Somewhat OT: Mail Relay Services

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sun, 28 Feb 2021 17:36:57 -0700, Russell L. Carter wrote:
>This wouldn't be an issue if encrypted body content was a thing but
>all the time that I had active pgp keys and some savvy correspondents
>I got, over a few years, maybe a half dozen encrypted bodies.

I received 0 encrypted mail from people who aren't members of a
computer related community and by its very nature I also didn't sent an
encrypted mail to any of those receivers for more than a decade.

The only encrypted mails I sent or got were from FLOSS community
members, so I don't use encryption for emails anymore.

I've seen that a few companies are providing public keys since a few
years, but that's just a drop in the ocean, from no value to me, to
start encrypting emails again.

German authorities offer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Mail#Criticism without "additional"
encryption only. I don't want to get such an account.

>I am inclined to think of it this way:  can't trust TLS relays at all,
>and they're just another relay.  At least I can send mail.  Am I being
>naive?

No you aren't. Emails are postcards, just that postcards pass less
hands of strangers. If possible we should write postcards, since
postcards grant better privacy than emails do.

OTOH if you want to change something, it's probably better to disagree
with log files containing inappropriate copies of data.