[messaging] Tor Hidden Services in (Cables, SMTorP, Pond)

[Eleanor Saitta]

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On 2014.06.18 00.11, Trevor Perrin wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 6:04 AM, Eleanor Saitta <ella at dymaxion.org>
> wrote:
>> 
>> In the past, we've talked about having an optional untrusted
>> proxy within SMTorP, either for sending or receiving, mostly to
>> deal with the purely practical problem of both users not being
>> online at the same time.  Our preference had been use the proxy
>> on the sending side, as that way the sender can see when their
>> message actually reached the receiver's mailpile, which we feel
>> broadly maps to existing user expectations with respect to email
>> behavior.  A receive proxy is also possible, which would hide
>> user online state (assuming it's running on a VPS), but would
>> also alter system behavior in a way which may be undesirable
>> otherwise.
> 
> If I had to choose one, I'd choose the receive proxy.  A send
> proxy means the receiver still has to run a listening service, and
> assume the privacy / reliability / security risks that come with
> that.
> 
> Are there really "existing user expectations" that senders know
> when messages reach the recipient's mail client?  That's a nice
> feature, but seems like it could be handled by delivery receipts
> which allow recipients to opt-out.

The issue we're trying to solve with proxies is that a given mailpile,
tied as it is to a user's local machine, has the uptime of a MUA, not
an MTA, but we're using them to perform MTA services here, and there
*are* reliable, timely delivery expectations with email, including
expectations that the sender will be warned by their MTA if a message
can't be passed to the recipient's MTA in a timely manner.

I believe there may have been some additional considerations that made
us lean in the direction of a send proxy, but I don't recall what they
were at this time -- I'll flag this for a followup conversation with
the Mailpile team in the next few days.

E.

- -- 
Ideas are my favorite toys.
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