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I'm not saying you're wrong, but that particular source is well known for making big claims with insufficient evidence, and it reads like it was written by a co

I'm not saying you're wrong, but that particular source is well known for making big claims with insufficient evidence, and it reads like it was written by a conspiracy theorist. Many of the author's claims have already been (imo, pretty solidly) refuted by Proton. Disclaimer: using protonmail until my current subscription runs out, then selfhosting

antiterra 5y ago
Doesn’t self-hosting also have privacy downsides, being that all the hardware is tied to you? I’d imagine whatever minor resistance to wiretapping a multiuser site gave regarding privacy of non-investigated individuals would disappear.
- RussianCow 5y ago
  It depends on your threat model. If you’re worried about big companies like Google harvesting your data, self-hosting is a great solution because you remove them from the equation entirely. On the other hand, if you’re worried about three-letter government agencies, you need to go through much more extreme measures. Most people aren’t as concerned with the latter, though.
  - caymanjim 5y ago
    This is why I self-host. I'm not trying to hide from the government, as I know they don't care about me. Sure, in principle I don't want them snooping me, but it's not a concern. I self-host because I don't want companies snooping all my data.
- BostonEnginerd 5y ago
  The 1986 electronic privacy act consider emails older than 180 days old to be “abandoned” and do not require a warrant to access. Self-hosting at least means that this should not apply, I think.
  - artificial 5y ago
    From what I can see there was a House resolution passed in 2017 which protects email. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/05/email-privacy-act-comes-back-hopefully-stay https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/05/email-privacy-act-come...
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      It never passed the Senate.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_Privacy_Act
- bsder 5y ago
  > Doesn’t self-hosting also have privacy downsides, being that all the hardware is tied to you? Sure. But I'm not worried about someone who has an actual warrant for ME getting at stuff. What I want to stop is some random law enforcement idiot from Dipshitsville, Texas, from sending an electronic request to Google for "every email with the word "abortion" and "protest" in it" who promptly turns over all my email. If you want my email, you're gonna have to get up off your chair, file a warrant with somebody's name on it in front of a judge, crossfile in some different legal jurisdictions, and have someone come seize my machines. That will stop most everybody short of NSA. If your threat is the NSA, you're screwed anyway. If they can't get at your email legitimately, they'll just fabricate the evidence they need against you.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > If your threat is the NSA, you’re screwed anyway. If they can’t get at your email legitimately, they’ll just fabricate the evidence they need against you. The NSA doesn’t need evidence; you must have them confused with the FBI.
plank_time 5y ago
Self hosting these days is almost impossible because most email providers like gmail and yahoo mail will automatically move your emails to spam. It’s all based on IP address and how reliable that IP address is. Self hosting guarantees that all your sent email will end up in spam folders.
- habibur 5y ago
  Not necessarily. Had been self hosting for decades and I move the server every two years to a new IP mostly because of server/os refresh. Right now only hotmail bounces mail. Am using DO/Singapore. Other centers fare better.
  - yhager 5y ago
    Same here, been hosting for over a decade now. You do need to be on top of all the latest technologies, and still some problems will arise once in a while. But all in all, it's a pretty smooth operation.
  - oblib 5y ago
    Same here. I setup a new email server last month and most every big email service made it pretty easy to get whitelisted, but not Microsoft. They're a total pita to deal with. Google made it very easy. My server is a "Mail-in-a-Box" running on a DigitalOcean VPS.
- jjav 5y ago
  > Self hosting these days is almost impossible because most email providers like gmail and yahoo mail will automatically move your emails to spam. This is completely not true. Comes up every time there is a thread related to email. Every time many of us who host our own email servers will explain how it is not true. You can absolutely self-host your email server for your domains, configure it correctly and it will work fine. gmail has a huge false positive spam identification problem, but it applies to all emails, even those from gmail to gmail.
- caymanjim 5y ago
  This isn't true at all. I self-host email, with full SPF/DKIM/dmarc, ESMTP, and my email isn't rejected anywhere. I'm sending and receiving via a Digital Ocean VPS. I've had the same IP for six years, and never had a problem.

antiterra 5y ago

Doesn’t self-hosting also have privacy downsides, being that all the hardware is tied to you? I’d imagine whatever minor resistance to wiretapping a multiuser site gave regarding privacy of non-investigated individuals would disappear.

RussianCow 5y ago
It depends on your threat model. If you’re worried about big companies like Google harvesting your data, self-hosting is a great solution because you remove them from the equation entirely. On the other hand, if you’re worried about three-letter government agencies, you need to go through much more extreme measures. Most people aren’t as concerned with the latter, though.
- caymanjim 5y ago
  This is why I self-host. I'm not trying to hide from the government, as I know they don't care about me. Sure, in principle I don't want them snooping me, but it's not a concern. I self-host because I don't want companies snooping all my data.
BostonEnginerd 5y ago
The 1986 electronic privacy act consider emails older than 180 days old to be “abandoned” and do not require a warrant to access. Self-hosting at least means that this should not apply, I think.
- artificial 5y ago
  From what I can see there was a House resolution passed in 2017 which protects email. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/05/email-privacy-act-comes-back-hopefully-stay https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/05/email-privacy-act-come...
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    It never passed the Senate.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_Privacy_Act
bsder 5y ago
> Doesn’t self-hosting also have privacy downsides, being that all the hardware is tied to you? Sure. But I'm not worried about someone who has an actual warrant for ME getting at stuff. What I want to stop is some random law enforcement idiot from Dipshitsville, Texas, from sending an electronic request to Google for "every email with the word "abortion" and "protest" in it" who promptly turns over all my email. If you want my email, you're gonna have to get up off your chair, file a warrant with somebody's name on it in front of a judge, crossfile in some different legal jurisdictions, and have someone come seize my machines. That will stop most everybody short of NSA. If your threat is the NSA, you're screwed anyway. If they can't get at your email legitimately, they'll just fabricate the evidence they need against you.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > If your threat is the NSA, you’re screwed anyway. If they can’t get at your email legitimately, they’ll just fabricate the evidence they need against you. The NSA doesn’t need evidence; you must have them confused with the FBI.

plank_time 5y ago

Self hosting these days is almost impossible because most email providers like gmail and yahoo mail will automatically move your emails to spam. It’s all based on IP address and how reliable that IP address is. Self hosting guarantees that all your sent email will end up in spam folders.

habibur 5y ago
Not necessarily. Had been self hosting for decades and I move the server every two years to a new IP mostly because of server/os refresh. Right now only hotmail bounces mail. Am using DO/Singapore. Other centers fare better.
- yhager 5y ago
  Same here, been hosting for over a decade now. You do need to be on top of all the latest technologies, and still some problems will arise once in a while. But all in all, it's a pretty smooth operation.
- oblib 5y ago
  Same here. I setup a new email server last month and most every big email service made it pretty easy to get whitelisted, but not Microsoft. They're a total pita to deal with. Google made it very easy. My server is a "Mail-in-a-Box" running on a DigitalOcean VPS.
jjav 5y ago
> Self hosting these days is almost impossible because most email providers like gmail and yahoo mail will automatically move your emails to spam. This is completely not true. Comes up every time there is a thread related to email. Every time many of us who host our own email servers will explain how it is not true. You can absolutely self-host your email server for your domains, configure it correctly and it will work fine. gmail has a huge false positive spam identification problem, but it applies to all emails, even those from gmail to gmail.
caymanjim 5y ago
This isn't true at all. I self-host email, with full SPF/DKIM/dmarc, ESMTP, and my email isn't rejected anywhere. I'm sending and receiving via a Digital Ocean VPS. I've had the same IP for six years, and never had a problem.