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@JigmeDatse @tursiops @xj9
I think that conventional email might not be salvageable. The only reason I can still run my own email is that I can proxy it through the ISP. When (not if) that gets retired it's probably game over.
The only way to keep email going as it was originally intended is to use alternative transports. #freedombone is set up so that email also works via an onion address, and that doesn't have any of the usual problems. It even ensures end-to-end transmission. The only problem is that both sender and receiver need to be set up for that, and in today's network almost nobody does this. You can also use I2P in a similar manner.
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@bob Personally I think the protocol is fine, although there's plenty of ways to improve if it was rewritten. Β Where we've essentially lost email is that the few large services have essentially conquered the decentralized space and made it so it is very difficult to operate outside of the silos.
I expect similar tactics will be used against the Fediverse in the future. Β I expect we might even see Mastodon.social trying some of them.
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@maiyannah
The way I see it is that the problems with email went as follows:
- It's a very early protocol, which has no consideration for security. Early email was exchanged between already trusted parties.
- Lack of security caused the spam problem
- The spam problem gave rise to a lot of filtering systems. iptables doesn't easily allow domain blocking so a lot of filters used IP addresses.
- IP based spam filters, such as spamhaus, became increasingly indiscriminate, blocking IP ranges.
- The email silos were a refuge from the spam problem. It was a lot easier to join a silo than to deal with the difficult email security situation.
The final master stroke was Android. Android strongly constrains/nudges the user into setting up a Google account with Gmail.
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@bob Evil corporations are going to be evil corporations regardless of their environment.
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@maiyannah This is true. The ultra-convenience of using Gmail on Android must have been a big lock-in factor. It would be a case of "eh, I've got it so I might as well use it" rather than go to the trouble of configuring some other email provider.