4 ms·
The concept of email is too fuzzy. Is it SMTP that will last forever? This technology is more like sending postcards that every middleman can read. Certainly a
by hrvbr 12y ago
The concept of email is too fuzzy. Is it SMTP that will last forever? This technology is more like sending postcards that every middleman can read. Certainly a more private alternative will replace it someday, and it should be more spam-proof.
Also email serves many purposes. If it is to be replaced, it will be on a use-case by use-case manner. RSS is a better alternative to one-to-many mailing lists. Forums are a better alternative to many-to-many mailing lists. Etc.
But yes, we should improve what we have until we can replace it.
- dinglefuk 12y agoSMTP and POP have encrypted analogous. Web server+Forum+Web browsers is hardly a better alternative to email many-many mailing lists.
- daigoba66 12y agoWhile SMTP and POP protocols can be transmitted over TLS between hosts, which prevents reading messages along the wire, the email data itself is _not_ encrypted. A compromised SMTP server can easily read and copy any message received or transmitted.
- byerley 12y agoAnd, even if you use a side-channel to distribute keys between the sender and receiver (to encrypt the data safely), the header absolutely has to be plain-text. Governments and companies scraping email meta-data is already a huge problem. A protocol closer to Tor would make for much more secure email distribution, but it would also require a complete protocol rewrite. Potential death of email from a back-end point of view at least.
- sliverstorm 12y agoEncrypted SMTP is already in widespread use. Many MTA's already receive and deliver email over secure channels, and email clients (e.g. Outlook) have supported secure channels for a long time.