting open protocols. I was heartened (and a little surprised) that Jack Dorsey recently mentioned that the draconian control of the Twitter API was the worst thing Twitter had done [1]. The corporatisation of the Internet, has undone a lot of the great work that had traditionally underpinned the network. It feels like the slow, laborious and fundamentally equitab…

It really is about incentives. When the government and universities were the primary agents influencing the internet, open protocols were favored I presume because they incentivized the decentralization that the internet was created for.

Now private corporations are the primary agents of change, and they are driven by very different incentives. When was the last time you heard of a company based around open protocols being valued at a billion dollars?

And the money involved is just too great. I don't see how anything is going to change.

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

#75

Post by thejosh »

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…

In Australia we have mygov, which is a bit of a mess.

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

#76

Post by zaik »

dqv wrote: post #61
_8j50 wrote: post #42

Please HN, let email die. it is unsecurable (universal) in transit or storage (mta's) and because of its reliability and universal adoption a ton of security depends on it like a very rotten and rusted link in a chain even a small child can break. It is an almost 4 decade old tech where any security you find for it is purely opportunistic. I am very concerned how people here are stating how good, simple and reliable…

I don’t get it. I was waiting for you to say “in favor of…” but you never got to that part. Let email die in favor of what? What is the viable alternative? Not a single messaging app I’ve used comes close to email. And I can’t use one messaging app, I have to have 6! I would be way more willing to move on from email if a solid viable alternative came along. XMPP, for example, is still too ephemeral and barely anyone…

I decided to delete all messaging apps except an email and an XMPP client (Internet Standards instead of proprietary protocols). 90% of my messages are to relatively few people (close friends or family members). For an acceptable messaging experience you just need to get those people on XMPP. The other 10% can still reach me via email or SMS.

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

#77

Post by kortilla »

cycomanic wrote: post #57
lordnacho wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we also all need to eat and use a toilet to live. Those seem to be provided by the market to a reasonable degree. Email is also pretty cheap and there's at least some choice among providers, though of course far fewer that food types.

Your toilet example actually proves the point. Generally, water and wastewater services are not private (I know there's exceptions and most are going terribly wrong). So yes everyone's ability to use a toilet is somewhat government guaranteed.

Not exceptions (in the US at least). 1/4 water are private and 1/2 sewer is private: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization_in_the_Uni...

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

#78

Post by BlueTemplar »

bigger_inside wrote: post #3
causi wrote: post #2

Email is our only reliable communication method between different organizations. I'm still of the opinion there should be public-option internet services. Everyone deserves an e-mail address that cannot be taken away from them without a court order.

also, (or: alternatively?) one that can't be/won't be blocked by the centralized services' spam filters. The biggest hurdle to running your own email server nowadays isn't the online time or the data volume or anything; it's that the existing institutions don't recognize you as part of the institutional club and block your messages... btw, Germany did this a decade ago: giving everyone an email account with the natio…

Yeah, that's the issue : how do you deal with bad actors like gmail or hotmail that by their sheer size seem to have lost all accountability ?

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

#79

Post by BlueTemplar »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #25
lordnacho wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we also all need to eat and use a toilet to live. Those seem to be provided by the market to a reasonable degree. Email is also pretty cheap and there's at least some choice among providers, though of course far fewer that food types.

Yeah but the existence of toilets is mandated by code. The existence of email isn't regulated in any way. Requiring non-commercial (<-- which is doing a lot of work here) email addresses would cause a robust market to appear overnight.

Wait, what do you mean by "non-commercial" ?

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

#80

Post by jve »

cycomanic wrote: post #49
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 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,…

Good for our neighbors (And Hi!). Latvia is also advanced in regards to eservices :)

We also get state issued ID card with PKI. We can access tons of services. Last I read I can buy a house, fully remotely. Including notary services via video call + all parties need to sign stuff with our ID card.

We get health results via email as an encrypted pdf, where password is given at the time when I submit samples.

Many business also use ID card to sign contracts between parties.

Bank transactions involve Smart-ID, 2FA app that I have to authorize via ID card for remote setup for any new device. (It involves generating new certificates) Smart-ID is developed by Estonia and is very convenient, secure way to authorize payments.

As of communication, no state issued email. However we usually get email notifications, for example from state tax service, that we should log in and read whatever we have to.

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