How about an episode on a DiY Mail Server?

[G+_Christopher Duncan]

How about an episode on a DiY Mail Server?   with all the NSA crap going on, running your own mailserver would be more secure then saving it on a hosted mail service like GMail/Yahoo/Hotmail.

[G+_Nick Webster]

You may think so but it'd probably be just as secure to use GMail with encryption.

[G+_Jimbo Schafer]

Mail servers seem complicated to set up, getting them to communicate with the internet and I have thought about setting up my own mail server because of a perceived increase in network security, but have avoided any efforts because of the complexity I see making a mail server run.

[G+_Christopher Duncan]

I already running Ubuntu with a Minecraft server, just really interested in running a mail server along side it.

[G+_Steve Liberty]

I used to run a email server. What a pain! Setup was reasonable, but maintenance is significant. And at the end of the day, it won't be very secure unless you are a cede unity expert. Bu even worse, most cheap or free servers have crappy web ui's (not all).

 

If the NSA wants to listen in, they will find a way.

[G+_David Alitz]

The default method for transferring email on the Internet is still un-encrypted. The message is only encrypted if both the sending and the receiving servers are set up for encryption. If you want to ensure your email is encrypted, you PGP. 

[G+_Dan Phillips]

If you do this, you need to strongly consider spam filtering. Spammers would love to see a lone mail server on a consumer ISP connection and use it to send a new hundred thousand messages through it while you sleep. 

 

I've been running mail servers professionally on and off for the last 15 years. If you really want to secure your email then encrypt it using PGP or other methods that have been discussed recently. 

 

Have you ever seen those T-shirts that say "I read your email"? Guess why it's a shirt. 

[G+_Chris Cheatwood]

A lot of ISPs block the SMTP outbound ports to consumer subscribers.  I've had issues at my church using our hosted outgoing mail server and have the use the ISPs outbound mail server instead.  

[G+_Dan Phillips]

Chris Cheatwood this is true. Now it has been a while since I've done front level support but I can remember Verizon (and maybe RoadRunner?) blocking any 3rd party mail server. If you wanted to send email via Outlook you had to use their SMTP server or else it wouldn't send. Error 550 5.7.1 is tattooed on my brain. 

 

ISPs also block this because they run the risk of getting blocked or dropped by upstream providers. 

[G+_Christopher Duncan]

I have a few other reasons besides the National Security Letters and the NSA though.   I currently use GMail on my domain for hosting emails however,  for some reason, every now and then emails that are correctly addressed are getting bounced back as undeliverable and I've verified this using comcast.net and yahoo accounts that it is not just a simple addressing issue.   90% of the time, it works fine, but 10% it doesn't and for some reason Google provides no help in solving it because we can't replicate the problems when I am talking to them.  

 

But I do tend to lean towards paranoid on the tin foil hat front.

[G+_Dan Phillips]

Do you know what the errors were? As I mentioned, I did support for mail servers for years, I can try to give you an idea on why it is bouncing. 

[G+_Jimbo Schafer]

Christopher Duncan  I watched a story broadcast on CNN today, stating that the NSA is telling half truths, according to a Judge's opinion. Maybe Americans need to have a conversation about motivations to satisfying being intrusive and rude. Besides the point is that there are people in government, corporation and private realms that are just so darn nosy and that is what leads to prying into the private business and following other peoples activities. This has got to stop.

 

Friends my eye, I remember being able to separate friend-time and personal-time. My friends knew what I expected them to know. Friends never had to fabricate or neither did I, because I chose my friends based on one -to one experience, and I avoided many other people because they and I were never going to get along, no matter who they knew or partied with. So maybe our country needs to address how social media has lead to illegal, ill moral activities, start making the government justify why its sole purpose and intention is aimed at controlling the public. Explain why the public is here to serve the government's needs. I ask ... what can my country do for me. Because if I take myself out of my own life I think this is when trouble really runs wild.

 

I am sorry about the preaching, however why ignore the white elephant in the room, people are to blame for every war and murder and kidnapping, and why has technology been hailed as a Messiah leading to a functioning future, Truth told technology has made man nastier, unfriendly, lazy, over judgmental, and unwilling to do manual labor, and in spite of the argument that people are getting smarter, I ask if mail servers incorporate Google for the completion with setting up a personal mail server, and with Google being a respected collector of the most data in the world, I ask ... is this what I can do for my country?