3 ms·

> What email server do you use that automatically end to end encrypts everything using pgp? I wrote a program to do that, but there is also a package in Debian

by belorn 7y ago

> What email server do you use that automatically end to end encrypts everything using pgp? I wrote a program to do that, but there is also a package in Debian if I recall right that also do it. On the mail server it looks up keys in DNS and if it founds it, automatically encrypts outgoing email. > talking about encryption at rest, in which case Gmail does that already Emails at google is not encrypted. Good must have access to the plain text in order to do analytics and search. If google has a data breach it can include every single email gmail has in plain text, and that is a fundamental risk. > more securely than whatever you're doing That is kind of impolite to make assumption about my own setup. It is also wrong.

joshuamorton 7y ago
> On the mail server it looks up keys in DNS and if it founds it, automatically encrypts outgoing email. So you're not talking about pgp/e2ee, you're talking about, like, SMIME or something. > Emails at google is not encrypted. They're at least as encrypted as they are on your server from what you've told me. > That is kind of impolite to make assumption about my own setup. Given that you don't seem to understand the difference between end to end encryption, in transit encryption, and encryption at rest, I'm going to say that no, I'm very confident that you haven't done this correctly. > It is also wrong. And that therefore no, gmail and Outlook are both more secure than your email server.
- belorn 7y ago
  I wish more people would study IT security since a lot of this kind of silly discussions are cleared up during the first lecture. Basic 101 security. In order to calculate risk you take the risk threats minus risk mitigation. The bigger the threat, or the fewer the risk mitigations are, the bigger the risk. You might have forgotten that in 2010 there was this data leak called cablegate. NSA lost 251,287 diplomatic messages. NSA did store them on an encrypted server, and used transit encryption, and yet the data leaked. A major risk to data security is access, and in that case an administrator with access leaked it. With my mail server, that administrator is me. One of the larger benefits of personal servers. When you compare Gmail and my mails server then you include social risk just as much as technical risk. You compare the physical risk, that is servers located in multiple places on the earth. You compare the political risk of a single entity that control 80% of the world email with a private email address used by one person. you compare targeted attacks with passive and optimistic attacks. Lets put money where out mouths are. Want to bet that google will have a new data leak before I do? Looks like a very lucrative bet to me. In 2018 Google had a data breach. five million user's data was compromised. In 2018 I had zero data breaches in any of my servers. Zero users data was compromised. I have been running my own server for almost 20 years and not a single bit has been lost. Have I Been Pwned? has billions of leaked accounts, not a single which belongs to me. What about you? > So you're not talking about pgp/e2ee, you're talking about, like, SMIME or something. No. There are RFC for email security written in this century. The adaption of putting pgp keys in dns is not great however which is why personal email servers is currently better, but both solution works fine either way as long both side of the conversation does it.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    > With my mail server, that administrator is me. One of the larger benefits of personal servers. Ah I see, so you aren't actually worried about security, you're worried about privacy. Which We've been over when I said: > Privacy is not security. You also are ignoring a whole host of other risks, like data loss (your one server breaks, oops there goes your all of your email, etc.) > Lets put money where out mouths are. Want to bet that google will have a new data leak before I do? Looks like a very lucrative bet to me. Sure, I'll bet you $10,000 that my email will not be leaked before yours. Here's what we'll do, I'll tell you my email address, and you tell me yours. Mine is @gmail. Yours is hosted on your server. I'll then turn around and spend $8000 on a pen-test of your server, they'll exfiltrate data, and I'll win the bet and be up an easy $2,000. > In 2018 Google had a data breach Pause, hold on. No. In 2018, Google announced that there was a vulnerability that could allow semi-public information to be shared more widely than intended (literally it was things like name and phone number that you put on your G+ profile being shared with a wider than intended audience). There was no evidence that this vulnerability had been used, and Google's own employees detected it. > In 2018 I had zero data breaches in any of my servers that you detected. Here, Google has a better track record than you: they are actively monitoring and red-teaming their own servers and systems to detect vulnerabilities. Do you? So I'll put it bluntly one more time: you are putting your clients data at more risk by administrating your own mailserver than you would be if you let Google or MS do it for you. You can try to come up with all the counterarguments you want, but they are, as this article puts, security LARPing, not actual security best practices.
    - belorn 7y ago
      You are a bit funny. Just as you can hire a hacker, I could buy a zero-day exploit, or someone could hire mercenary and take down googles servers. It would not prove or disprove anything. In the end, if you have your email leaked while I do not then that is what matters. Results. I have had zero leaked accounts. Most people have stuff that been leaked, and since you refused to answer, I assume you are listed in Have I Been Pwned?. You trusted someone to be secure and they were not. That was your choice, and it was the wrong one.

by belorn 7y ago

joshuamorton 7y ago

> On the mail server it looks up keys in DNS and if it founds it, automatically encrypts outgoing email. So you're not talking about pgp/e2ee, you're talking about, like, SMIME or something. > Emails at google is not encrypted. They're at least as encrypted as they are on your server from what you've told me. > That is kind of impolite to make assumption about my own setup. Given that you don't seem to understand the difference between end to end encryption, in transit encryption, and encryption at rest, I'm going to say that no, I'm very confident that you haven't done this correctly. > It is also wrong. And that therefore no, gmail and Outlook are both more secure than your email server.

belorn 7y ago
I wish more people would study IT security since a lot of this kind of silly discussions are cleared up during the first lecture. Basic 101 security. In order to calculate risk you take the risk threats minus risk mitigation. The bigger the threat, or the fewer the risk mitigations are, the bigger the risk. You might have forgotten that in 2010 there was this data leak called cablegate. NSA lost 251,287 diplomatic messages. NSA did store them on an encrypted server, and used transit encryption, and yet the data leaked. A major risk to data security is access, and in that case an administrator with access leaked it. With my mail server, that administrator is me. One of the larger benefits of personal servers. When you compare Gmail and my mails server then you include social risk just as much as technical risk. You compare the physical risk, that is servers located in multiple places on the earth. You compare the political risk of a single entity that control 80% of the world email with a private email address used by one person. you compare targeted attacks with passive and optimistic attacks. Lets put money where out mouths are. Want to bet that google will have a new data leak before I do? Looks like a very lucrative bet to me. In 2018 Google had a data breach. five million user's data was compromised. In 2018 I had zero data breaches in any of my servers. Zero users data was compromised. I have been running my own server for almost 20 years and not a single bit has been lost. Have I Been Pwned? has billions of leaked accounts, not a single which belongs to me. What about you? > So you're not talking about pgp/e2ee, you're talking about, like, SMIME or something. No. There are RFC for email security written in this century. The adaption of putting pgp keys in dns is not great however which is why personal email servers is currently better, but both solution works fine either way as long both side of the conversation does it.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  > With my mail server, that administrator is me. One of the larger benefits of personal servers. Ah I see, so you aren't actually worried about security, you're worried about privacy. Which We've been over when I said: > Privacy is not security. You also are ignoring a whole host of other risks, like data loss (your one server breaks, oops there goes your all of your email, etc.) > Lets put money where out mouths are. Want to bet that google will have a new data leak before I do? Looks like a very lucrative bet to me. Sure, I'll bet you $10,000 that my email will not be leaked before yours. Here's what we'll do, I'll tell you my email address, and you tell me yours. Mine is @gmail. Yours is hosted on your server. I'll then turn around and spend $8000 on a pen-test of your server, they'll exfiltrate data, and I'll win the bet and be up an easy $2,000. > In 2018 Google had a data breach Pause, hold on. No. In 2018, Google announced that there was a vulnerability that could allow semi-public information to be shared more widely than intended (literally it was things like name and phone number that you put on your G+ profile being shared with a wider than intended audience). There was no evidence that this vulnerability had been used, and Google's own employees detected it. > In 2018 I had zero data breaches in any of my servers that you detected. Here, Google has a better track record than you: they are actively monitoring and red-teaming their own servers and systems to detect vulnerabilities. Do you? So I'll put it bluntly one more time: you are putting your clients data at more risk by administrating your own mailserver than you would be if you let Google or MS do it for you. You can try to come up with all the counterarguments you want, but they are, as this article puts, security LARPing, not actual security best practices.
  - belorn 7y ago
    You are a bit funny. Just as you can hire a hacker, I could buy a zero-day exploit, or someone could hire mercenary and take down googles servers. It would not prove or disprove anything. In the end, if you have your email leaked while I do not then that is what matters. Results. I have had zero leaked accounts. Most people have stuff that been leaked, and since you refused to answer, I assume you are listed in Have I Been Pwned?. You trusted someone to be secure and they were not. That was your choice, and it was the wrong one.