Comment by dexen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dexen | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>everyone should have free access to a basic web based email service. >It should be a public service, paid for by the taxes

No, that would lead to even worse abuses.

Cf the present day Hong Kong protests, and Yellow Vests protests - in both cases, the government would use snooping power to spy on the communications, dragnet style. Anybody seriously suspected of partaking would have the account shut down. Since the account would be "the official one", that would most probably render them unable to access other major services, like banking, judiciary, or healthcare records.

Having a corporate steward of email is one more level of indirection. While imperfect, the corporations do put up at least a bit of resistance against governmental over-reach. Even just the fact of having to create, send & monitor official correspondence to demand snooping & take-downs is slowing down the snooping a bit.

Moreover, it would be highly probable the government would mandate a "real name" policy, or otherwise tie the email service to your offline identity. Cue the abusers by online platforms like Facebook & other advertisers.

Lastly, it's more feasible to compete with corporate services than with tax-paid services. And it's competition that drives innovation, quality increase, and cost reduction.

I think there exists now a very pervasive and worrying conflation of "public control" with "the government". If you oppose expanding the sphere under control of one, centralized power with no day-to-day responsibility before anyone, I am with you. This is why republican countries were established in the first place. But this doesn't mean that private, feudal and corporate power is the only other option. You can establish institutions that are elected directly by the people, and/or are granted strong legal immunity from demands of the executive branch etc.

Secrecy of correspondence is one of the basic constitutional rights in many countries. And also there is a public postal service almost everywhere.

>You can establish institutions that are elected directly by the people, and/or are granted strong legal immunity from demands of the executive branch etc.

Any example you could name would be highly contested as to validity of the claim.

Specifically, "elected by the people" doesn't grant any immunity by and of itself; you would need a huge public protest or other such expression of public will. You may still be ignored by the media, which prevents you from getting anything done[0]. On the other hand, "strong legal immunity from demands of the executive branch" would take a constitutional amendment; anything less can be rescinded with a simple majority vote or a judicial decision.

>But this doesn't mean that private, feudal and corporate power is the only other option.

You would need to create a very strong legal shield around such institution. Right now the government (particularly the judiciary branch) considers every private contract to be in its purview, with ability & willingness to void, add, or rewrite any and all clauses it considers wrong. Even institutions like marriage are subject to retroactive change of the original terms&conditions. Even the media, with its oversized influence through gatekeeping the political parties & candidates, is still bound by various regulations regarding falsehoods, besmirchment, etc., while at the same time tied intimately to their insider sources. About the only exceptions I can think of is the internal dealings of the churches, and the diplomatic matters [1].

On the other hand, any NGO is subject to the wishes of whoever finances it. Whether it is public donations or corporate sponsorship (or outright corporate structure); whoever holds the spigot of the money gets a say. Another important say is held by the media; with ability to either prop up or sink any NGO or public figure.

As of recent, the social media mobs seem to be gaining the gatekeeping ability just as well.

--

[0] quick examples of media keeping mostly quiet: weekly Yellow Vests protests, Paris, France, 45+ weeks; annual March for Life, Washington DC, US, 45 years.

[1] bit of a stretch, but also the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...

>Specifically, "elected by the people" doesn't grant any immunity by and of itself; you would need a huge public protest or other such expression of public will. You may still be ignored by the media, which prevents you from getting anything done

I'd say if you are an institution established by public law, you don't need expression of public will for your normal operation. Or you need it to control you, not to affirm you. You just exercise your legal powers.

But I agree that my comment was abstract, and by the pervasive conflation I mean not only in common perception, but also in practice. What I have in mind as positive example is Tocqueville's "Democracy in America", or perhaps Switzerland as states deeply amalgamated with their populations. Anyway, if someone is strongly pro-government or pro-corporate, it's in their interest to present those as binary options. I think this should be opposed in principle, whenever possible, even if the present state of Western democracies is not that great.

> Cf the present day Hong Kong protests, and Yellow Vests protests - in both cases, the government would use snooping power to spy on the communications, dragnet style.

The USG has been working quite diligently on that already. I don't think there's any particular reason to believe it can't read (almost?) any email it wants to. Very few emails are encrypted and host-to-host encryption is optional anyway. Various providers that have tried to resist USG secret warrants have just given up because it's not really possible.

>Moreover, it would be highly probable the government would mandate a "real name" policy, or otherwise tie the email service to your offline identity.

Big email providers already do that.

> Big email providers already do that.

It's exception, not rule. Even if they want you to give name, it's not something available for others if they only have e-mail address (unless address contains name).

You've got to pay, normally; and usually the options are PayPal (or similar) or bank payment card (eg Visa/Maestro).

In the UK I don't think it's possible to get a credit/debit card without giving up name & address that are backed by ID.

Gmail, IIRC, requires a phone number, which again is tied to your payment account (if you buy it in the UK). Though you could buy a stolen pre-paid SIM, so it's possible if you're not bothered about being legal.

In USA I understand you have pre-pay credit cards you can buy in a shop, in the UK you have to register those (using a phone number IIRC, thus tying it to a supposed real identity) and they're really expensive.

There is huge amount of free mail service, unless you are talking about your own domain.

Even with custom domain, there are some mail providers that accept Bitcoin. See here: https://www.privacytools.io/providers/email/

And, once more: my previous point was that even if providers know your id, it is not public. There is no service you can use to ask what is name of e-mail address owner (I'm ignoring "whois", which is domain-specific, not mail).

I would gladly use a US government sanctioned e-mail service. The US government and its allies already have access to Google data should they desire.

I just would not use it for everything (not for criticizing the West; for that you could use a Chinese or Russian e-mail service). They can already snoop all the metadata anyway.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com