@@ -155,58 +246,58 @@ for the JavaScript code in this tag.
Things to be aware of
-Things to be aware of
+Even though this system makes it easy to set up an email server, running your own email system is still not easy and this is mainly due to the huge amount of collatoral damage caused by spammers over a long period of time, which in turn is due to the inherent insecurity of email protocols which enabled spam to become a big problem. Email is still very popular though and most internet services require that you have an email address in order to register.
@@ -220,9 +311,9 @@ So if you want to use your own email address hosted on your own system you do neA technical note about email transport security
-A technical note about email transport security
+Port 465 is used for SMTP and this is supposedly deprecated for secure email. However, using TLS from the start of the communications seems far more secure than starting off with insecure communications and then trying to upgrade it with a command to begin TLS, as happens with STARTTLS. There are possible attacks against STARTTLS in which the command to begin secure communications is removed or overwritten which could then result in email being transferred in plain text over the internet and be readable by third parties.
@@ -236,23 +327,26 @@ From http The researchers also uncovered mass scale attacks of STARTTLS sessions being stripped of their encryption. That attack itself isn't new: internet service providers sometimes do it to monitor users; organizations may use it to keep an eye on employees; or it may come from a malicious actor + ++A way to avoid these pitfalls altogether is to use onion addresses (see the section below) or I2P addresses for email. These are not so convenient because they use long random strings which aren't memorable as addresses, but they do give a strong assurance that whoever recieves the message is the intended recipient and that emails can't be read passively during their transport across the internet. +
Add a password to your GPG key
-Add a password to your GPG key
+If you didn't use existing GPG keys during the Freedombone installation then you'll need to add a password to your newly generated private key. This is highly recommended. Go through the following sequence of commands to ssh into the Freedombone and then change your GPG password.
ssh username@domainname -p 2222
gpg --edit-key username@domain
passwd
save
quit
-exit
+exit
Publishing your GPG public key
-Publishing your GPG public key
+If you havn't already then you should publish your GPG public key so that others can find it.
ssh username@domainname -p 2222
gpg --send-keys username@domainname
-exit
+exit
Mutt email client
-Mutt email client
+
@@ -292,7 +385,6 @@ Mutt is a terminal based email client which comes already installed onto the Fre
ssh username@domainname -p 2222
Thunderbird/Icedove
-Thunderbird/Icedove
+Another common way in which you may want to access email is via Thunderbird (also known as Icedove on Debian). This may be especially useful if you're trying to convert former Windows users who may previously have been using some version of Outlook.
@@ -465,9 +557,9 @@ The following instructions should be carried out on the client machines (laptop,Initial setup
-Initial setup
+Install Thunderbird and Enigmail. How you do this just depends upon your distro and software manager or "app store".
@@ -493,12 +585,9 @@ The settings should be as follows, substituting mydomainname.com for your-
-
- Incoming: IMAP, mydomainname.com, 993, SSL/TLS, Normal Password - -
- Outgoing: SMTP, mydomainname.com, 465, SSL/TLS, Normal Password - -
- Username: myusername - +
- Incoming: IMAP, mydomainname.com, 993, SSL/TLS, Normal Password +
- Outgoing: SMTP, mydomainname.com, 465, SSL/TLS, Normal Password +
- Username: myusername
@@ -526,15 +615,14 @@ Select "yes" to change default settings.
Import your GPG keys
-Import your GPG keys
+On the Freedombone export your GPG public and private keys.
ssh username@domainname -p 2222 gpg --list-keys username@domainname gpg --output ~/public_key.gpg --armor --export KEY_ID @@ -547,7 +635,6 @@ On your laptop or desktop you can import the keys with:-@@ -569,7 +656,6 @@ Remove your exported key files, both on your laptop/desktop and also on the Freescp -P 2222 username@domain:/home/username/*.gpg ~/-shred -zu ~/public_key.gpg shred -zu ~/private_key.gpg@@ -577,9 +663,9 @@ shred -zu ~/private_key.gpg
Using for the first time
-Using for the first time
+Click on the Thunderbird menu, which looks like three horizontal bars on the right hand side.
@@ -614,9 +700,9 @@ Get into the habit of using email encryption and encourage others to do so. RemMaking folders visible
-Making folders visible
+By default you won't be able to see any folders which you may have created earlier using the mailinglistrule script. To make folders visible select:
@@ -632,23 +718,22 @@ Make sure that "show only subscribed folders" is not checked. Then clickAndroid apps
-Android apps
+Mobile devices have a reputation for being quite insecure, so it's recommended that you don't store emails or GPG keys on your phone. Instead install Mailpile and access your email via the webmail interface.
Subscribing to mailing lists
-Subscribing to mailing lists
+To subscribe to a mailing list log in as your user (i.e. not the root user).
ssh username@domainname -p 2222
Adding email addresses to a group/folder
-Adding email addresses to a group/folder
+Similar to adding mailing list folders you can also add specified email addresses into a group/folder.
ssh username@domainname -p 2222
Ignoring incoming emails
-Ignoring incoming emails
+It is possible to ignore incoming emails if they are from a particular email address or if the subject line contains particular text.
ssh username@domainname -p 2222
Using I2P for email transport
-Using onion email addresses
++By default this system comes with the ability to send and receive emails using onion addresses as the domain name. On the user control panel if you select Show your email address then you should find one ending with dot onion. You will also see a QR code for that address, which provides a simple way to transfer it to a mobile phone if necessary. +
+ ++If you want to give your onion email address to someone else securely then you can use the QR code to transfer it to a phone and copy and paste the address into an encrypted chat app, such as Conversations. Of course they will probably also need to be running Freedombone or some system capable of handling onion email addresses. +
+ ++When sending email from an onion address it's not strictly necessary to use GPG/PGP. Tor handles the transport security by itself. You can still use it though if you prefer to have an extra layer of message security. You can also still use onion email addresses even if your ISP blocks the typical email ports (25 and 465). +
+ ++If you don't make your onion email address public then it should be fairly resisent to spam, since spammers won't be able to randomly guess onion addresses (there are far too many), whereas it's a lot easier for them to do that with conventional domain names. +
+Using I2P for email transport
+For the most paranoid use cases it is also possible to use I2P as an email transport mechanism. This will of course require the people you're communicating with to have a similar setup in place. For details see the bdsmail app. An advantage of this is that it's very unlikely that your email will get blocked. The disadvantage is that few others will be capable of receiving email this way, and it's only really usable via the Mutt email client.