5 ms·

Mailbox.org: German email service w/encryption, server located in Germany

21 points by epaga 13y ago

Ihmahr 13y ago
Too bad it is only in german. I'm a big proponent of paying for your service, the €1,- per Monat is reasonable instead of the rediculous 10,- per Monat you pay at some of the other privacy respecting services.
- amirmc 13y ago
  Is 120 per year really ridiculous? (I assume Monat -> month). For something as crucial to online comms as email I'd be happy to pay if it was as reliable as other offerings (and ideally extensible in some form - e.g if it could do contact/calendar sync too). I'm considering trying out https://mykolab.com https://mykolab.com at some point as it looks like it might meet my needs. That looks like it would be around $12pcm.
  - Ihmahr 13y ago
    That is the one I was referring to. I don't think it reasonable to ask €10,- per month because that is just ridiculous compared to the costs that they are making. Of course it is an important service. But it would also be outrageous to ask €1.000 for a bottle of water when someone is dying of thirst in the desert. That would just be a dick move. Although less extreme, mykolab is similar.
    - herrschindler 13y ago
      You've never been to Switzerland, have you? The price of an extra large coffee at Starbucks per month for highly secure groupware accounts? Surely, that is obscene. </irony>
  - rikacomet 13y ago
    Isn't that how it is working? For example The cost of bandwidth is 10x less in US based datacenters, compared to Indian datacenter (despite lower wages/other costs) 300 GB transfer Vs 30 GB transfer. Who would you host your services with? If you are concerned about your security (not that I'm validating Mailbox.org), don't always go for the cheapest options; Or as uncle Sam says "there is always a catch junior, always!"
- ghacks 13y ago
  The frontpage is entirely in German, but the actual web interface is not with the exception of one settings module. You can switch to English, French, Spanish, Italian and other languages easily. The €1 is for the smallest package. You get 3 email aliases, 10,000 emails per day quota, 2GB of email storage, and 100 MB of Office storage.
wbhart 13y ago
"Content will be evaluated either individually or statistically." I am sure Google Translate is missing a "not" in that sentence!
- epaga 13y ago
  it should be "neither/nor" (weder/noch) rather than "either/or" (entweder/oder). Weird mistake for the usually excellent Google Translate to make.
zokier 13y ago
what does "encryption" mean in this context? Do they offer webmail?
- darklajid 13y ago
  Site's still lacking some details, but as far as I understand: - really good SSL grade (A+, see [1]) - SSL only - HSTS to prevent http connections - You can select to send from your 'secure.mailbox.org' alias, which seems to enforce TLS for smtp (and WILL break if the recipient doesn't support it, they explicitly want that) - You can enable DANE, enforce DANE, require that the server already knows the certificate of your target domain - They have 'easy' explanations on how to use PGP - There's an option to encrypt your whole mailbox on the server ('neither the police nor we can read your mails'), but I couldn't find details about that Note: Not affiliated, not a customer, merely reading the site myself and German's my native language. 1: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=mailbox.org https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=mailbox.org
  - ghacks 13y ago
    About PGP encryption. You can enable Inbox Encryption in the settings. You enable it and paste your public PGP key in as well, and all incoming emails that are not encrypted will be encrypted using your public key. You can also force the use of SSL/TSL for all emails in the settings, so that you do not have to use the "special" address for that.
- pille 13y ago
  They use your public PGP key to encrypt mails sent to you, before storing them on their server. This is an optional feature, and turning it on will make webmail and smartphone mail unusable. Edit, source: (even if you read German it was tricky to find what exactly differentiates their encryption feature.) https://mailbox.org/im-stiftfilm-erklaert-das-vollstaendig-verschluesselte-postfach/ https://mailbox.org/im-stiftfilm-erklaert-das-vollstaendig-v...
  - mike-cardwell 13y ago
rikacomet 13y ago
On another note, is this related to them? http://heinlein-gmbh.de/ http://heinlein-gmbh.de/ If so, I can't help wonder the difference in web design expertise in both of them.
- darklajid 13y ago
  Erm.. No, that's a carpenter. https://www.heinlein-support.de/ https://www.heinlein-support.de/ would be the company behind this site.
sneak 13y ago
Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushmail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushmail
mverwijs 13y ago
Passwords may only contain alpha-numerical characters. Too bad. I have my creditcard in hand. It also does not allow this 64 character string: t9fvwlh8x4IQbXyqegNxCHYYvSKAMEfgrnSI0dIoFLmNyPq31TVZifSWgORG80rT Claiming it is 'too simple' or 'a dictionary word'.... This is not going well.... Edit: it DOES accept this as a password: aKMDN47Ifdpg Nope.
herrschindler 13y ago
Before you consider hosting your mail in Germany, you might want to consider these: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fheise.de%2F-2099152 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=ht... http://rt.com/news/german-spy-agency-nsa-051/ http://rt.com/news/german-spy-agency-nsa-051/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/europe-wont-save-you-why-e-mail-is-probably-safer-in-the-us/2/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/europe-wont-save-... TL;DR: Article 10 of the German has provisions that allow bypassing all data protection law. All providers above 10,000 users are required to install governmental snooping devices that are capable of getting full emails and not "just" metadata. And the 4th amendment of the US constitution does not protect you in Germany. So as far as Germany is concerned you may just be worse off than hosting with Google.

21 points by epaga 13y ago

Too bad it is only in german. I'm a big proponent of paying for your service, the €1,- per Monat is reasonable instead of the rediculous 10,- per Monat you pay at some of the other privacy respecting services.

amirmc 13y ago
Is 120 per year really ridiculous? (I assume Monat -> month). For something as crucial to online comms as email I'd be happy to pay if it was as reliable as other offerings (and ideally extensible in some form - e.g if it could do contact/calendar sync too). I'm considering trying out https://mykolab.com https://mykolab.com at some point as it looks like it might meet my needs. That looks like it would be around $12pcm.
- Ihmahr 13y ago
  That is the one I was referring to. I don't think it reasonable to ask €10,- per month because that is just ridiculous compared to the costs that they are making. Of course it is an important service. But it would also be outrageous to ask €1.000 for a bottle of water when someone is dying of thirst in the desert. That would just be a dick move. Although less extreme, mykolab is similar.
  - herrschindler 13y ago
    You've never been to Switzerland, have you? The price of an extra large coffee at Starbucks per month for highly secure groupware accounts? Surely, that is obscene. </irony>
- rikacomet 13y ago
  Isn't that how it is working? For example The cost of bandwidth is 10x less in US based datacenters, compared to Indian datacenter (despite lower wages/other costs) 300 GB transfer Vs 30 GB transfer. Who would you host your services with? If you are concerned about your security (not that I'm validating Mailbox.org), don't always go for the cheapest options; Or as uncle Sam says "there is always a catch junior, always!"
ghacks 13y ago
The frontpage is entirely in German, but the actual web interface is not with the exception of one settings module. You can switch to English, French, Spanish, Italian and other languages easily. The €1 is for the smallest package. You get 3 email aliases, 10,000 emails per day quota, 2GB of email storage, and 100 MB of Office storage.

wbhart 13y ago

"Content will be evaluated either individually or statistically." I am sure Google Translate is missing a "not" in that sentence!

epaga 13y ago
it should be "neither/nor" (weder/noch) rather than "either/or" (entweder/oder). Weird mistake for the usually excellent Google Translate to make.

zokier 13y ago

what does "encryption" mean in this context? Do they offer webmail?

darklajid 13y ago
Site's still lacking some details, but as far as I understand: - really good SSL grade (A+, see [1]) - SSL only - HSTS to prevent http connections - You can select to send from your 'secure.mailbox.org' alias, which seems to enforce TLS for smtp (and WILL break if the recipient doesn't support it, they explicitly want that) - You can enable DANE, enforce DANE, require that the server already knows the certificate of your target domain - They have 'easy' explanations on how to use PGP - There's an option to encrypt your whole mailbox on the server ('neither the police nor we can read your mails'), but I couldn't find details about that Note: Not affiliated, not a customer, merely reading the site myself and German's my native language. 1: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=mailbox.org https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=mailbox.org
- ghacks 13y ago
  About PGP encryption. You can enable Inbox Encryption in the settings. You enable it and paste your public PGP key in as well, and all incoming emails that are not encrypted will be encrypted using your public key. You can also force the use of SSL/TSL for all emails in the settings, so that you do not have to use the "special" address for that.
pille 13y ago
They use your public PGP key to encrypt mails sent to you, before storing them on their server. This is an optional feature, and turning it on will make webmail and smartphone mail unusable. Edit, source: (even if you read German it was tricky to find what exactly differentiates their encryption feature.) https://mailbox.org/im-stiftfilm-erklaert-das-vollstaendig-verschluesselte-postfach/ https://mailbox.org/im-stiftfilm-erklaert-das-vollstaendig-v...
- mike-cardwell 13y ago

rikacomet 13y ago

On another note, is this related to them? http://heinlein-gmbh.de/ http://heinlein-gmbh.de/ If so, I can't help wonder the difference in web design expertise in both of them.

darklajid 13y ago
Erm.. No, that's a carpenter. https://www.heinlein-support.de/ https://www.heinlein-support.de/ would be the company behind this site.

sneak 13y ago

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushmail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushmail

mverwijs 13y ago

Passwords may only contain alpha-numerical characters. Too bad. I have my creditcard in hand. It also does not allow this 64 character string: t9fvwlh8x4IQbXyqegNxCHYYvSKAMEfgrnSI0dIoFLmNyPq31TVZifSWgORG80rT Claiming it is 'too simple' or 'a dictionary word'.... This is not going well.... Edit: it DOES accept this as a password: aKMDN47Ifdpg Nope.

herrschindler 13y ago

Before you consider hosting your mail in Germany, you might want to consider these: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fheise.de%2F-2099152 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=ht... http://rt.com/news/german-spy-agency-nsa-051/ http://rt.com/news/german-spy-agency-nsa-051/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/europe-wont-save-you-why-e-mail-is-probably-safer-in-the-us/2/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/europe-wont-save-... TL;DR: Article 10 of the German has provisions that allow bypassing all data protection law. All providers above 10,000 users are required to install governmental snooping devices that are capable of getting full emails and not "just" metadata. And the 4th amendment of the US constitution does not protect you in Germany. So as far as Germany is concerned you may just be worse off than hosting with Google.