Re:Deploy a Gmail-like email server in 30 (ish) minutes
by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on Sunday December 26, 2021 @08:52PM
(#29698228)
True user-controlled e-mail, the kind without third parties, contemplated in the original e-mail RFCs, is a "two-sided equation". Both sides need to run their own SMTP.^1
1. I have tested both sides running their own SMTP on small, i.e., less than 100, peer-to-peer overlay network and it works. "OTT email". Interesting question for the reader is how does spam enter this system. If the spammer is not a peer on the network, then they cannot send mail to the other peers.
If only one sides runs their own SMTP, that only solves one side of the equation. Almost every HN discussion of user-controlled e-mail focuses only on users controlling one side, while ignoring the other and leaving it to third parties. That can still have benefits such as not storing mail with a third party, but obviously only focusing on one side, e.g., the receiving side, will fall short of true "user-controlled e-mail".
User-controlled e-mail is a solvable problem for most users, i.e., those whose contacts in a given context, e.g., personal, school, or work, are under 100. User-controlled e-mail is an unsolvable problem for people who want to send e-mail to 100s of people, e.g., people they do not know, or people who want to recieve e-mail from any random person/organisation, treating their address like a phone number on a bathroom wall. Maybe, for most users, that is actually a good thing. (Given the attitudes toward "spam", it appears most users generally do not appreciate unsolicited mail.) There could be separate systems for unsolicited mail. We already have such systems in place.
1. I have tested both sides running their own SMTP on small, i.e., less than 100, peer-to-peer overlay network and it works. "OTT email". Interesting question for the reader is how does spam enter this system. If the spammer is not a peer on the network, then they cannot send mail to the other peers.
If only one sides runs their own SMTP, that only solves one side of the equation. Almost every HN discussion of user-controlled e-mail focuses only on users controlling one side, while ignoring the other and leaving it to third parties. That can still have benefits such as not storing mail with a third party, but obviously only focusing on one side, e.g., the receiving side, will fall short of true "user-controlled e-mail".
User-controlled e-mail is a solvable problem for most users, i.e., those whose contacts in a given context, e.g., personal, school, or work, are under 100. User-controlled e-mail is an unsolvable problem for people who want to send e-mail to 100s of people, e.g., people they do not know, or people who want to recieve e-mail from any random person/organisation, treating their address like a phone number on a bathroom wall. Maybe, for most users, that is actually a good thing. (Given the attitudes toward "spam", it appears most users generally do not appreciate unsolicited mail.) There could be separate systems for unsolicited mail. We already have such systems in place.