4 ms·

> Things that have happened in the last 20 years include SPF, DKIM, DMARC Right, of course. The protocols are more complex. (Add TLS, MTA-STS...) But whereas 2

> Things that have happened in the last 20 years include SPF, DKIM, DMARC Right, of course. The protocols are more complex. (Add TLS, MTA-STS...) But whereas 20 years ago you _had_ to start from scratch and understand the whole stack, today that's just not necessary. There are numerous projects that make running a mail server readily possible without knowing e.g. the sendmail configuration macro language. And there are many many more good resources to learn it all if you want to know than there were 20 years ago. It is both a more complex technology and also undeniably easier for people to actually do it.

wpietri 5y ago
Sorry, I think "undeniable" is way too strong. I wrote the email chapter for the book "Internet Secrets" in 2000, and I ran my own mail server 1997-2019, so I have a pretty good sense of what the landscape was like then versus now. QMail and Postfix were both out before 2001, so you didn't need to know sendmail at the time. You just had to be able to configure the mailer to get things up and running. And given that there were decent Linux distributions available, the technical challenge wasn't high. The difference now is that from there, there's a lot more to understand if you actually want your email to get anywhere reliably. It's complicated, subtle, and much harder to resolve problems when you get it wrong. At the time, the biggest problem was bounces. Now deliverability has become a dark art. Just out of curiosity, when did you start running your own mail server?
- joshdata 5y ago
  I think around 1998 or 1999. I don't think we disagree on the facts: I totally agree that there is a lot more to understand and that deliverability is a nightmare. No question. What I see is that today people can achieve a reasonable mail server while being an expert at less.

4 ms·

> Things that have happened in the last 20 years include SPF, DKIM, DMARC Right, of course. The protocols are more complex. (Add TLS, MTA-STS...) But whereas 2

by joshdata 5y ago

wpietri 5y ago
Sorry, I think "undeniable" is way too strong. I wrote the email chapter for the book "Internet Secrets" in 2000, and I ran my own mail server 1997-2019, so I have a pretty good sense of what the landscape was like then versus now. QMail and Postfix were both out before 2001, so you didn't need to know sendmail at the time. You just had to be able to configure the mailer to get things up and running. And given that there were decent Linux distributions available, the technical challenge wasn't high. The difference now is that from there, there's a lot more to understand if you actually want your email to get anywhere reliably. It's complicated, subtle, and much harder to resolve problems when you get it wrong. At the time, the biggest problem was bounces. Now deliverability has become a dark art. Just out of curiosity, when did you start running your own mail server?
- joshdata 5y ago
  I think around 1998 or 1999. I don't think we disagree on the facts: I totally agree that there is a lot more to understand and that deliverability is a nightmare. No question. What I see is that today people can achieve a reasonable mail server while being an expert at less.