Re: Permanent email address?
On Tue 17 May 2022 at 13:52:03 (-0300), Chris Mitchell wrote:
> Also note that you very much do *not* need to run your own MTA to
> achieve the goal of an address you own and can move from provider to
> provider.
Very much agree. And with a good choice of provider, you may not
want or need to.
> Once you own the domain, you can set up your DNS MX records
> to delegate to an email provider. If you later decide to switch email
> providers or host your own MTA, you change the MX records to point to
> the new provider or server. (If you have mail *stored* on your old
> provider's server when you terminate your account with them, you'd need
> to download it or lose it, obviously.) Hosting your own MTA makes the
> problem ten times more complicated, and it's not at all clear that
> there's any relevant advantage in terms of the stated objectives.
Even this makes it sound more effort that it need be. When I bought my
domain (it's more accurate to say you lease it rather than own it),
I subscribed to an email provider (currently £4 pm) who bundled the
domain cost for the first three years. /They/ set up the MX records,
they actually renew the domain every two years (currently £6 pa), and
I just pay for the entire service by direct debit (aka ACH) on a
credit card. They provide imap4, pop3, smtp, webmail (for which it
would have to be a dire emergency) and web hosting (I don't currently
use), with support by web, email, and telephone. What's not to like?
> In particular, don't expect running your own MTA to gain you any kind
> of privacy. Email is a store-and-forward protocol that may route
> through an arbitrary number of intermediate servers on the way from
> origin to destination. All of those servers at least temporarily store
> a copy of every email that passes through, and any of them may be
> permanently saving, reading, data-mining, or selling those messages. Any
> email that's not encrypted is simply not a private communication,
> regardless of who runs your MTA.
Cheers,
David.
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