Helm actually solves this exactly - they already have continuity of service coming in the pipeline, and the product as-it-ships will support encrypted backup/restore out of box, similar to how your iPhone supports iCloud backup.
I've run my own mail servers for Posterous before and it was probably 2 to 10 hours a month of maintenance, software updates, etc. And that's not something normals can do.
The company itself is run by folks who are committed to running this as a sustainable long term business that takes are of its customers and is super responsive to the community. As a board member I promise you we'll do that.
I looked for the founders bio, a company contact info. There is nothing on their site. All I saw was a letter in the "About" section by the founder.
You might have gotten to know these guys after various meetings and due diligence process. There is nothing on their website that sells me on trusting them or the company.
I had to go the "Careers" section to see the location of the company.
When you're in the business of selling trust, you really need to focus on selling trust first and not technology (maybe they're connected ultimately) but I just don't feel I can trust this company based on the materials provided on their website.
Hope this feedback is meaningful.
What's the base operating system and hardware architecture the box is based on? It says "Linux" on the page but doesn't go into specifics.
Why not just use regular hardware, e.g. Intel NUCs, or even allow people to run your software on their own hardware (like OwnCloud does)?
In Germany there was/is a startup, Protonet (https://protonet.com/), that had almost the exact same idea a while ago. They went bankrupt though and one of the reasons was that it cost a ton of money to design and produce their own hardware, which also looked very cool (orange hexagon!) but didn't provide much added value beyond what a normal, boring-looking compact PC could provide (at 500 € less than their box for the same specs). They also marketed their own OS, which was based on a modified Linux distribution, modified open-source software and a shiny management layer on top as well. They found out that developing and maintaining a Linux fork isn't so easy either, so they eventually canned it. So what's different about Helm in your opinion?
We are using an ARM-based SoC from NXP. We chose this to ensure that the device can only run signed, trusted code by implementing secure boot and signature verification of software updates. We will make a developer program available in the future.
I didn't use Protonet so I shouldn't speculate about what's similar or different about the products. I think we are in a time right now where people have a strong desire to own their data and are looking for a viable alternative to the cloud. They key, beyond building something very private and secure, is in nailing the experience and we're excited to share more about that.
Okay, so that narrows it down to the i.MX family.
We chose this to ensure that the device can only run signed, trusted code by implementing secure boot and signature verification of software updates.
Maybe read this?
https://blog.quarkslab.com/vulnerabilities-in-high-assurance...
Hopefully the HAB fix is the reason for the 8. Otherwise this seems like overkill for the work involved.
But if I don't actually need to be able to reach the box in order to use my email - if it will work even when the box is offline, powered-down, stolen, or destroyed - then what, exactly, is the point of the $500 box itself?
It's not privacy, it seems. If it were private, how could it work when the box is offline?
I'm not opposed to a "pay for your email instead of it being ad-and-surveillance-supported" model. I just don't see the point of paying $500 for a box that you're telling me the service will function just fine without.
Down? There's continuity of service if you have a 2nd box online, and it's as easy to restore from a live backup as an iPhone from iCloud.
Email is the first app, and there will be more.
For $1000 I get 2 boxes I can't use for anything else right now (and still not very reliable inside my home), whereas with Fastmail (for example) I can get an email service for 20 years @ $50/yr that is very reliable. I'm not sure of the value proposition for this thing.
I think it is a great idea to have a device which is as simple to use as a router but focused on typical cloud services. As security is a critical aspect of the whole idea, the subscription service is a smart move too. Maybe you should offer a monthly subscription too (consumer friendly).
Are there any plans to start shipping to Europe in the near future?
This is the key question, in my mind. There's only one reason I'd want to own the hardware—to manage/add/create my own services and handle my own backups because I don't trust a company's involvement in these[0].
If this is so tightly controlled that I can't add my own services and I can't restore a backup without Helm's involvement, why do I even want the hardware?
[0] I don't mean that I don't trust them in a privacy sense. I mean that I don't trust them to make sure the backups are actually working and able to be decrypted and restored. Or be able to be restored without their software/hardware. There doesn't seem to be any transparency wrt/ these concerns.
How do you know who to trust? You surely have to trust someone. It feels generally true that we can trust Apple since we pay them for hardware and their ongoing business interest is in protecting their revenue streams through their hardware and iOS app store, which means you are aligned.
Generally for Helm that's a good case. That's why we charge money for this hardware and software: it aligns interest.
Free cloud services are not truly free and that's what most people seem to be OK with... but not all people.
This is the classic trade-off. Open source software you can read the code but usability suffers. For the people on HN, most people can run their own servers, but for normal people that's not an option.
Apple has managed to create a computing environment that is highly usable for normal people. This is what Helm is trying to do too.
I still don't understand why this is a hardware play. There are advantages to owning the hardware but none of those advantages seem to apply here.
The hardware feels like a bit of an albatross.
In my experience, the average person doesn’t really understand what GMail or Facebook or whoever do with data or the extent of their knowledge about individuals. Even basic things like lookalike audiences or retargeting across the web regularly blow people’s minds.
I hope this project is successful, partly because that would show that people do understand these things enough to view Helm as solving an urgent need. I wonder if we’re there yet.
I definitely look forward to these posts!
Hosted services like protonmail (great option) support some key management but that's rare. Most everyone stores all your data in the clear, and that sets you up for Facebook-style hacks where people just steal a database en masse, and/or leave you open to warrantless wiretap which has been a problem for email services broadly in the past.
I want to point out that email is just the first part of what Helm wants to do. What is super valuable is that Helm can run its own software and add things like distributed anonymized VPN, or file sharing, and these things are all federated in a way that wasn't possible before.
Not everyone is going to care about this, but enough people should. People reading this thread should care: decentralization and federation of this sort is the way we maintain an open Internet. You can take down individual nodes but you can't take down millions of them. That's the ultimate goal of Helm.
Remember, there's no such thing as a cloud, it's just someone else's computer.
This statement indicates a lot of passion (and I side with it in spirit), but it feels irrelevant and out of place wrt/ this product.
My data is only (available from) my own private Helm server. If mine gets taken down, the existence of millions of other "nodes" doesn't help me. Helm the company can help me with new hardware and my backups, presuming that they're allowed to—but what if they aren't. Then we're back in the same place.
They’re probably not going to go door to door confiscating millions of devices; the cost to do that would be astronomical. You’d still be at risk if they were targeting you personally, but not if they were targeting all Helm users en masse. That’s a big improvement. And even if you were targeted personally, you’d at least be in a position to defend against surreptitious snooping, assuming that took the form of agents physically entering your home to hijack the device.
Of course, there’s a lot of counterfactuals baked into that scenario. Helm does not currently have millions of users, for one. For another, the EC2-based proxy service run by Helm is a single point of failure that someone could take down, though supposedly Helm will release tools to replace it with your own server. And most problematically, the closed-source software could be silently subverted by Helm in an update, with no reasonable means for the user to detect this, even in theory.
Still, it’s a lot better on that front than most cloud email services.
In the parent, the private keys are not on the premises of the cloud company.
I think Helm comes with some obvious trade-offs, but the product looks nice and I think (judging from other HN comments) there's a market for it. I don't know if it's a large market for this to be a success, but it seems interesting at least, and at first blush the product looks well-made.
I don't think this product is exactly for me as my main email, but it could be interesting as a side email service, or one for really sensitive emails. Depending on the price point, I'd consider purchasing. If the price point is too high or the maintenance costs are too large, then I won't. What's the big deal? That trade-off not working for you or me doesn't mean the product shouldn't exist.
Like, backups. Everyone knows how this can be done. Have automated scheduled backups. Encrypt them. Send to offsite storage. This should be handled through a generic backup protocol so you can choose your provider and be sure the app doesn't siphon your personal data.
Users should not need to manually fuck around to set this up for every computer and every app they use. This should be absolutely standard. Preferably built at OS level. I know Ubuntu had something of this sort, but IIRC it wasn't based on an open standard where you could choose your own storage provider. Windows? Hah.
Instead, developers strip users of all control over their data claiming it's for their own good, and push everything to a myriad proprietary cloud solution through random protocols with dubious security implications.
Does Helm use one of those? I suspect not, because I don't know of any such ubiquitously implemented open standard for automatic encrypted backups.
So: is Helm going to put in the effort to define such an open standard and push for it to become ubiquitous?
Even if Helm implements automatic encrypted backups, it's still contributing to a fragmented world siloed into incompatible apps and platforms. Making your siloed service better than others won't fix that problem.
Here is a question for the parent poster and anyone else. Do you think it would be worthwhile to gather some people and try to design such open protocol? Without having an implementation first? Or would that be just a waste of everyone's time?
> You still give access to your data to a company, which controls software updates and the EC2 proxy (in this case).
Because you read all code changes every time you `pkg upgrade` or `dpkg dist-update`.
> Many home ISPs have shitty upload connectivity, so your email won't work that well on the go.
Is that really an issue? I probably use <100kB personnal email per day anyway. Even in the US, 100kB/day upload is not unheard of.
Also, the "on-the-go" issue is DL speed: from your device to your server. How long your server takes to send the mail is mostly irrelevant - instantaneous transmission should be done by phone.
> Internet and power outages mean you won't send or receive any email.
More comments around here about sending servers that MUST retry, and fail only after a few days.
> You lose the knowledge email providers get from scale, including ever-evolving spam filters, and a guaranteed clean outgoing IP.
That could be a real issue, but the ever-evolving filters at my ISP clearly can't spot (nor stop) the spam I receive anyway.
The outgoing IP shouldn't be a problem if you've registered it in your DNS, and it matches the SMTP or whatever subdomain.
Not commenting on the rest: you download incoming mail from your server, i.e. your home uplink. If someone sends you a photo or zip file, that’s the bottle neck.
Not to mention syncing email with the brain dead protocol that is IMAP…
It's also dangerous to say because you don't understand or see the value in something, that there possibly can't be any.
Today's home connectivity + LTE fail over is reasonable to rely on. One could put a vps proxy in front of it if you really wanted.
Running a home appliance is not out of the question or unreasonable. I have a Mac mini server that is coming on 8 years of age and zero issues.
Today, the combination of Ubuntu, docker, and ready to go setups make it super easy. Offsite backups are not an issue anymore. Running owncloud is good for files locally, but email is worth it in some cases.
We own a lot of appliances at home that have a lifecycle to maintain already.
The reality is the above issues have a much lower chance of happening than 10-15 years ago.
Hardware is far more reliable and than it was, my 15 year old servers pulled from my data center were still working when I virtualized.
A discovery I made was owning a PDU (like an APC Masterswitch) cleans the electricity so much enough that attached equipment don't seem to fail. I ran my own email server in a datacentre for clients for a long time because it was the norm.
With Home Automation adoption increasing I suspect a home appliance of some kind will become a reality anyways. If personal data became a feature of it, that would be useful.
The challenge with email is that once you give out any mail address to people, you are on the hook to ensure that it's a functional address. Not something you can just try for 6 months and then easily move on from. And if you decide to move on from this service, will the average person be able to easily migrate that custom domain to a different email provider? (Yes, technically this is possible, but can normal users do it easily? Is it part of the service that Helm provides?)
Not sure if you have spent any time around data centres, but they have to deal with power outages just the same. My power doesn't go out often, how about you?
Backup batteries (UPS') are trivially cheap as well, especially for equipment that sips electricity. Everyone should have one on their internet connection and wifi anyways. A $200 ups can give a few hours of power.
Your offsite worries could be alleivated by mirroring 2 devices, or mirror one to a cloud. Realistically, incoming email is queued for redelivery from 24 to 48 hours until it can be delivered. Beyond that, outgoing email can be sent thru a third party temporarily (migadu, etc). Next question?
Migrating email isn't hard. Most services have import feature. I suspect you may not have done this before.
If there was a way to run a zero knowledge vm in the cloud that was fully encrypted that might be an option too.
Part of the point (and the impressive software that has been built here) is that backups happen transparently, and if anything ever happens to the Helm you can get another one and get back up and running by restoring from online backups. It's the same principle: things can happen to your iPhone but you can get up and running with a new one easily.
Elsewhere in the thread, Giri says it uses a VPN connection. Is it TLS + something else?
helm.garrytan.com:3333 for example responds with a self-signed localhost cert, not LE keys. IMAPS (still not sure why that’s there but I asked that in a different comment so let's have that thread there) and 8443 do answer with LE though :)
Data loss is more or less a solved problem. You don't need Google for that. ;-)
On the other hand, even without putting my tin hat on: I get customized ads best on my email contents, WTF?! Everybody can see based on the browser ads what kind of sites I'm surfing to.
> Internet and power outages mean you won't send or receive any email.
Except if you have a charged battery and LTE. ;-) In fact just a charged battery is needed when network is down to read old mails.
> Fire, theft, or hurricanes may destroy it.
Solved problem. Encryption...
For example, in a power outage, Helm won't work. You say it's not a problem with a charged battery and LTE. I think you're talking about a cell phone and I don't understand how that's related. Sure, one could run Helm on a UPS with LTE backup. But then that's extra infrastructure against the promised simplicity.
Also I don't see how encryption prevents the device from being physically destroyed.
I mean you can connect it to a Uninterupptible Power Supply "USP".
It's not clear if they have a high power USB connector to connect USB batteries, however:
"Built-in battery backup for safe shutdown
On mode: 10 W
Standby: 0.4 W"
(https://thehelm.com/pages/technology)
> LTE backup. But then that's extra infrastructure against
> the promised simplicity.
There are low-cost routers with USB ports that allow plugging in an LTE stick.
> Also I don't see how encryption prevents the device from
> being physically destroyed.
You can create a backup and store it on an untrusted storage (cloud for instance).
I'm surprised these devices didn't take off 5 years ago already, as this is technology wise almost a step backwards into the 90s. But I think it's worth it, and in fact you don't need helm to set up a system like this yourself. Get a Raspi, stuff an LTE stick and a juicy USB storage into it together with external USB-battery in passthrough and you even have a superior device.
If you can accept the bad availability Helm looks like a fine solution to get your mail out of the cloud.
I'm a Fastmail user and pretty happy with the service. But, what's the real world benefits of Helm over an encrypted email service, like ProtonMail?
Most cloud-based email services hold email in the clear - we believe this means you don't really own your data. Encrypted email services have challenges around search, access via proprietary protocols and the risks of running highly sensitive operations in client-side javascript.
Assuming the software works flawlessly (if it doesn't, it doesn't matter where it runs) you'll need RAM and storage access to recover the keys and the data. If you're in the cloud, you won't notice when insiders or state agencies take a peek. If the device is in your home, you can set it up so you notice.
It all depends on the threat model.
AWS, like every non-clownshoes provider, is transparent about the security controls on its datacenters. It has those verified by independent third parties and auditors (for relevant compliance standards). They have published whitepapers and compliance/audit reports, and continue to.
The odds that someone compromises a Helm update and the odds that someone walks out of us-east2a with a drive are not in the same ballpark.
To reiterate, because somehow I'm in the "FDE is an important threat model!" corner: it is not. Walking away with a Helm is not the easiest way to read e-mail on that thing, especially not for an organization capable of dragnet surveillance in general.
Sure, but why are you comparing a software compromise against physical access? There are attacks that work against cloud providers which don't work against Helm. If somebody can compromise a Helm update they essentially got root. And that is a step up from just read access to storage.
Here's how I see it: There is a provider that runs my mail infrastructure. They can either run it on AWS, or host it at my home. If the data is in my home I don't have to trust Amazon. I still have to trust my mail provider ultimately, but using AWS doesn't improve on that.
gsreenivas: Most cloud-based email services hold email in the clear
lvh: are you suggesting cloud e-mail services don't use FDE?
lolc: They may but they also hold the keys.
lvh: it's a lot easier to walk out with a box in my kitchen than it is to walk out with a drive from us-east-2a
lolc: How many people have access to drives in us-east-2a?
In that last quote I should have said "storage", because I didn't mean physical access only. So apologies if that set you on the wrong track.
EDIT: removed bit about 993/587 because you're answering that elsewhere.
- You run the risk of hardware failure, which would take days to recover. When your warranty expires, it'd cost you, too.
- Disk failure may lose all your data.
- Fire, theft, or hurricanes may destroy it.
- You still give access to your data to a company, which controls software updates and the EC2 proxy (in this case).
- Many home ISPs have shitty upload connectivity, so your email won't work that well on the go.
- Internet and power outages mean you won't send or receive any email.
- You lose the knowledge email providers get from scale, including ever-evolving spam filters, and a guaranteed clean outgoing IP.
If you really want to control your data, just spin up something like ownCloud (not sure if that's the best solution, just an example). Companies like DigitalOcean make it as simple as point and click.