6 ms·

I realized this when Microsoft started reading the emails and attachments in my office 365 account, and having Cortana "helpfully" suggest various to-do items f

by corpdrone2021 5y ago

I realized this when Microsoft started reading the emails and attachments in my office 365 account, and having Cortana "helpfully" suggest various to-do items from them. The degree to which this seems to be the case has me convinced that the only way I will actually have any control of my data is if it's on a hard drive in my physical possession. And frankly I don't have time to maintain my own IT infrastructure.

j45 5y ago
The reality has changed a lot about self hosting. Looking into it might surprise you.
- folkrav 5y ago
  Self hosting e-mail? With the trust issues you get with small mail servers these days, I've got better things to do than worry if that job application ever reached their inbox.
  - j45 5y ago
    There’s more pragmatic ways to self host, other than configuring everything from scratch.. including email. Lots of tools and suites like Zimbra and Mdaemon that can self host mail just fine. Outbound delivery can use a service as well. Look for options and possibilities and they can be found. Look for reasons not to do something and those will be found too.
- hundreddaysoff 5y ago
  You're saying self-hosting is easier now than in the past?
  - j45 5y ago
    Having done self hosting and and coming back to it after a 10 year break.. much easier. One example of not setting everyone from scratch.. IaaS/Paas: Install Proxmox from USB.. 10 minutes from boot to web interface to your own local linode/digital ocean. Redundancy, setup 2 and link them. Disaster recovery, put it off site. Backups, connect it to one of a few built in options. Network/infrastructure: deploy docker images for VPN (algo), firewalls (pfsense), dns (pihole), proxy (traefik, etc). It can remain an appliance that can be configured to self update if needed. Storage: make storage into an appliance that you set and forget with a nas. Next spin up your services/packages. Things like turnkeylinux is a nice way to try out things. There is a nice self hosting community on Reddit if you’re interested for folks who have setup homelabs.
  - nisegami 5y ago
    With the exception of outbound mail, I absolutely think it is.
neither_color 5y ago
I was mortified by Cortana auto-extracting todos from private emails but my father in his late 50’s said it was neat and very useful for him. So it goes.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I have always found it pretty helpful when Gmail would add reminders and calendar events by scanning emails so I can see it.
  - taeric 5y ago
    When it is locally done, I find it hard to see what isn't too like. That is, if I open an email and it asks if I want to make a reminder or add it to my calendar, that is cool. When I see that several emails I have not opened are already on my calendar, I am less happy about it.
    - marcellus23 5y ago
      That can still be done locally, no? You don't have to open an email for the phone to retrieve its contents.
      - taeric 5y ago
        I meant locally to be in my sight. That said, I'd also assume that full emails are not sent to my device until I open them, unless I setup something.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      I don’t really see what’s different, honestly. They’re moving it from one system they control to another, big deal. Plus who says I even saw the original e-mail?
      - taeric 5y ago
        If they have given a side channel to impact my calendar, that will cause issues. Sure, for many folks this will be fine. But it seems an unnecessary denial of service attack vector that needs more engineering to protect than makes sense.
Spivak 5y ago
I feel like the rule for these kinds of features goes like this: if it would be fine and useful for a self-hosted version of the app to do something then it's fine if a cloud-hosted version to do it as well. If you don't like that o365 is scanning your emails for todos and potential calendar events but it would be a non-issue on your Mail-in-a-Box then you have a problem with MS not the scanning.
- SCNP 5y ago
  Precisely this. I think this is why these discussions always blow up. A lot of commenters talking past each other about the tech that is pretty awesome. I've loved the idea of a personal assistant since I saw the movie Cherry 2000. However, I don't want MS or Google in charge of it. I'm in the process of setting up home automation and I'd like to eventually get to some AI driven processes but it needs to stay in my house. It makes me sad that the tech exists but I can't trust it's purveyors. I'm gonna have to figure it out myself.
starky 5y ago
It irritates me to no end how Microsoft keeps updating their programs to make them be "helpful". I literally NEVER want their suggestions, I just want their programs to get out of my fucking way so I can do my work.
- blooalien 5y ago
  One of a thousand Microsoft "papercuts" that drove me to Linux. Admittedly it ain't Windows, but that's pretty much the point. After enough years of daily little Windows annoyances built up, the fact that Linux was not Windows was worth the learning curve to me.

j45 5y ago

The reality has changed a lot about self hosting. Looking into it might surprise you.

folkrav 5y ago
Self hosting e-mail? With the trust issues you get with small mail servers these days, I've got better things to do than worry if that job application ever reached their inbox.
- j45 5y ago
  There’s more pragmatic ways to self host, other than configuring everything from scratch.. including email. Lots of tools and suites like Zimbra and Mdaemon that can self host mail just fine. Outbound delivery can use a service as well. Look for options and possibilities and they can be found. Look for reasons not to do something and those will be found too.
hundreddaysoff 5y ago
You're saying self-hosting is easier now than in the past?
- j45 5y ago
  Having done self hosting and and coming back to it after a 10 year break.. much easier. One example of not setting everyone from scratch.. IaaS/Paas: Install Proxmox from USB.. 10 minutes from boot to web interface to your own local linode/digital ocean. Redundancy, setup 2 and link them. Disaster recovery, put it off site. Backups, connect it to one of a few built in options. Network/infrastructure: deploy docker images for VPN (algo), firewalls (pfsense), dns (pihole), proxy (traefik, etc). It can remain an appliance that can be configured to self update if needed. Storage: make storage into an appliance that you set and forget with a nas. Next spin up your services/packages. Things like turnkeylinux is a nice way to try out things. There is a nice self hosting community on Reddit if you’re interested for folks who have setup homelabs.
- nisegami 5y ago
  With the exception of outbound mail, I absolutely think it is.

neither_color 5y ago

I was mortified by Cortana auto-extracting todos from private emails but my father in his late 50’s said it was neat and very useful for him. So it goes.

emodendroket 5y ago
I have always found it pretty helpful when Gmail would add reminders and calendar events by scanning emails so I can see it.
- taeric 5y ago
  When it is locally done, I find it hard to see what isn't too like. That is, if I open an email and it asks if I want to make a reminder or add it to my calendar, that is cool. When I see that several emails I have not opened are already on my calendar, I am less happy about it.
  - marcellus23 5y ago
    That can still be done locally, no? You don't have to open an email for the phone to retrieve its contents.
    - taeric 5y ago
      I meant locally to be in my sight. That said, I'd also assume that full emails are not sent to my device until I open them, unless I setup something.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    I don’t really see what’s different, honestly. They’re moving it from one system they control to another, big deal. Plus who says I even saw the original e-mail?
    - taeric 5y ago
      If they have given a side channel to impact my calendar, that will cause issues. Sure, for many folks this will be fine. But it seems an unnecessary denial of service attack vector that needs more engineering to protect than makes sense.

Spivak 5y ago

I feel like the rule for these kinds of features goes like this: if it would be fine and useful for a self-hosted version of the app to do something then it's fine if a cloud-hosted version to do it as well. If you don't like that o365 is scanning your emails for todos and potential calendar events but it would be a non-issue on your Mail-in-a-Box then you have a problem with MS not the scanning.

SCNP 5y ago
Precisely this. I think this is why these discussions always blow up. A lot of commenters talking past each other about the tech that is pretty awesome. I've loved the idea of a personal assistant since I saw the movie Cherry 2000. However, I don't want MS or Google in charge of it. I'm in the process of setting up home automation and I'd like to eventually get to some AI driven processes but it needs to stay in my house. It makes me sad that the tech exists but I can't trust it's purveyors. I'm gonna have to figure it out myself.

starky 5y ago

It irritates me to no end how Microsoft keeps updating their programs to make them be "helpful". I literally NEVER want their suggestions, I just want their programs to get out of my fucking way so I can do my work.

blooalien 5y ago
One of a thousand Microsoft "papercuts" that drove me to Linux. Admittedly it ain't Windows, but that's pretty much the point. After enough years of daily little Windows annoyances built up, the fact that Linux was not Windows was worth the learning curve to me.