[arch-general] Suggestions for email for a paranoid Archer

[Leonid Isaev]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 18:39:17 +0200
Menachem Moystoviz <moystovi at g.jct.ac.il> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 6:29 PM, phanisvara <listmail at phanisvara.com> wrote:
> > On Thursday 11 Oct 2012 18:18:10 Menachem Moystoviz wrote:
> >> Basically, the suggestion I'm seeing here is: go, work, get a VPS -
> >> can probably get one for cheap - and setup Arch on it.
> >> Sounds good. Will only have to figure out how to get money...
> >
> > seen this on G+ today. no idea if it can help you, but it might, depending
> > on many different things...
> >
> > http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Money-Fast
> >
> > --
> > phani.
> 
> :-S I will try other methods, plus I'm looking for something on the
> order of at least
> a year's worth of VPS.
> Thank you in any case.
> 
> Gesh

I think you are confusing 3 things: privacy of your communications, security
of your email account, and reliability of the storage. None of the proposed
solutions properly address these issues.

(1) Privacy
Even if you did all things properly, your email will have to be read by
someone. Do you trust their system/email provider? If yes, use GPG and/or
certificates to fully encrypt a message. This is the only solution which
ensures complete privacy. If no, don't send anything private.

(2) Security
Use strong passwords and ideally never enter them. If you are really paranoid,
avoid using smartphones and other systems you don't control. Do not use web
interface, but a mail client which stores password encrypted.

(3) Reliability
Fetch mail from an imap server to an external HDD or cloud like dropbox/ubuntu
one. Nothing special here.

Regarding (2) and (3) and public email like gmail/hotmail/yahoo, remember that
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo actually maintain quite a robust infrastructure
with lots of redundancy. It is highly unlikely that you'll do better than them
with your home server. Doing so is a waste of resources unless you have very
specific requirements. You may find instructive that most universities, at
least in the US, do not maintain their own email servers any more, but switch
to gmail.com/outlook.com for their official email accounts.

HTH,
-- 
Leonid Isaev
GnuPG key: 0x164B5A6D
Fingerprint: C0DF 20D0 C075 C3F1 E1BE  775A A7AE F6CB 164B 5A6D
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