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Sadly I've found this to be the case both with perfectly configured personal email servers and when using privacy-preserving email providers like Tutanota. Do y

Sadly I've found this to be the case both with perfectly configured personal email servers and when using privacy-preserving email providers like Tutanota. Do you think there's anything that can be done to counter this centralizing force?

da_chicken 6y ago
Now? Almost certainly not. On the side of centralization is a market worth unimagined billions, and perhaps seven providers that already routinely lobby to get what they want. On the side of decentralization? Little guys who are already being bullied and don't have the resources. Politicians who have other extremely dangerous problems currently, including and especially those in their own industry. Don't expect their help for a long time. Smaller service providers who only want the chance to switch sides. And large independent organizations (businesses, schools, governments) who are really only interested in a cheaper bill for the same service quality. Look, we have struggled to fix the MITM/plain text problem and spam/origin problem for well over 20 years, and the Internet Age is maybe 30? It's extremely likely that the only way to fix the core design problems with email is to have the service consolidate to a small consortium of services, have them improve the base design, and then fracture the monopolies. That's going to take decades. And mail is still such a pain in the butt for a user document database. And the user experience is a joke! Asynchronous delivery, best effort failure? I mean, what? The average web page is orders of magnitude larger now! People complain about FAX and FTP.
- nirui 6y ago
  The three protocols for email (SMTP/POP/IMAP) are all outdated really badly. People today needs more efficient, multiplexed and real time message RX/TX, and those tree just not going to cut it. A new, chat-styled mail protocol can be designed to address all the problems above while reduce the risk of abuse. I wonder why nobody standing up to do it.
  - marcbradshaw 6y ago
    SMTP is going to be with us for a long while yet, but some folks are standing up to do something about IMAP - https://jmap.io/ https://jmap.io/
jabroni_salad 6y ago
These configurements do not signal "This person sends good emails", they signal "This server is what it says it is". I can load up barracuda right now and show you plenty of pornbots that have figured out how to put in a passing SPF record... as well as legitimate businesses that don't validate email addresses put into their marketing funnels. Unfortunately, we are back to the age old question. How can we have an ecosystem where anybody can email anybody without it being taken over by spam?
- trhway 6y ago
  Dint proof of work originated as a way of fighting spam? I wonder though why it didn't become widespread. Instead of shadowbanning/blocking the providers like VRZ could just increase the required POW difficulty.
  - marcbradshaw 6y ago
    and of course spammers would never have access to vast botnets to do that work. POW is (imho) a terrible idea.
belorn 6y ago
I am actually a bit more optimistic that the iron grip over email might be attacked from an unexpected direction. A lot of political parities over the world depend on email to operate internally, and the power demonstrated recently by cloud providers in the last few months are making people scared. It only take some publicity and some badly timed bans/lockouts from google before that risk seems much more real again.

da_chicken 6y ago

Now? Almost certainly not. On the side of centralization is a market worth unimagined billions, and perhaps seven providers that already routinely lobby to get what they want. On the side of decentralization? Little guys who are already being bullied and don't have the resources. Politicians who have other extremely dangerous problems currently, including and especially those in their own industry. Don't expect their help for a long time. Smaller service providers who only want the chance to switch sides. And large independent organizations (businesses, schools, governments) who are really only interested in a cheaper bill for the same service quality. Look, we have struggled to fix the MITM/plain text problem and spam/origin problem for well over 20 years, and the Internet Age is maybe 30? It's extremely likely that the only way to fix the core design problems with email is to have the service consolidate to a small consortium of services, have them improve the base design, and then fracture the monopolies. That's going to take decades. And mail is still such a pain in the butt for a user document database. And the user experience is a joke! Asynchronous delivery, best effort failure? I mean, what? The average web page is orders of magnitude larger now! People complain about FAX and FTP.

nirui 6y ago
The three protocols for email (SMTP/POP/IMAP) are all outdated really badly. People today needs more efficient, multiplexed and real time message RX/TX, and those tree just not going to cut it. A new, chat-styled mail protocol can be designed to address all the problems above while reduce the risk of abuse. I wonder why nobody standing up to do it.
- marcbradshaw 6y ago
  SMTP is going to be with us for a long while yet, but some folks are standing up to do something about IMAP - https://jmap.io/ https://jmap.io/

jabroni_salad 6y ago

These configurements do not signal "This person sends good emails", they signal "This server is what it says it is". I can load up barracuda right now and show you plenty of pornbots that have figured out how to put in a passing SPF record... as well as legitimate businesses that don't validate email addresses put into their marketing funnels. Unfortunately, we are back to the age old question. How can we have an ecosystem where anybody can email anybody without it being taken over by spam?

trhway 6y ago
Dint proof of work originated as a way of fighting spam? I wonder though why it didn't become widespread. Instead of shadowbanning/blocking the providers like VRZ could just increase the required POW difficulty.
- marcbradshaw 6y ago
  and of course spammers would never have access to vast botnets to do that work. POW is (imho) a terrible idea.

belorn 6y ago

I am actually a bit more optimistic that the iron grip over email might be attacked from an unexpected direction. A lot of political parities over the world depend on email to operate internally, and the power demonstrated recently by cloud providers in the last few months are making people scared. It only take some publicity and some badly timed bans/lockouts from google before that risk seems much more real again.