It is so hard to get an email address without providing an email or SMS verification. Like 9/10 on the internet difficulty scale.

Any site that lets you receive email for example by generating a random inbox seems to be blocked by the more full-featured ones that let you send email. I’ve spent the last week trying to get an email address doing lots of searches and trying to signup for any email address at all without success.

This makes sense if you understand that bots cause problems universally but at the same time the personal information strategy isn’t working. Spammers have no problem getting email accounts and every other kind of account. It’s the honest person who won’t go to the dark side and pay for stolen accounts that is in the worst shape.

Maybe you want to setup your own mail server? Ther you need a domain name and registars want even more information. Many of them give you privacy on your domain records, but this is no defense from the surveillance state.

If as said in the sidebar mass surveillance is about mass control, and not justice, then email is an extremely important technology to start supporting for privacy and freedom.

Spam and abuse are problems to be sure but there must be other ways to solve them than by providing information that links back to the real world.

Now what can we do about it?

  • jokeyrhyme
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    3 years ago

    Maybe we need identity bootstrap processes that are compatible with a variety of confirmation processes?

    Kind of like how verification of DNS domain ownership can be done in a few different ways

    Or even like how keybase.io supports multiple proofs

    • southerntofu
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      3 years ago

      I think what you’re talking about is called IndieAuth and is widespread on the indieweb.