3 ms·

> I think this is one important reason that more and more emails are just links to some website with the information on it (often with a login required as well)

> I think this is one important reason that more and more emails are just links to some website with the information on it (often with a login required as well). I hate this with all of my being. It's awful. Send me an email that tries to tell me how important the information is without actually giving me the information... and I won't read it, fuck you. You don't get to decide which information I find important.

xp84 2y ago
I agree wholeheartedly -- it's like getting a postcard saying "You have an important message from your doctor, go visit the doctor's office to find out what." I respect that some of this is ass-covering because of overreaching regulation (or in many cases probably overly-conservative readings of the vague regulations) especially with respect to HIPAA and Euro-style "Privacy" legislation, but personally I'd prefer to opt-out of all types of nanny-ism trying to 'protect my privacy' by sending me content-free email with links, that then require that I 'click to view' and then, 90% of the time now, return to my fucking email to retrieve a stupid code.
- LoganDark 2y ago
  My doctor does it ("you have one new notification, log into our system to see it"), financial systems do it ("something something happened on your credit report, log into our system to see it"), legal systems do it ("you have something something communication, log in to download it"), etc. It's utterly infuriating.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Some of these places are between a rock and a hard place. HIPAA or other rules may prevent a doctor from using email to send you personal medical information such as test results. For any of them, email isn't "secure" and they don't want to be accused of "leaking" personal or confidential information. GPG exists, but it's been a non-starter for the average user the entire time, so no reason to expect that it will suddenly become workable now.
    - briHass 2y ago
      Ironic, because it's assumed your email is insecure and visible to more than just you, but it's used as a password reset and/or 2FA mechanism for almost everything. It would be nice if sites had a checkbox that allowed you to affirm that your email is secure and private, so then detailed emails were sent.
      - SoftTalker 2y ago
        There's no way to guarantee that. SMTP is not a secure protocol. Your message could be read by any intermediary along its delivery route.
        grayhatter 2y ago
        It is possible to deliver emails IFF the receiving server presents a valid TLS connection and cert. I don't think I've seen anyone actually enforce that though.
        SoftTalker 2y ago
        Yes but the server itself has full visibility on the message while it is handling it. It can scan it for viruses, parse it for ad insertion, feed it to train an LLM, just keep a copy of everything, whatever.
        grayhatter 2y ago
        yeah... that's why it's important to be able to trust your email provider... I assumed you meant anyone passing along the message, like a router, or rogue ISP. I was more going for the idea that you can make SMTP secure from sender domain to destination domain. If you don't trust your host, nothing else really matters, in all cases.
        kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
        SMTP can use intermediate relays. TLS doesn't guard against the middlemen.
- l72 2y ago
  I would happily go into my bank or medical provider and upload my pgp public key for them to encrypt emails with… Email is an incredibly important communication database and I expect my important communications to be there and be searchable.

xp84 2y ago

I agree wholeheartedly -- it's like getting a postcard saying "You have an important message from your doctor, go visit the doctor's office to find out what." I respect that some of this is ass-covering because of overreaching regulation (or in many cases probably overly-conservative readings of the vague regulations) especially with respect to HIPAA and Euro-style "Privacy" legislation, but personally I'd prefer to opt-out of all types of nanny-ism trying to 'protect my privacy' by sending me content-free email with links, that then require that I 'click to view' and then, 90% of the time now, return to my fucking email to retrieve a stupid code.

LoganDark 2y ago
My doctor does it ("you have one new notification, log into our system to see it"), financial systems do it ("something something happened on your credit report, log into our system to see it"), legal systems do it ("you have something something communication, log in to download it"), etc. It's utterly infuriating.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Some of these places are between a rock and a hard place. HIPAA or other rules may prevent a doctor from using email to send you personal medical information such as test results. For any of them, email isn't "secure" and they don't want to be accused of "leaking" personal or confidential information. GPG exists, but it's been a non-starter for the average user the entire time, so no reason to expect that it will suddenly become workable now.
  - briHass 2y ago
    Ironic, because it's assumed your email is insecure and visible to more than just you, but it's used as a password reset and/or 2FA mechanism for almost everything. It would be nice if sites had a checkbox that allowed you to affirm that your email is secure and private, so then detailed emails were sent.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      There's no way to guarantee that. SMTP is not a secure protocol. Your message could be read by any intermediary along its delivery route.
      - grayhatter 2y ago
        It is possible to deliver emails IFF the receiving server presents a valid TLS connection and cert. I don't think I've seen anyone actually enforce that though.
        SoftTalker 2y ago
        Yes but the server itself has full visibility on the message while it is handling it. It can scan it for viruses, parse it for ad insertion, feed it to train an LLM, just keep a copy of everything, whatever.
        grayhatter 2y ago
        yeah... that's why it's important to be able to trust your email provider... I assumed you meant anyone passing along the message, like a router, or rogue ISP. I was more going for the idea that you can make SMTP secure from sender domain to destination domain. If you don't trust your host, nothing else really matters, in all cases.
        kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
        SMTP can use intermediate relays. TLS doesn't guard against the middlemen.
l72 2y ago
I would happily go into my bank or medical provider and upload my pgp public key for them to encrypt emails with… Email is an incredibly important communication database and I expect my important communications to be there and be searchable.