3 ms·

And email "privacy" is cheap, if you know how to do it. There recently was an article about setting up Firesheep provention on AWS http://www.stratumsecurity.c

And email "privacy" is cheap, if you know how to do it. There recently was an article about setting up Firesheep provention on AWS http://www.stratumsecurity.com/blog/2010/12/03/shearing-firesheep-with-the-cloud/ http://www.stratumsecurity.com/blog/2010/12/03/shearing-fire... That, of course, has the user set up a remote OpenVPN, with a free tier Amazon AWS. Average costs for bandwidth are around $0.50 per month. A domain name is what, around 9$ or so per year. I can get an ipv6 address/AAAA record and a /48 from he.net for free. And with appropriate know-how, I can set up qmail (and it's apt-able). And that's as private as AWS is, which I think as long as you arent doing anything to garner attention (think piracy) you'll be fine, all on $1.25/month for a VPN and Email server

drivebyacct2 16y ago
It's just a bit of a misnomer since the costs increase greatly after a year due to the costs of an EC2 instance seeing as it's not really a "free tier" as that article implies.
- TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
  Not really. It's well stated that the costs are ignored, with exception of bandwidth, for a year. After that, "normal" costs are applied. That's a simple answer, and what I did with Amazon: I went to Wal-Mart and bought a $15 Visa. When the money runs out, no more service. It keeps recurring costs such as these down to a sane level with no chance of going 'nuclear' like some of those AT&T bills did with overseas data.
  - drivebyacct2 16y ago
    Neither your comment or the article you linked to mentions that the $1.25/mo VPN+Email is only true for 12 months max. edit/ I guess your comment can be read to be only discussing the costs of "privacy", but I guess that implies that the only privacy concern with non-self-hosted web mail is data when it's being transmitted. I'm less worried about you stealing my email over wifi and far more concerned about the FBI reading my mail off of Google's servers. In that sense EC2 costs more than $1.25/mo. --- edit: your reply below. I don't know why you keep replying and trying to argue with me. Your comment implied that email privacy was cheap because it only cost $1.25. That's not accurate and that's all I was trying to point out. I'm aware of the changeability of DNS records, still not sure what that has to do with me merely pointing out that email privacy isn't 1.25.
    - TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
      If you are smart enough to set up a AWS ubuntu instance, even following directions on a guide meant for OSX, then you can be minimally smart enough to see the FREE TIER only applies for 1 year when you actually sign up. And a domain name is only a pointer to whatever server you want it to. The name is yours for however long you have it (which you should buy one and keep it for your personal use). And of course, jump ship when AWS goes to regular pricing, or use my 15$ cc from Walmart to cap it to a sane level.
    - nickzoic 16y ago
      AWS EC2 nodes are fairly cheap, and I like them for a lot of things, but there's also a whole range of virtual host providers like http://www.asmallorange.com/hosting/shared/ http://www.asmallorange.com/hosting/shared/ who provide Linux-based shared hosting with a GUI to set up email, web etc. services. That'll avoid Google reading your email. On the other hand, if you're worried about the FBI reading your email, you probably need to either run your own mailserver or run PGP. Preferably both. There's an OpenPGP plugin (Enigmail) available for Thunderbird, works well enough. (usual disclaimer: just a satisfied customer, etc)

drivebyacct2 16y ago

It's just a bit of a misnomer since the costs increase greatly after a year due to the costs of an EC2 instance seeing as it's not really a "free tier" as that article implies.

TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
Not really. It's well stated that the costs are ignored, with exception of bandwidth, for a year. After that, "normal" costs are applied. That's a simple answer, and what I did with Amazon: I went to Wal-Mart and bought a $15 Visa. When the money runs out, no more service. It keeps recurring costs such as these down to a sane level with no chance of going 'nuclear' like some of those AT&T bills did with overseas data.
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  Neither your comment or the article you linked to mentions that the $1.25/mo VPN+Email is only true for 12 months max. edit/ I guess your comment can be read to be only discussing the costs of "privacy", but I guess that implies that the only privacy concern with non-self-hosted web mail is data when it's being transmitted. I'm less worried about you stealing my email over wifi and far more concerned about the FBI reading my mail off of Google's servers. In that sense EC2 costs more than $1.25/mo. --- edit: your reply below. I don't know why you keep replying and trying to argue with me. Your comment implied that email privacy was cheap because it only cost $1.25. That's not accurate and that's all I was trying to point out. I'm aware of the changeability of DNS records, still not sure what that has to do with me merely pointing out that email privacy isn't 1.25.
  - TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
    If you are smart enough to set up a AWS ubuntu instance, even following directions on a guide meant for OSX, then you can be minimally smart enough to see the FREE TIER only applies for 1 year when you actually sign up. And a domain name is only a pointer to whatever server you want it to. The name is yours for however long you have it (which you should buy one and keep it for your personal use). And of course, jump ship when AWS goes to regular pricing, or use my 15$ cc from Walmart to cap it to a sane level.
  - nickzoic 16y ago
    AWS EC2 nodes are fairly cheap, and I like them for a lot of things, but there's also a whole range of virtual host providers like http://www.asmallorange.com/hosting/shared/ http://www.asmallorange.com/hosting/shared/ who provide Linux-based shared hosting with a GUI to set up email, web etc. services. That'll avoid Google reading your email. On the other hand, if you're worried about the FBI reading your email, you probably need to either run your own mailserver or run PGP. Preferably both. There's an OpenPGP plugin (Enigmail) available for Thunderbird, works well enough. (usual disclaimer: just a satisfied customer, etc)