19 ms·

Own-Mailbox, the first 100% confidential mailbox

529 points by yannski 11y ago

amelius 11y ago
Are we going to buy physical devices now, for all the things we used to do in pure software? How many devices will we end up with?
- awhe 11y ago
  What do you mean? It sounds like you see a trend of unnecessary hardware products. Which other physical devices are replacing "pure software"? And isn't having a physical device (storage) particularly important in this instance, for the purpose of securing your emails?
junto 11y ago
> What about SSL certificates and authorities for HTTPS? > Each Own-Mailbox will generate automatically its SSL key at first setup, and send to us the public part. > Letsencrypt Certification Authority will be used , it is free and very easy to setup, and it will be handled automatically by your Own-Mailbox. Every Own-Mailbox will automatically ask for certification for its key indepently from us. Interesting idea.
sp332 11y ago
How do you deal with key management? Specifically, what do you do if someone doesn't remember their passphrase or loses their private key entirely?
- y0ghur7_xxx 11y ago
  I would say that if you lose your key you lose your data, as it should be.
  - innguest 11y ago
    People only want security, not the reality and hence responsibility that comes with it.
    - sp332 11y ago
      There are different kinds of security. Confidentiality and availability aren't exact opposites, and I don't think you have to compromise so hard on one to get the other. A good key escrow system or at least encouraging people to keep their passphrase in their wallets or something would go a long way to reducing the users' risk.
- rogeryu 11y ago
  You start over! Everything is gone, so what else can you do?! No joking, this is a serious issue.
  - sp332 11y ago
    I know that's how PGP usually works, unless you have a backup somewhere. It's the #1 reason I don't promote using it very much. I was hoping this team had thought about improving that part of the user experience.
    - bkeroack 11y ago
      "Key escrow". The FBI/NSA were pushing for it way back in the mid 90s.
      - sp332 11y ago
        I'm not saying you have to give the key to anyone you don't trust. Just set up a system where it's easy to recover the key with the help of someone you do trust. Also, I might have the wrong term. I was thinking of dividing the key into multiple messages, say in a 2-of-3 system or something. Not just handing control of your account to a 3rd party.
pppp 11y ago
Many ISP's including my own in the U.S. don't allow running servers from home, especially SMTP.
- uncletaco 11y ago
  I'm not sure its really a "server" in the way you're thinking. It looks more like a USB storage device to me.
  - isomorphic 11y ago
    > Ports 25, 443, 993 are needed in order to have a fully functional Own-Mailbox. Even if you flout your ISP's server policy, there's still DHCP to contend with (changing IPs).
    - pilif 11y ago
      dynamic DNS exists. There's no reason why the host behind a MX entry can't be a dynamically updated address. MX records are names, not addresses.
      - devicenull 11y ago
        Reverse DNS is a pretty big issue. You're not going to actually deliver any email without valid reverse DNS.
        timboslice 11y ago
        From my initial read, seems like SMTP relay is the way to go with a device like this
        Torgo 11y ago
        I was under the impression that you just had to have an IP with an A record that matched the reverse DNS, even if it's not for the A record that's your email domain?
skrowl 11y ago
This sounds pretty neat, until it breaks and you lose all of your email because it has no offsite backup.
- inglor 11y ago
  From the front page: "Optional P2P backup, so even if your Own-Mailbox is offline temporarily you don't lose any email from your self-hosted addresses as long as you maintain 70% up ratio." and "16GB storage, possibility to extend memory or do backup via USB drive/HDD." So really, it has both off and on site backup.
  - djrogers 11y ago
    That sounds more like an MTA availability backup, not a data backup solution...
    - timboslice 11y ago
      I'm also wondering how the P2P backup works exactly? As an example, if it comes with 16GB storage and my mailbox is 10GB, does that mean other people's boxes would contain the full 10GB dump or just pieces/blocks a la bittorrent?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- quadrangle 11y ago
  You really should be mirroring on your local computer which you back up locally as well
- jlgaddis 11y ago
  If you use an IMAP client, you have a local backup. Alternatively, even if you exclusively use Webmail, you can still maintain a remote backup (using imapsync or similar). There's also the "optional P2P backup".
bechampion 11y ago
Now i will keep hearing that music when i write emails.
tptacek 11y ago
How does transmitting an HTTPS link solve email encryption for people who don't have PGP? The link is sent plaintext. Does the system require users to register out-of-band somehow? That's how corporate email "encryption" systems work (the "send an HTTPS link" approach is popular with financial firms). The underlying approach this system uses --- webmail, but on a special purpose box the user owns --- is actually sound. It seems like a pretty good refinement of Mailpile. On the other hand, they should tone the rhetoric down. I winced at "100% secure".
- daenney 11y ago
  Read the FAQ: > The link is filtered by a question. Depending on the level of surveillance you think you are in, the question can be a simple captcha to avoid bots, a secret question that your correspondent can answer but not the NSA, or a request for a password previously exchanged with your correspondent, or no question at all. > Your correspondent will have a web interface to answer your message privately. You can also activate a permanent HTTPS interface for anyone to send you a message privately at any time. Granted, 100% secure is a bold claim, but it's not just an HTTPS link anyone can click on, at least not if you're a tiny bit clever enough to enable additional protection it offers.
  - eterm 11y ago
    Isn't that question just a form of a required pre-shared key?
    - tptacek 11y ago
      Yes.
    - GrinningFool 11y ago
      I'm curious why the "just" qualifier? Is there anything that makes a pre-shared key a bad idea? (Particularly if someone follows the habit of one per private email, exchanged out of band.)
- jrnvs 11y ago
kpcyrd 11y ago
> The Own-Mailbox sends a HTTPS link to your correspondent, so that he can access the message in encrypted form. He can answer you using HTTPS protection. So anybody who can read the unencrypted mail containing the link can access and read the real mail?
- daenney 11y ago
  Is reading a FAQ really that much to ask nowadays? > The link is filtered by a question. Depending on the level of surveillance you think you are in, the question can be a simple captcha to avoid bots, a secret question that your correspondent can answer but not the NSA, or a request for a password previously exchanged with your correspondent, or no question at all. > Your correspondent will have a web interface to answer your message privately. You can also activate a permanent HTTPS interface for anyone to send you a message privately at any time.
  - vehementi 11y ago
    When you're rushing to post snarky comments for internet points, reading past the first 10% of the page can severely hinder your speed!
h4waii 11y ago
While I understand the team behind this is French, the broken English and bad capitalization are haunting. "rasberry Pi" "Plug at your home" "Through a webmail" "Plug it in mini-usb to your computer" "Will I get a root access" Why not have somebody with English as their first language give it a look before making it public?
- jpkeisala 11y ago
  Be the sport and send them your suggestions. There was email address in contact section. :)
  - laurent123456 11y ago
    To be fair the whole FAQ would need some work. I'm always surprised people spent days or months putting together this kind of project, but wouldn't take an hour or two for proper copywriting. The project being open source, I'm sure they could even find someone to do it for free.
    - vacri 11y ago
      Documentation is difficult, and most people hate doing it. There's a lack of people who want to do documentation in opensourceland, and when someone does want to do docs, they also have to really understand the product, or have a senior dev work with them. Copywriting is easy for people who can write copy, but it's difficult for most people.
antrover 11y ago
100% confidential? Nothing is 100% confidential if it's connected to the Internet.
dlapiduz 11y ago
It would make sense to add HTTPS to your website if you are promoting security and privacy....
- Touche 11y ago
  Why, the only thing I see on the page that could be compromised is the mailto: link.
  - r1ch 11y ago
    Compromising a page doesn't necessarily have to alter existing content. It would be easy to add a "Download Preview Build" link pointing to a trojan, add links to a fake kickstarter, etc.
    - giancarlostoro 11y ago
      That sounds like altering existing content by adding new content btw.
      - nitrogen 11y ago
        Yes, a MITM can do that.
        jessaustin 11y ago
        And could still do the exact same thing if they had TLS: get the page, add crap, and serve the result (albeit without TLS).
        3pt14159 11y ago
        You know, I've never really realized that before. It's actually a pretty huge security hole for average users, no? There should be a way to explicitly forbid non-encrypted connections on a DNS level.
dfar1 11y ago
Its main feature is security, which is great for paranoid people. But what happens when you are miles away from home and your internet connections to the server goes down? How are you going to check your e-mail?
- nvr219 11y ago
  You'd probably not use this for everyday email and just for specific communication that must be kept secure.
  - TylerE 11y ago
    So why not just use regular email + actual encryption?
- hayd 11y ago
  Or if your house is broken into and it's stolen... The "physical security" of data-centers is taken pretty seriously...
darkhorn 11y ago
What if the device is confiscated by police? At least Gmail doesn't give your data to non-USA countries when you swear to your government.
- groupmonoid 11y ago
  Are you sure about that? https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/countries/ https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/c...
  - darkhorn 11y ago
    It says 0% for Turkey and no data for Bulgaria. Better than the USA.
- upofadown 11y ago
  Then you will know it happened. If the system protects your pass phrase on your private key then the police don't get any of your secure email.
fgtx 11y ago
I'm getting the error message "conection à la base de donnée impossible" when I try to subscribe to your page.
lsiebert 11y ago
I want to know if the code will be available for auditing. Also, if these devices can be blocked by spam blocklists, then there should be some way to use a vpn to handle this.
- r0naa 11y ago
  I agree with you, I am not going to outsource management of sensitive data to a third party just because they say that they are "100% confidential". You can't trust anyone until they actually show you proof that they are: - Trustworthy - Safe. Both conditions require complete transparency on their infrastructure, protocols and first and foremost data retention policy.
  - jlgaddis 11y ago
    > "100% confidential" They are also "100% secure". Nobody has ever claimed that and been wrong before! /sarcasm.
pjc50 11y ago
It used to be possible to run your own SMTP server, inbound and outbound, from home. This was so badly abused by spam that port 25 is blocked almost everywhere. Domestic systems tend to be in configurations that make it hard to accept inbound TCP connections. You could serve SSL on a random port and open a port using UPNP, and it will work most of the time. It's a difficult circle to square. The most trustworthy system is one you administer yourself and manually inspect all updates, but in practice the amount of work required makes that almost impossible. If you allow the OEM to do updates they can compromise you. If you don't do updates you end up vulnerable to exploits. The "send a reference to the message not the message" technique was part of DJB's "internet mail 2000" proposal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Mail_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Mail_2000
- bhauer 11y ago
  Despite my grievance elsewhere in this thread that mail servers do not come pre-configured with sensible defaults, I would guess that no modern mail servers are pre-configured as an open-relay when installed. The concern about port 25 relaying being abused by spammers strikes me as an anachronism. In any event, I found that mainstream ISPs are willing to unblock port 25 if you tell them you are running a personal mail server and have it properly configured to not relay for unauthenticated users. Aside from that, you'll want one static IP to make your life easy so you don't need to use dynamic DNS. I think matters such as availability of your server and configuration are surmountable challenges. But I strongly agree with you about security. Although I really like the idea of this device, the first thing I noticed in the product web page is the use of PHP Roundcube for webmail. I have a fear of running PHP anywhere on my network. The track record [1] is way better than, say, Wordpress, but seeing things like Exec Code, even back in 2008, gives me pause. [1] http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-8905/Roundcube.html http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-8905/...
  - ef4 11y ago
    The argument for blocking outbound SMTP is not primarily about misconfigured servers. It's about malware that wants to send spam.
zekevermillion 11y ago
If you're concerned about privacy, it seems the best method is still to cut-and-paste encrypted envelope into regular mail client to avoid possible vulnerabilities, both physical and software. The obvious problem with a self-hosted server that you order from a company is that it can be intercepted or otherwise compromised before it arrives at your home. Thus it is potentially even more vulnerable than just pasting GPG encrypted message directly into gmail client.
tinco 11y ago
I've been working on this exact idea on and off for almost a year now. Very cool to see someone else working on it, they've some nice solutions for hard problems too. I don't really like the choice for RoundCube, but without decent funding or a couple of expert web developers they'll be hard pressed to build something better. Also nice to hear they're also from Europe, it goes to show the U.S. surveillance worries are very much alive here.
nblavoie 11y ago
Getting the error "conection à la base de donnée impossible" which is misspelled. Connection should be written "connexion".
lisper 11y ago
SC4 is in-browser encryption that works with your current email account: https://github.com/Spark-Innovations/SC4 https://github.com/Spark-Innovations/SC4 It's open-source and audited. Based on TweetNaCl. Feedback very much appreciated.
- dimino 11y ago
  Does this solve any of the in-browser encryption issues that are outlined in these links [0][1][2]? [0] http://tonyarcieri.com/whats-wrong-with-webcrypto [1] https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/about-us/newsroom-and-events/blog/2011/august/javascript-cryptography-considered-harmful/ [2] http://rdist.root.org/2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-crypto/
  - lisper 11y ago
    I would say "avoids" rather than "solves." The issues raised in those posts are real issues, but they mostly have to do with the question of whether or not you can trust the server. With SC4, you don't have to trust the server -- or at least you don't have to trust our server. SC4 consists entirely of static files, so it's trivial to deploy from any server, including your own. You can even run it from a FILE: URL, though that actually turns out to be less secure (SC4 takes special precautions in this case). So browser-based crypto is far from ideal, but it can be better than nothing. In particular, it can be the 80/20 solution with respect to security versus implementation effort and deployment hassle. If you want more details I'm happy to provide them.
_asciiker_ 11y ago
The reason for SMTP servers being better off in a proper data-center is not really due to port 25 being blocked at home, it's the entire infrastructure that assures reliability, so if your power goes out or your home router decides to die or your ISP is having issues, etc, you would start losing emails right away. EDIT: I understand SMTPs are resilient but it also depends on the type of error they get back, even then it can't be expected that all servers keep retrying for long periods of time or even handle triple bounces. So you 'could' start losing emails right away, is a better way of saying it.
- slg 11y ago
  It isn't only receiving emails that requires a connection. According to the site, anyone who doesn't use encryption (currently the vast majority of users) will receive a link to your message hosted on the device. That means that most people won't be able to read your emails if your device goes offline.
- timboslice 11y ago
  Yes, I can only see this being used with an SMTP relay, which seems to kind of defeat the purpose of self hosting
- jakobegger 11y ago
  Isn't SMTP actually pretty resilient to outages? Typically sending mail servers will retry for hours (or even days) before giving up when a recipient server is down.
  - _asciiker_ 11y ago
    Depends on the error the DNS handler 'name.nospy.so' would throw at it.
  - McElroy 11y ago
    Yes. This is correct. Once, I had misconfigured my mail server when adding another domain I had bought and it rejected an e-mail. While I was looking into it, I saw in the logs that the sending party had retried after 15 minutes so I corrected my config and waited another 15 and I got the e-mail. Of course, number of retries, if any, and time between attempts will vary between different servers and their configs. Another story I have about e-mail is that another misconfiguration on my part caused mail from me to others to be spam filtered or outright dropped by some receivers. It wasn't until I attempted to send an e-mail to a Debian mailing list that I learned why that was. Their e-mail server was nice enough to reply with the exact reason why they would not accept my mail. I was then able to fix it. (Though I don't remember if they did so in the form of what was said over SMTP and seen by me in logs, or if they bounced the e-mail.)
phaer 11y ago
* Reliability of ones Internet connection should not be much of an issue, because SMTP servers should retry to deliver a mail for several hours/days. Otherwise a secondary MX could be used as a backup for mails in transit. * Policies of ones ISP are often a problem for something like this, you likely need a "business connection" for something like this. * Dynamic DNS could be used for receiving, but you won't have much success in sending mails unless you have reverse DNS working and that requires a static IP as far as i know. Most users will only get a static IP for "business connections". * I'd be really interested how the combine their usage of GPG with multiple client. Is there some sort of key management included? How does it work with Webmail/Roundcube? Is the same key used for desktop and mobile phones?
OceanPowers 11y ago
A networked computer can never be confidential. Period. Full stop.
- upofadown 11y ago
  What distinction are you trying to make here? Any system for secure communications will eventually have to connect to some sort of communications network. Are you saying that secure communications with computers is simply impossible?
- lmm 11y ago
  How come no-one broke into the Bitcoin Piñata (in the other story) then? A networked computer can be confidential. Have you tried not writing your networking code in C?
- jlgaddis 11y ago
  Sure it can, although most don't want to go to the lengths necessary to make it so.
mdevere 11y ago
Newsletter subscription not working: "conection à la base de donnée impossible"
nadams 11y ago
A couple of problems as noted already that will make this a show stopper: > Port 25 is blocked inbound on most residential accounts - preventing you from receiving email > Many SMTP servers are configured to automatically bounce email from residential IPs - so sending would be a problem The point of GPG is to make sure that the only person that can read the message is the one you sent it to. Having a HTTPS site doesn't prevent the random person from viewing the link and doesn't verify the user. Now - this might be interesting if the web app that shows the email has as GPG library in Javascript requiring the user to have GPG keys. I think a better scenario is if keys haven't been exchanged - to send an email with "Alice would like to communicate over secure email - please download and generate a set of keys" with instructions on what to do. But I have no idea how not to make it look spammy. This is just hilarious: > Why shouldn't I trust and use any cloud email service with JavaScript client-side encryption? > Encryption is done in JavaScript, and therefore relies on browser's JavaScript engines, which 80% of the time [1] are proprietary software coming from Google, Microsoft, and Apple, most eminent NSA collaborators. The author does know that Chrome is open source right (well I guess technically Chromium but I hope it's based on the same code)? > Why not use a raspberry Pi? > Mainly because it cannot be trusted enough for this kind of application. [...] The Raspberry pi is provided with non-free software and the hardware needs non-free driver to work. I've used Debian Linux on it before and didn't need to install third party drivers?
- swinglock 11y ago
  If I remember correctly the GPU is heavily involved in booting and running code on the Raspberry Pi while the ARM CPU is more of a coprocessor, or something like that. The GPU require a proprietary binary blobs to be present on the SD card to boot. It's a pretty odd computer and not open at all.
  - nadams 11y ago
    > The GPU require a proprietary binary blobs to be present on the SD card to boot. Apparently that's not true anymore - http://liliputing.com/2014/02/raspberry-pi-gets-true-open-source-graphics-drivers.html http://liliputing.com/2014/02/raspberry-pi-gets-true-open-so...
tiatia 11y ago
Wow. I suggested this once (maybe even on HN): Meta-data are also problematic. We are working on a solution for that, but it won't be included directly in our first version. It will probably come for free with updates. Our idea is that for every email you send, your box randomly sends ten encrypted fake-emails, at random moments, at ten random addresses. Recipients server automatically sees that it is a fake email when it decrypts it, and automatically drops it.
biturd 11y ago
How are they going to receive mail? All blocks of IP's from any provider are blocked, usually huge blocks, larger than /24 often. No one is getting to any comcast users, they as do many others publish lists of their IP ranges so you can block then in your server or use an RBL.
- upofadown 11y ago
  From the FAQ: >If your ISP provider is filtering email ports 25 going out you will have to use a SMTP relay. If It blocks port 25 comming in you won't be able to have self-hosted email address. Note that in both cases it won't prevent you from having a fully confidential email address, and that these blockages will be automatically detected and you Own-Mailbox will only propose configurations that will work. So from that I think that it can use the ISPs email server.
  - biturd 11y ago
    So basically, once you add the relay, you have made the devices most compelling feature no longer a feature.
    - upofadown 11y ago
      The compelling feature is secure webmail. It makes no difference how that mail gets from sender to recipient for that aspect.
- jfaucett 11y ago
  my question exactly. your home ip is going to have to use dyndns or something i guess, really wish they would talk about this on the site.
xyclos 11y ago
This looks like a great project. One thing I noticed about the website: There doesn't seem to be a way to dismiss the video overlay. I had to refresh the page.
z3t4 11y ago
The S in SMTP is a bit ironic. It's very hard to run SMTP now a days.
- jlgaddis 11y ago
  You're correct, of course, but the "Simple" in SMTP is describing the "Protocol" (though I suspect you know that).
brian_smith 11y ago
This seems a lot like Looking Glass just without Tor.
chinathrow 11y ago
I see a small market for this: bundled with verifyable co-location space. At home, it's simply not going to work unless they also offer a VPN service for the ports in use. SMTP on an eyeball provider IP is simply dead these days.
jagermo 11y ago
Good luck. Kinko.me tried the same approach and sadly, there wasn't enough interest to fund it.
radiospiel 11y ago
This looks very similar to what we built one year ago at https://kinko.me https://kinko.me. And then we even managed to solve most of the problems outlined in the comments here (Port 25 blocked, etc.) But our crowdfunding campaign failed, and I have seen other campaigns with similar topics and target audiences fail since. Consequently I doubt that a relevant audience for that type of device really exist -- even though I wished own-mailbox would succeed.
- adventured 11y ago
  That's because they're all getting the target audience wrong. "Personal email server" - right there is the mistake. If the consumer market is small, 8 times out of 10 you can bet that if you adapt the technology appropriately - change the pitch, make a few feature adjustments etc - there is an enterprise market willing to pay for the solution instead.
  - radiospiel 11y ago
    Yes, and that's why we didn't call it that.. We had a box that "you just plug in, reconfigure your existing email client and are ready to go." .. and still: the privacy concerned end-user audience is a hard nut to crack, because you cannot just sell a magic box - people want to know what is inside, but then they shy away from too much tech.
    - GhotiFish 11y ago
      legitimately on both points I might add. If it's a black box, it could be doing anything, if it's a rats nest, it still could be doing anything.
  - radiospiel 11y ago
    As for enterprise solutions: I seriously doubt that PGP is a solution there, because recipients must have a pgp based solution as well. OTOH they can easily run S/MIME and feel fine... own-mailbox, at least, seems to support a mode where the recipients does not need gpg by sending out a link which points back to the plaintext email (and I assume they would then need a password of some kind.)
itistoday2 11y ago
Anything relying on HTTPS is not "100% confidential".
kolme 11y ago
I thought Posteo [1] is already 100% confidential? Please someone correct me if I'm wrong. https://posteo.de/en/site/privacy_policy https://posteo.de/en/site/privacy_policy
- lixardz 11y ago
  "We point out that it is possible, purely from a technical perspective, for us to see your emails, address book and calendar data, if you have not encrypted them." It would be illegal for them to view your email because of German Law but from a technical standpoint it is possible. This other device is a pre-configured mail server at your home that stores all your mail. The two things are quite different. And this one I think if the software is opensource would be more secure.
wgx 11y ago
The newsletter signup form is broken :(
Tloewald 11y ago
The funny thing that most people who obsess over encryption forget is that using tough encryption attracts attention, and all the encryption in the world won't save you from simple workarounds (https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/) and ordinary surveillance. The solution for all of us is to make ordinary communication more expensive to break into rather than to go out on a limb with attention-getting extraordinary measures. I'd also have to say -- no offense intended -- that what I take to be a central European accented voice-over advocating using a new security product to avoid NSA surveillance doesn't fill me with confidence. I'm pretty sure the NSA is at least well-intentioned. I'd suggest your best pitch accent would be scandinavian or perhaps Australian (not that the Australian government isn't horrible, but it's pretty harmless).
- jdimov9 11y ago
  Can you clarify your "central European" remark? It comes off a bit offensive... And while you're at it, can you explain how exactly you imagine making ordinary communication more expensive? Last but not least, where in the world did you get the idea that the NSA is well-intentioned?
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    I did not mean to offend, and apologize if offense was taken. I don't know where the accent comes from and it's certainly not anyone's fault how they speak English (and kudos for speaking English since I suck at languages). The fact is, it seemed central (or eastern) European to me, and if I were trying to sell (say) Americans or western Europeans on privacy products, anything suggesting the former eastern bloc would not fill me with confidence. Make of that what you will. I refer to making ordinary communication more expensive to break into. (Security is a relative term; you simply make things more expensive than who-ever it is surveilling you cares to pay. Good encryption is more expensive to break than weak encryption which in turn beats no encryption.) "The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances." Have you got any information to suggest this is not what the NSA tries to do? Michael Hayden's perjury in front of congress aside, I don't think people at the NSA go to work, rubbing their hands together and evilly cackling about all the civil liberties they're going to violate. Indeed, can you nominate anyone who has actually been harmed by NSA surveillance? To the extent it works, we probably won't know about it for decades. Maybe never -- there are aspects of WWII Sigint and cryptography that are still undisclosed. Now, if you don't like the US and its allies (and there are plenty of reasons not to, I won't deny that), sure -- that might tick you off. But it's not like every other country doesn't act in its own self-interest. I believe that the people in the NSA are attempting to honestly pursue its aims -- they may differ on their opinions as to how best to do this.
silverdream 11y ago
No thanks...
tertius 11y ago
Can we stop saying "from anywhere in the world." It's not 1994 anymore.
- bx_ 11y ago
  I think exactly the same when I read this.
tarikjn 11y ago
This only address the issue of government surveillance of email through service provider backdoors. Since this would as well require auto software update to be as user friendly as the video advertise, you might as well give up the same amount of security for a service that is hosted in a liberty-friendly nation and not have to deal with SMTP flagging and home power issues.
padm 11y ago
Regarding hardware-assisted self hosting, there is http://internetcu.be http://internetcu.be which, among other things, does email (and bypasses ISPs restrictions by bundling the "box" with a VPN and providing static IPv4 and 6 addresses to each user). It's some sort of "freedombox" [0] come true. It works out of the box, in a plug and play fashion (and it's based on free hardware [1] and free software [2]). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomBox [1] https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-... [2] Debian, https://yunohost.org https://yunohost.org ,...
hiimnate 11y ago
> USB Absolutely useless
rbcgerard 11y ago
literally no one i know uses public key encryption - so now everyone needs to clink on a link to read an email from me? don't get me wrong I think this is a cool idea, but it still doesn't address the core problem with all of the encrypted email services/clients/etc., user adoption...
deleted 11y ago
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based2 11y ago
src: https://linuxfr.org/news/own-mailbox-la-boite-mail-confidentielle-qui-vous-appartient-vraiment https://linuxfr.org/news/own-mailbox-la-boite-mail-confident...
fallat 11y ago
I, like everyone else in this thread, wanted to run an SMTP server from home, only to realize port 25 was blocked. Now I rent a VPS from DigitalOcean, and availability is like 99.999% and run SMTP and other daemons no problem. I love it. So go out there and find some cheap VPSs people! :)
Tepix 11y ago
If you want to set up something like this on your own hardware (not just email, also owncloud, jabber, etc), check out sovereign https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign
exadeci 11y ago
"You've allready Subscribed" You might want to fix that
vetras 11y ago
I don't see anybody mentioning this anywhere. Why isn't there a wi-fi connection option? I'm aware of the security issues with low or none wifi secure networks, but most folks (myself included) never have a cable around.
someITguyWI 11y ago
I run my own mail server even though my ISP blocks port 25 OUTBOUND. I use DynDNS's Mail relay service. Only costs about $20/yr. I never have have a problem being flagged as spam or anything else. I can receive mail on port 25 INBOUND with no issues. I set my MX RR to my home IP and add a secondary to a dynamic address, also through DynDNS. works great!

529 points by yannski 11y ago

Are we going to buy physical devices now, for all the things we used to do in pure software? How many devices will we end up with?

awhe 11y ago
What do you mean? It sounds like you see a trend of unnecessary hardware products. Which other physical devices are replacing "pure software"? And isn't having a physical device (storage) particularly important in this instance, for the purpose of securing your emails?

junto 11y ago

> What about SSL certificates and authorities for HTTPS? > Each Own-Mailbox will generate automatically its SSL key at first setup, and send to us the public part. > Letsencrypt Certification Authority will be used , it is free and very easy to setup, and it will be handled automatically by your Own-Mailbox. Every Own-Mailbox will automatically ask for certification for its key indepently from us. Interesting idea.

sp332 11y ago

How do you deal with key management? Specifically, what do you do if someone doesn't remember their passphrase or loses their private key entirely?

y0ghur7_xxx 11y ago
I would say that if you lose your key you lose your data, as it should be.
- innguest 11y ago
  People only want security, not the reality and hence responsibility that comes with it.
  - sp332 11y ago
    There are different kinds of security. Confidentiality and availability aren't exact opposites, and I don't think you have to compromise so hard on one to get the other. A good key escrow system or at least encouraging people to keep their passphrase in their wallets or something would go a long way to reducing the users' risk.
rogeryu 11y ago
You start over! Everything is gone, so what else can you do?! No joking, this is a serious issue.
- sp332 11y ago
  I know that's how PGP usually works, unless you have a backup somewhere. It's the #1 reason I don't promote using it very much. I was hoping this team had thought about improving that part of the user experience.
  - bkeroack 11y ago
    "Key escrow". The FBI/NSA were pushing for it way back in the mid 90s.
    - sp332 11y ago
      I'm not saying you have to give the key to anyone you don't trust. Just set up a system where it's easy to recover the key with the help of someone you do trust. Also, I might have the wrong term. I was thinking of dividing the key into multiple messages, say in a 2-of-3 system or something. Not just handing control of your account to a 3rd party.

pppp 11y ago

Many ISP's including my own in the U.S. don't allow running servers from home, especially SMTP.

uncletaco 11y ago
I'm not sure its really a "server" in the way you're thinking. It looks more like a USB storage device to me.
- isomorphic 11y ago
  > Ports 25, 443, 993 are needed in order to have a fully functional Own-Mailbox. Even if you flout your ISP's server policy, there's still DHCP to contend with (changing IPs).
  - pilif 11y ago
    dynamic DNS exists. There's no reason why the host behind a MX entry can't be a dynamically updated address. MX records are names, not addresses.
    - devicenull 11y ago
      Reverse DNS is a pretty big issue. You're not going to actually deliver any email without valid reverse DNS.
      - timboslice 11y ago
        From my initial read, seems like SMTP relay is the way to go with a device like this
      - Torgo 11y ago
        I was under the impression that you just had to have an IP with an A record that matched the reverse DNS, even if it's not for the A record that's your email domain?

skrowl 11y ago

This sounds pretty neat, until it breaks and you lose all of your email because it has no offsite backup.

inglor 11y ago
From the front page: "Optional P2P backup, so even if your Own-Mailbox is offline temporarily you don't lose any email from your self-hosted addresses as long as you maintain 70% up ratio." and "16GB storage, possibility to extend memory or do backup via USB drive/HDD." So really, it has both off and on site backup.
- djrogers 11y ago
  That sounds more like an MTA availability backup, not a data backup solution...
  - timboslice 11y ago
    I'm also wondering how the P2P backup works exactly? As an example, if it comes with 16GB storage and my mailbox is 10GB, does that mean other people's boxes would contain the full 10GB dump or just pieces/blocks a la bittorrent?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
quadrangle 11y ago
You really should be mirroring on your local computer which you back up locally as well
jlgaddis 11y ago
If you use an IMAP client, you have a local backup. Alternatively, even if you exclusively use Webmail, you can still maintain a remote backup (using imapsync or similar). There's also the "optional P2P backup".

bechampion 11y ago

Now i will keep hearing that music when i write emails.

tptacek 11y ago

How does transmitting an HTTPS link solve email encryption for people who don't have PGP? The link is sent plaintext. Does the system require users to register out-of-band somehow? That's how corporate email "encryption" systems work (the "send an HTTPS link" approach is popular with financial firms). The underlying approach this system uses --- webmail, but on a special purpose box the user owns --- is actually sound. It seems like a pretty good refinement of Mailpile. On the other hand, they should tone the rhetoric down. I winced at "100% secure".

daenney 11y ago
Read the FAQ: > The link is filtered by a question. Depending on the level of surveillance you think you are in, the question can be a simple captcha to avoid bots, a secret question that your correspondent can answer but not the NSA, or a request for a password previously exchanged with your correspondent, or no question at all. > Your correspondent will have a web interface to answer your message privately. You can also activate a permanent HTTPS interface for anyone to send you a message privately at any time. Granted, 100% secure is a bold claim, but it's not just an HTTPS link anyone can click on, at least not if you're a tiny bit clever enough to enable additional protection it offers.
- eterm 11y ago
  Isn't that question just a form of a required pre-shared key?
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Yes.
  - GrinningFool 11y ago
    I'm curious why the "just" qualifier? Is there anything that makes a pre-shared key a bad idea? (Particularly if someone follows the habit of one per private email, exchanged out of band.)
jrnvs 11y ago

kpcyrd 11y ago

> The Own-Mailbox sends a HTTPS link to your correspondent, so that he can access the message in encrypted form. He can answer you using HTTPS protection. So anybody who can read the unencrypted mail containing the link can access and read the real mail?

daenney 11y ago
Is reading a FAQ really that much to ask nowadays? > The link is filtered by a question. Depending on the level of surveillance you think you are in, the question can be a simple captcha to avoid bots, a secret question that your correspondent can answer but not the NSA, or a request for a password previously exchanged with your correspondent, or no question at all. > Your correspondent will have a web interface to answer your message privately. You can also activate a permanent HTTPS interface for anyone to send you a message privately at any time.
- vehementi 11y ago
  When you're rushing to post snarky comments for internet points, reading past the first 10% of the page can severely hinder your speed!

h4waii 11y ago

While I understand the team behind this is French, the broken English and bad capitalization are haunting. "rasberry Pi" "Plug at your home" "Through a webmail" "Plug it in mini-usb to your computer" "Will I get a root access" Why not have somebody with English as their first language give it a look before making it public?

jpkeisala 11y ago
Be the sport and send them your suggestions. There was email address in contact section. :)
- laurent123456 11y ago
  To be fair the whole FAQ would need some work. I'm always surprised people spent days or months putting together this kind of project, but wouldn't take an hour or two for proper copywriting. The project being open source, I'm sure they could even find someone to do it for free.
  - vacri 11y ago
    Documentation is difficult, and most people hate doing it. There's a lack of people who want to do documentation in opensourceland, and when someone does want to do docs, they also have to really understand the product, or have a senior dev work with them. Copywriting is easy for people who can write copy, but it's difficult for most people.

antrover 11y ago

100% confidential? Nothing is 100% confidential if it's connected to the Internet.

dlapiduz 11y ago

It would make sense to add HTTPS to your website if you are promoting security and privacy....

Touche 11y ago
Why, the only thing I see on the page that could be compromised is the mailto: link.
- r1ch 11y ago
  Compromising a page doesn't necessarily have to alter existing content. It would be easy to add a "Download Preview Build" link pointing to a trojan, add links to a fake kickstarter, etc.
  - giancarlostoro 11y ago
    That sounds like altering existing content by adding new content btw.
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      Yes, a MITM can do that.
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        And could still do the exact same thing if they had TLS: get the page, add crap, and serve the result (albeit without TLS).
        3pt14159 11y ago
        You know, I've never really realized that before. It's actually a pretty huge security hole for average users, no? There should be a way to explicitly forbid non-encrypted connections on a DNS level.

dfar1 11y ago

Its main feature is security, which is great for paranoid people. But what happens when you are miles away from home and your internet connections to the server goes down? How are you going to check your e-mail?

nvr219 11y ago
You'd probably not use this for everyday email and just for specific communication that must be kept secure.
- TylerE 11y ago
  So why not just use regular email + actual encryption?
hayd 11y ago
Or if your house is broken into and it's stolen... The "physical security" of data-centers is taken pretty seriously...

darkhorn 11y ago

What if the device is confiscated by police? At least Gmail doesn't give your data to non-USA countries when you swear to your government.

groupmonoid 11y ago
Are you sure about that? https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/countries/ https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/c...
- darkhorn 11y ago
  It says 0% for Turkey and no data for Bulgaria. Better than the USA.
upofadown 11y ago
Then you will know it happened. If the system protects your pass phrase on your private key then the police don't get any of your secure email.

fgtx 11y ago

I'm getting the error message "conection à la base de donnée impossible" when I try to subscribe to your page.

lsiebert 11y ago

I want to know if the code will be available for auditing. Also, if these devices can be blocked by spam blocklists, then there should be some way to use a vpn to handle this.

r0naa 11y ago
I agree with you, I am not going to outsource management of sensitive data to a third party just because they say that they are "100% confidential". You can't trust anyone until they actually show you proof that they are: - Trustworthy - Safe. Both conditions require complete transparency on their infrastructure, protocols and first and foremost data retention policy.
- jlgaddis 11y ago
  > "100% confidential" They are also "100% secure". Nobody has ever claimed that and been wrong before! /sarcasm.

pjc50 11y ago

It used to be possible to run your own SMTP server, inbound and outbound, from home. This was so badly abused by spam that port 25 is blocked almost everywhere. Domestic systems tend to be in configurations that make it hard to accept inbound TCP connections. You could serve SSL on a random port and open a port using UPNP, and it will work most of the time. It's a difficult circle to square. The most trustworthy system is one you administer yourself and manually inspect all updates, but in practice the amount of work required makes that almost impossible. If you allow the OEM to do updates they can compromise you. If you don't do updates you end up vulnerable to exploits. The "send a reference to the message not the message" technique was part of DJB's "internet mail 2000" proposal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Mail_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Mail_2000

bhauer 11y ago
Despite my grievance elsewhere in this thread that mail servers do not come pre-configured with sensible defaults, I would guess that no modern mail servers are pre-configured as an open-relay when installed. The concern about port 25 relaying being abused by spammers strikes me as an anachronism. In any event, I found that mainstream ISPs are willing to unblock port 25 if you tell them you are running a personal mail server and have it properly configured to not relay for unauthenticated users. Aside from that, you'll want one static IP to make your life easy so you don't need to use dynamic DNS. I think matters such as availability of your server and configuration are surmountable challenges. But I strongly agree with you about security. Although I really like the idea of this device, the first thing I noticed in the product web page is the use of PHP Roundcube for webmail. I have a fear of running PHP anywhere on my network. The track record [1] is way better than, say, Wordpress, but seeing things like Exec Code, even back in 2008, gives me pause. [1] http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-8905/Roundcube.html http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-8905/...
- ef4 11y ago
  The argument for blocking outbound SMTP is not primarily about misconfigured servers. It's about malware that wants to send spam.

zekevermillion 11y ago

If you're concerned about privacy, it seems the best method is still to cut-and-paste encrypted envelope into regular mail client to avoid possible vulnerabilities, both physical and software. The obvious problem with a self-hosted server that you order from a company is that it can be intercepted or otherwise compromised before it arrives at your home. Thus it is potentially even more vulnerable than just pasting GPG encrypted message directly into gmail client.

tinco 11y ago

I've been working on this exact idea on and off for almost a year now. Very cool to see someone else working on it, they've some nice solutions for hard problems too. I don't really like the choice for RoundCube, but without decent funding or a couple of expert web developers they'll be hard pressed to build something better. Also nice to hear they're also from Europe, it goes to show the U.S. surveillance worries are very much alive here.

nblavoie 11y ago

Getting the error "conection à la base de donnée impossible" which is misspelled. Connection should be written "connexion".

lisper 11y ago

SC4 is in-browser encryption that works with your current email account: https://github.com/Spark-Innovations/SC4 https://github.com/Spark-Innovations/SC4 It's open-source and audited. Based on TweetNaCl. Feedback very much appreciated.

dimino 11y ago
Does this solve any of the in-browser encryption issues that are outlined in these links [0][1][2]? [0] http://tonyarcieri.com/whats-wrong-with-webcrypto [1] https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/about-us/newsroom-and-events/blog/2011/august/javascript-cryptography-considered-harmful/ [2] http://rdist.root.org/2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-crypto/
- lisper 11y ago
  I would say "avoids" rather than "solves." The issues raised in those posts are real issues, but they mostly have to do with the question of whether or not you can trust the server. With SC4, you don't have to trust the server -- or at least you don't have to trust our server. SC4 consists entirely of static files, so it's trivial to deploy from any server, including your own. You can even run it from a FILE: URL, though that actually turns out to be less secure (SC4 takes special precautions in this case). So browser-based crypto is far from ideal, but it can be better than nothing. In particular, it can be the 80/20 solution with respect to security versus implementation effort and deployment hassle. If you want more details I'm happy to provide them.

_asciiker_ 11y ago

The reason for SMTP servers being better off in a proper data-center is not really due to port 25 being blocked at home, it's the entire infrastructure that assures reliability, so if your power goes out or your home router decides to die or your ISP is having issues, etc, you would start losing emails right away. EDIT: I understand SMTPs are resilient but it also depends on the type of error they get back, even then it can't be expected that all servers keep retrying for long periods of time or even handle triple bounces. So you 'could' start losing emails right away, is a better way of saying it.

slg 11y ago
It isn't only receiving emails that requires a connection. According to the site, anyone who doesn't use encryption (currently the vast majority of users) will receive a link to your message hosted on the device. That means that most people won't be able to read your emails if your device goes offline.
timboslice 11y ago
Yes, I can only see this being used with an SMTP relay, which seems to kind of defeat the purpose of self hosting
jakobegger 11y ago
Isn't SMTP actually pretty resilient to outages? Typically sending mail servers will retry for hours (or even days) before giving up when a recipient server is down.
- _asciiker_ 11y ago
  Depends on the error the DNS handler 'name.nospy.so' would throw at it.
- McElroy 11y ago
  Yes. This is correct. Once, I had misconfigured my mail server when adding another domain I had bought and it rejected an e-mail. While I was looking into it, I saw in the logs that the sending party had retried after 15 minutes so I corrected my config and waited another 15 and I got the e-mail. Of course, number of retries, if any, and time between attempts will vary between different servers and their configs. Another story I have about e-mail is that another misconfiguration on my part caused mail from me to others to be spam filtered or outright dropped by some receivers. It wasn't until I attempted to send an e-mail to a Debian mailing list that I learned why that was. Their e-mail server was nice enough to reply with the exact reason why they would not accept my mail. I was then able to fix it. (Though I don't remember if they did so in the form of what was said over SMTP and seen by me in logs, or if they bounced the e-mail.)

phaer 11y ago

* Reliability of ones Internet connection should not be much of an issue, because SMTP servers should retry to deliver a mail for several hours/days. Otherwise a secondary MX could be used as a backup for mails in transit. * Policies of ones ISP are often a problem for something like this, you likely need a "business connection" for something like this. * Dynamic DNS could be used for receiving, but you won't have much success in sending mails unless you have reverse DNS working and that requires a static IP as far as i know. Most users will only get a static IP for "business connections". * I'd be really interested how the combine their usage of GPG with multiple client. Is there some sort of key management included? How does it work with Webmail/Roundcube? Is the same key used for desktop and mobile phones?

OceanPowers 11y ago

A networked computer can never be confidential. Period. Full stop.

upofadown 11y ago
What distinction are you trying to make here? Any system for secure communications will eventually have to connect to some sort of communications network. Are you saying that secure communications with computers is simply impossible?
lmm 11y ago
How come no-one broke into the Bitcoin Piñata (in the other story) then? A networked computer can be confidential. Have you tried not writing your networking code in C?
jlgaddis 11y ago
Sure it can, although most don't want to go to the lengths necessary to make it so.

mdevere 11y ago

Newsletter subscription not working: "conection à la base de donnée impossible"

nadams 11y ago

A couple of problems as noted already that will make this a show stopper: > Port 25 is blocked inbound on most residential accounts - preventing you from receiving email > Many SMTP servers are configured to automatically bounce email from residential IPs - so sending would be a problem The point of GPG is to make sure that the only person that can read the message is the one you sent it to. Having a HTTPS site doesn't prevent the random person from viewing the link and doesn't verify the user. Now - this might be interesting if the web app that shows the email has as GPG library in Javascript requiring the user to have GPG keys. I think a better scenario is if keys haven't been exchanged - to send an email with "Alice would like to communicate over secure email - please download and generate a set of keys" with instructions on what to do. But I have no idea how not to make it look spammy. This is just hilarious: > Why shouldn't I trust and use any cloud email service with JavaScript client-side encryption? > Encryption is done in JavaScript, and therefore relies on browser's JavaScript engines, which 80% of the time [1] are proprietary software coming from Google, Microsoft, and Apple, most eminent NSA collaborators. The author does know that Chrome is open source right (well I guess technically Chromium but I hope it's based on the same code)? > Why not use a raspberry Pi? > Mainly because it cannot be trusted enough for this kind of application. [...] The Raspberry pi is provided with non-free software and the hardware needs non-free driver to work. I've used Debian Linux on it before and didn't need to install third party drivers?

swinglock 11y ago
If I remember correctly the GPU is heavily involved in booting and running code on the Raspberry Pi while the ARM CPU is more of a coprocessor, or something like that. The GPU require a proprietary binary blobs to be present on the SD card to boot. It's a pretty odd computer and not open at all.
- nadams 11y ago
  > The GPU require a proprietary binary blobs to be present on the SD card to boot. Apparently that's not true anymore - http://liliputing.com/2014/02/raspberry-pi-gets-true-open-source-graphics-drivers.html http://liliputing.com/2014/02/raspberry-pi-gets-true-open-so...

tiatia 11y ago

Wow. I suggested this once (maybe even on HN): Meta-data are also problematic. We are working on a solution for that, but it won't be included directly in our first version. It will probably come for free with updates. Our idea is that for every email you send, your box randomly sends ten encrypted fake-emails, at random moments, at ten random addresses. Recipients server automatically sees that it is a fake email when it decrypts it, and automatically drops it.

biturd 11y ago

How are they going to receive mail? All blocks of IP's from any provider are blocked, usually huge blocks, larger than /24 often. No one is getting to any comcast users, they as do many others publish lists of their IP ranges so you can block then in your server or use an RBL.

upofadown 11y ago
From the FAQ: >If your ISP provider is filtering email ports 25 going out you will have to use a SMTP relay. If It blocks port 25 comming in you won't be able to have self-hosted email address. Note that in both cases it won't prevent you from having a fully confidential email address, and that these blockages will be automatically detected and you Own-Mailbox will only propose configurations that will work. So from that I think that it can use the ISPs email server.
- biturd 11y ago
  So basically, once you add the relay, you have made the devices most compelling feature no longer a feature.
  - upofadown 11y ago
    The compelling feature is secure webmail. It makes no difference how that mail gets from sender to recipient for that aspect.
jfaucett 11y ago
my question exactly. your home ip is going to have to use dyndns or something i guess, really wish they would talk about this on the site.

xyclos 11y ago

This looks like a great project. One thing I noticed about the website: There doesn't seem to be a way to dismiss the video overlay. I had to refresh the page.

z3t4 11y ago

The S in SMTP is a bit ironic. It's very hard to run SMTP now a days.

jlgaddis 11y ago
You're correct, of course, but the "Simple" in SMTP is describing the "Protocol" (though I suspect you know that).

brian_smith 11y ago

This seems a lot like Looking Glass just without Tor.

chinathrow 11y ago

I see a small market for this: bundled with verifyable co-location space. At home, it's simply not going to work unless they also offer a VPN service for the ports in use. SMTP on an eyeball provider IP is simply dead these days.

jagermo 11y ago

Good luck. Kinko.me tried the same approach and sadly, there wasn't enough interest to fund it.

radiospiel 11y ago

This looks very similar to what we built one year ago at https://kinko.me https://kinko.me. And then we even managed to solve most of the problems outlined in the comments here (Port 25 blocked, etc.) But our crowdfunding campaign failed, and I have seen other campaigns with similar topics and target audiences fail since. Consequently I doubt that a relevant audience for that type of device really exist -- even though I wished own-mailbox would succeed.

adventured 11y ago
That's because they're all getting the target audience wrong. "Personal email server" - right there is the mistake. If the consumer market is small, 8 times out of 10 you can bet that if you adapt the technology appropriately - change the pitch, make a few feature adjustments etc - there is an enterprise market willing to pay for the solution instead.
- radiospiel 11y ago
  Yes, and that's why we didn't call it that.. We had a box that "you just plug in, reconfigure your existing email client and are ready to go." .. and still: the privacy concerned end-user audience is a hard nut to crack, because you cannot just sell a magic box - people want to know what is inside, but then they shy away from too much tech.
  - GhotiFish 11y ago
    legitimately on both points I might add. If it's a black box, it could be doing anything, if it's a rats nest, it still could be doing anything.
- radiospiel 11y ago
  As for enterprise solutions: I seriously doubt that PGP is a solution there, because recipients must have a pgp based solution as well. OTOH they can easily run S/MIME and feel fine... own-mailbox, at least, seems to support a mode where the recipients does not need gpg by sending out a link which points back to the plaintext email (and I assume they would then need a password of some kind.)

itistoday2 11y ago

Anything relying on HTTPS is not "100% confidential".

kolme 11y ago

I thought Posteo [1] is already 100% confidential? Please someone correct me if I'm wrong. https://posteo.de/en/site/privacy_policy https://posteo.de/en/site/privacy_policy

lixardz 11y ago
"We point out that it is possible, purely from a technical perspective, for us to see your emails, address book and calendar data, if you have not encrypted them." It would be illegal for them to view your email because of German Law but from a technical standpoint it is possible. This other device is a pre-configured mail server at your home that stores all your mail. The two things are quite different. And this one I think if the software is opensource would be more secure.

wgx 11y ago

The newsletter signup form is broken :(

Tloewald 11y ago

The funny thing that most people who obsess over encryption forget is that using tough encryption attracts attention, and all the encryption in the world won't save you from simple workarounds (https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/) and ordinary surveillance. The solution for all of us is to make ordinary communication more expensive to break into rather than to go out on a limb with attention-getting extraordinary measures. I'd also have to say -- no offense intended -- that what I take to be a central European accented voice-over advocating using a new security product to avoid NSA surveillance doesn't fill me with confidence. I'm pretty sure the NSA is at least well-intentioned. I'd suggest your best pitch accent would be scandinavian or perhaps Australian (not that the Australian government isn't horrible, but it's pretty harmless).

jdimov9 11y ago
Can you clarify your "central European" remark? It comes off a bit offensive... And while you're at it, can you explain how exactly you imagine making ordinary communication more expensive? Last but not least, where in the world did you get the idea that the NSA is well-intentioned?
- Tloewald 11y ago
  I did not mean to offend, and apologize if offense was taken. I don't know where the accent comes from and it's certainly not anyone's fault how they speak English (and kudos for speaking English since I suck at languages). The fact is, it seemed central (or eastern) European to me, and if I were trying to sell (say) Americans or western Europeans on privacy products, anything suggesting the former eastern bloc would not fill me with confidence. Make of that what you will. I refer to making ordinary communication more expensive to break into. (Security is a relative term; you simply make things more expensive than who-ever it is surveilling you cares to pay. Good encryption is more expensive to break than weak encryption which in turn beats no encryption.) "The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances." Have you got any information to suggest this is not what the NSA tries to do? Michael Hayden's perjury in front of congress aside, I don't think people at the NSA go to work, rubbing their hands together and evilly cackling about all the civil liberties they're going to violate. Indeed, can you nominate anyone who has actually been harmed by NSA surveillance? To the extent it works, we probably won't know about it for decades. Maybe never -- there are aspects of WWII Sigint and cryptography that are still undisclosed. Now, if you don't like the US and its allies (and there are plenty of reasons not to, I won't deny that), sure -- that might tick you off. But it's not like every other country doesn't act in its own self-interest. I believe that the people in the NSA are attempting to honestly pursue its aims -- they may differ on their opinions as to how best to do this.

silverdream 11y ago

No thanks...

tertius 11y ago

Can we stop saying "from anywhere in the world." It's not 1994 anymore.

bx_ 11y ago
I think exactly the same when I read this.

tarikjn 11y ago

This only address the issue of government surveillance of email through service provider backdoors. Since this would as well require auto software update to be as user friendly as the video advertise, you might as well give up the same amount of security for a service that is hosted in a liberty-friendly nation and not have to deal with SMTP flagging and home power issues.

padm 11y ago

Regarding hardware-assisted self hosting, there is http://internetcu.be http://internetcu.be which, among other things, does email (and bypasses ISPs restrictions by bundling the "box" with a VPN and providing static IPv4 and 6 addresses to each user). It's some sort of "freedombox" [0] come true. It works out of the box, in a plug and play fashion (and it's based on free hardware [1] and free software [2]). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomBox [1] https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-... [2] Debian, https://yunohost.org https://yunohost.org ,...

hiimnate 11y ago

> USB Absolutely useless

rbcgerard 11y ago

literally no one i know uses public key encryption - so now everyone needs to clink on a link to read an email from me? don't get me wrong I think this is a cool idea, but it still doesn't address the core problem with all of the encrypted email services/clients/etc., user adoption...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

based2 11y ago

src: https://linuxfr.org/news/own-mailbox-la-boite-mail-confidentielle-qui-vous-appartient-vraiment https://linuxfr.org/news/own-mailbox-la-boite-mail-confident...

fallat 11y ago

I, like everyone else in this thread, wanted to run an SMTP server from home, only to realize port 25 was blocked. Now I rent a VPS from DigitalOcean, and availability is like 99.999% and run SMTP and other daemons no problem. I love it. So go out there and find some cheap VPSs people! :)

Tepix 11y ago

If you want to set up something like this on your own hardware (not just email, also owncloud, jabber, etc), check out sovereign https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign

exadeci 11y ago

"You've allready Subscribed" You might want to fix that

vetras 11y ago

I don't see anybody mentioning this anywhere. Why isn't there a wi-fi connection option? I'm aware of the security issues with low or none wifi secure networks, but most folks (myself included) never have a cable around.

someITguyWI 11y ago

I run my own mail server even though my ISP blocks port 25 OUTBOUND. I use DynDNS's Mail relay service. Only costs about $20/yr. I never have have a problem being flagged as spam or anything else. I can receive mail on port 25 INBOUND with no issues. I set my MX RR to my home IP and add a secondary to a dynamic address, also through DynDNS. works great!