Difference between revisions of "Mail Management/Meeting Notes 2017-07-17"

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{{:Mail Management}}
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==== Meeting Notes ====
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===== Alternatives to E-mail =====
 +
* Aren't we all on [https://slack.com/ Slack] by now?
 +
** Slack has some free options, also paid ones
 +
** eg. voice and video options
 +
** E-mail threads have messages and reply text, but slack has just the continuous stream-of-consciousness
 +
** Bots: "What's my schedule on Thursday?", "Bot, book me lunch with Kirk on Tuesday"
 +
*** Regular expression bots, "human in the loop" bots, and "IBM Watson" hyperintelligent bots
 +
*** Bots really made it, turned Slack into a marketable product (opened the platform, API)
 +
** But whatever happened to Google Wave and Google Buzz?
 +
** Is there a Slack-to-Email bridge? Maybe on Rocket.Chat
 +
*** Privacy and datamanagment concerns: who stores your chats? streams? e-mail?
 +
** Spammers on Slack? It's a closed environment, you know your spammer (unlike e-mail)
 +
** But there can be public "Talk to a sales rep" windows
 +
* [https://www.kik.com/ Kik] also opened their platform
 +
* [https://rocket.chat/ Rocket.Chat] - "Slack-alike"
 +
** web client & phone apps
 +
** e-mail gateway, LDAP gateway
 +
** Drag'n'drop filesharing
 +
** Self-hosted, on Ubuntu as a Snap
 +
** Self-hosted, so you have control over your own data
 +
** [https://kwvoip.ca kwvoip.ca] may set this up...
 +
* XMPP - Cisco bought Jabber.com (now [http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/unified-communications/jabber/index.html Cisco Jabber])
 +
* [https://matrix.org/ Matrix] / [https://about.riot.im/ Riot]
  
−
[[Category:NPSA]]
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===== Ease-of-Use =====
−
[[Category:Event]]
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E-mail is so easy to use, people use it for everything
 +
* File storage
 +
* Instant messaging
 +
* Archival storage
 +
* Operating System?
 +
** Heard of people who use git as a mail repository
 +
 
 +
===== Difficulty-of-Admin =====
 +
* Struggle with Exchange and Outlook
 +
** Weird problems, eg. indexes
 +
** Would weird problems like indexing exist on Office365?
 +
* Large systems are constrained only by the time and effort of the SysAdmin
 +
** Or sufficient funds to purchase vendor support
 +
 
 +
===== Spam Mitigation =====
 +
* Large mail providers silently drop some mail, receivers and senders have no idea it's not delivered
 +
* Need to bring mail filtering inhouse
 +
** Opinion that the only effective filters are Bayesian filters on content, not geo-blocks, IP-blocks, or domainname-blocks
 +
 
 +
* [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7489 DMARC] and [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6376 DKIM] (both broken for mailing list use)
 +
 
 +
* Dealing with blocklists
 +
** Blocklists are reputation managers
 +
** Small orgs sending mail are incorrectly identified as spammers
 +
** Blocklist providers have no incentive to lift blocks based on the requests of senders (otherwise every spammer would make that request)
 +
** Recipients of failed messages need to contact their mail providers to stop the mail providers from subscribing to bad blocklists
 +
** Filter provider needs to hold the spam for subsequent retraining (problems with privacy and data control)
 +
 
 +
* Organizations block access to external mail providers
 +
** (block ports for SMTP:25, MSP:587, IMAP:143, &c.)
 +
** Must use smarthosts on ISPs
 +
** Web clients to read/send e-mail from external providers
 +
*** [https://www.horde.org/apps/webmail Horde]
 +
*** [https://squirrelmail.org/ Squirrel Mail]
 +
*** [https://roundcube.net/ RoundCube]
 +
*** [https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/mail Nextcloud mail app] (based on Horde)
 +
 
 +
 
 +
* New legislation for mass-mail (starting 1 July 2017?)
 +
** [http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/home Canada's Law on Spam and Other Electronic Threats - Home - Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation]
 +
** Mailing lists? OK for non-commercial organizations that don't sell or solicit funds.
 +
** Fundraising? OK as long as there is a paragraph in the message that this is for fundraising.
 +
 
 +
Back to: [[{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]
 +
 
 +
[[Category:KWNPSA Meeting Notes]]

Latest revision as of 15:53, 1 August 2018

Mail Management

Date
Monday, 17 July 2017 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Event Announcement
https://www.meetup.com/NetSquared-Kitchener-Waterloo/events/240752492/
Location
Communitech Jelly Bean Room 1st Floor, 151 Charles Street West, Kitchener, Ontario Map

Is e-mail obsolete? If not, how can we provide e-mail services to our Non-profit organizations? Do we treat internal, staff e-mail differently from our clients' e-mail? How do we communicate with large groups? What mailing list services are there? Do we just give all our e-mail to Google and Microsoft? Maybe we can use the e-mail from our ISPs? They advertise "unlimited mailboxes", right? Do we run our own e-mail servers? But then, how do we deal with spam, blocklists, and e-mail providers that don't play fair? And, is it "E-mail" or "Email"?

KWNPSA is in the process of setting up our own e-mailing lists, and we have plenty of e-mail system administrators in the group. Looking forward to a lively Round Table discussion!

--Bob Jonkman & Marc Paré


Meeting Notes

Alternatives to E-mail
  • Aren't we all on Slack by now?
    • Slack has some free options, also paid ones
    • eg. voice and video options
    • E-mail threads have messages and reply text, but slack has just the continuous stream-of-consciousness
    • Bots: "What's my schedule on Thursday?", "Bot, book me lunch with Kirk on Tuesday"
      • Regular expression bots, "human in the loop" bots, and "IBM Watson" hyperintelligent bots
      • Bots really made it, turned Slack into a marketable product (opened the platform, API)
    • But whatever happened to Google Wave and Google Buzz?
    • Is there a Slack-to-Email bridge? Maybe on Rocket.Chat
      • Privacy and datamanagment concerns: who stores your chats? streams? e-mail?
    • Spammers on Slack? It's a closed environment, you know your spammer (unlike e-mail)
    • But there can be public "Talk to a sales rep" windows
  • Kik also opened their platform
  • Rocket.Chat - "Slack-alike"
    • web client & phone apps
    • e-mail gateway, LDAP gateway
    • Drag'n'drop filesharing
    • Self-hosted, on Ubuntu as a Snap
    • Self-hosted, so you have control over your own data
    • kwvoip.ca may set this up...
  • XMPP - Cisco bought Jabber.com (now Cisco Jabber)
  • Matrix / Riot
Ease-of-Use

E-mail is so easy to use, people use it for everything

  • File storage
  • Instant messaging
  • Archival storage
  • Operating System?
    • Heard of people who use git as a mail repository
Difficulty-of-Admin
  • Struggle with Exchange and Outlook
    • Weird problems, eg. indexes
    • Would weird problems like indexing exist on Office365?
  • Large systems are constrained only by the time and effort of the SysAdmin
    • Or sufficient funds to purchase vendor support
Spam Mitigation
  • Large mail providers silently drop some mail, receivers and senders have no idea it's not delivered
  • Need to bring mail filtering inhouse
    • Opinion that the only effective filters are Bayesian filters on content, not geo-blocks, IP-blocks, or domainname-blocks
  • DMARC and DKIM (both broken for mailing list use)
  • Dealing with blocklists
    • Blocklists are reputation managers
    • Small orgs sending mail are incorrectly identified as spammers
    • Blocklist providers have no incentive to lift blocks based on the requests of senders (otherwise every spammer would make that request)
    • Recipients of failed messages need to contact their mail providers to stop the mail providers from subscribing to bad blocklists
    • Filter provider needs to hold the spam for subsequent retraining (problems with privacy and data control)
  • Organizations block access to external mail providers


Back to: Mail Management

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