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Seattle Startup Vets Takes on Google with Helm, a New $499 Personal Email Server (geekwire.com)
A Seattle-area startup is aiming to take on giants such as Google and change the way we do email with a new physical personal email server. From a report: Helm today unveiled its $499 device that lets consumers send and receive email from their own domain, in addition to saving contacts and calendar events. It's a bold bet that aims to provide comfort at a time when privacy and security issues related to personal data hosted by big tech companies in the cloud are top of mind. The idea comes from Giri Sreenivas and Dirk Sigurdson, two entrepreneurs who already sold a security startup and raised a $4 million seed round from top venture capital firms last year.
The device is about the size of a router and looks like an upside-down book placed on a table. It connects to a home network and pairs with a mobile app that lets users create their own domain name, passwords, and recovery keys. Helm support standard protocols and works with regular email clients such as Outlook or the Mail app, with encryption protecting connection between the device and the apps.
The device is about the size of a router and looks like an upside-down book placed on a table. It connects to a home network and pairs with a mobile app that lets users create their own domain name, passwords, and recovery keys. Helm support standard protocols and works with regular email clients such as Outlook or the Mail app, with encryption protecting connection between the device and the apps.
Helm today unveiled its $499 device that lets consumers send and receive email from their own domain,
Is this an April Fools joke that was posted too early? What dumbass would pay that much money for this?
Why would the kubernetes package manager make a device for email...
Lot's of home IPS block ports that make this not work.
Guess I should bust out my qmail/vpopmail scripts from 2003. Everything old is new again.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Problem with E-mail isn't in the "getting one running". It's the constant maintenance that's needed.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Looks like the device sets up a VPN back to them that they can send mail out from with a static IP and reverse dns.
...and IN SOVIET RUSSIA, beowulf clusters imagine 1, 2, 3 profit!!!! jokes made out of YOU!!!
It needs some obscure cloud service to hook up to do you can configure it. That's attached to a subscription.
How about just building a piece of useful groupware with easy domain configuration and easy ssl cert integration and letting the hardware as a option?
Somehow I feel this will fail just as hard as Protonet.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The port problem is easy to solve by offering optional port-forwarding subscriptions to forward "incoming mail to your domain" ports to a user-selected non-blocked port.
Also, most home users can buy business-contract internet in their homes, which typically allow all incoming ports.
The same people who would pay $500 for this box are the same people who would buy either of the above services.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Spam filtering is what makes e-mail usable nowadays and yet on the official site they choose to ignore it completely.
to your hosting provider? At the consumer level it's like $5-$10/mo (and you can probably get it cheaper elsewhere).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
For the amount of email most people do, a few dozens of dollars into a Raspberry Pi would work just fine as an email server. $500 seems like huge overkill.
I can envision a market for that, particularly for people who want to keep their email and calendar data away from google but don't want to manage their own server completely on their own. I won't be lining up to give them any of my money, but I suspect plenty of other people might.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
they'll sell it to you, it's often only about $30-$70/mo more and it often comes without data caps for the extra money. I've got Cox business, it's $100/mo for 100 mbps with no data caps. I mostly got it to escape data caps when they started that crap in my area. The downside is you have to sign a contract (mine's 3 years, but I'm an IT worker, I pretty much don't have a job without internet).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Possibly. What is different from now and then is that consumer hardware has matured. From NASes being more prevalent, to more capable routers, that do more than route. A lot more tasks, formally cloud, can be moved back towards the consumer end, with some help from the other end. e.g. expertise, management, etc.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
There is a market for this kind of thing, but it's a small one.
If I am a very small company or an individual who needs "in house" email where no third party can be subpoenaed and where I control the encryption keys, AND where it's easy to run with minimal management, that is worth paying for.
But for most companies small enough where this would be worth considering, a completely outsourced email solution is better. For almost all individuals, outsourced email is better.
In the unlikely event that something like this gets more than "niche market" traction, expect the major players to either buy these guys out or come out with competing products. There's not much in this product that is innovative enough that the proprietary features, if any, can't be worked around and/or that customers won't care about them enough to deter competition.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Anyone else trying to figure out how that looks significantly different from a right-way-up one?
Apart from the line drawing of an obscure animal, of course.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It seems that (some) people are beginning to realize the cost of “free” services, but I wonder if they care enough to do anything about it.
Getting smtp to your home connection could be an issue for many as that port is usually blocked to prevent malware spamming. Sometimes you can request it opened.
When I ran my own email server, there was a bit of maintenance with spam filters as well as problems with some destinations not accepting emails from servers on xDSL lines.
L'Idiot
So, what happens when a spammer buys this and that particular netblock gets on a SPAM blacklist?
They hide the knobs that would endear them with the tech community, source is not prominent/shared, and you can't subscribe to the serice using existing hardware.
For the average tech user concerned about privacy this may be a good deal, but to actually get SSL securely you need to manage your own domain and control your own certificates, otherwise the domain or certificate manager can be coerced by three-letter agencies to MITM your email. Additionally I see no allowance for hardware failure, if grandma and gramps lose 100GB or photos of their grand-kids, someone is going to be peeved. The subscription needs to include secure backups (anything where the service manages keys is not as secure as their average customer expects they are getting, and making people manage their keys themselves is bound to incur data loss and recovery failure). The only way out of the mess is a cryptographic secured ID system.
And letting the government do it is bound to incur abuse. I see two solutions, everybody use the Estonian E-citizenship and ID and pump enough value into the system that they don't dare subvert it. Or recognize ICANN as a sovereign entity like the red cross or knights of malta, and have them run a digital ID system.
I've had 20+ years of Sendmail on FreeBSD doing it's thing flawlessly and I don't think I've spent a quarter of that yet. Jeez.
But the market for people who need to set up their own email server to hide their graft from FOIA requests would appear to be fairly limited...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
sounds like Hillary missed out on a great start up idea
Looks like the device sets up a VPN back to them that they can send mail out from with a static IP and reverse dns.
Then you still have to trust a 3rd party. So how is this different from trusting any other provider (other than being really expensive)?
I am still trying to picture an upside-down book vs right side up. Everything is printed upside-down? Most of mine are symmetrical. The one that isn't would be a very odd looking device if upside-down :O
Seems kinda pricey, can't be much in there to just handle email.
it is my dream to have another server in my network, with unknown software who could be abandoned at any time and become unsupported
Most of them don't fully block 25 cause doing so would break mail clients as well.
Most of what I have seen is isps that allow incoming on 25 and to do outgoing mail you define a smart host in sendmail to relay your outgoing mail through the ISPs smtp server.
We will never get rid of e-mail. It will be necessary for the foreseeable future and have a much longer lifespan than say, fax. But anyone who can see the writing on the wall with respect to privacy will/has started moving away from any public public or even private public messaging system for as much of their important communication as possible.
Using systems like Tox, Signal on your phone, or something that you have control of needs to be a priority in your life -- and as part of that, you will have to become an advocate (evangelist really) for others to get on board.
One big weakness is people using social networks as communication systems purely due to their convenience and ubiquitousness. There are/have been attempts to make privacy oriented social networks (diaspora, etc.), but the nature of shouting from a mountain top does not lend itself well to privacy.
Internet weenies need to grow up, manage their comms on their own...servers. DNS, email and protocols underneath the Internet of things were scarfed up for obscurity, charged up the Kazoo for domain registry and commoditized on hosting service in the name of ' free' as in free beer. Woke - free turned out to be advertising gold, intelligence ripe and target rich for state actors, hackers alike.
Sucks growing up... server maintenance will eat into game time, browsing and >()&^
Preface: https://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/
Substance: I am not normally a betting guy, but I would wager that 95% plus of the US population would not have the ability to get beyond 50% delvierability for "legitimate" emails using such a device. I am ASSUMIng that the outbound connections from the "device" to the recipients MX server would originate from the user's local IP address (unless they also include some kind of outbound relay service, which would seem to be self-defeating in this context). Many (perhaps even a "large majority") email server operators use services which are designed to reduce spam, and one of the most common ways this is done is by blocking incoming connections, either at the MTA or network level, based on a range of "known dynamic IP addresses", i.e. the IP address ranges assigned by an ISP to customers who have not chosen (or do not have the option to chose) a static IP address for their connection. Organizations like Spamhaus publish / provide access to lists of such ranges which email server administrators can use to automatically block or flag messages coming from "standard"/"dynamic"/"non-static"/"consumer and small business" IP address ranges.
While I like the concept, I think any customer of this product is likely going to be disappointed in their message deliverability unless the either A) have the money and the inclination to get a static IP address for their connection (if their ISP even offers that as an option - MANY do not, either at all or for non-business accounts) and deal with the side effects that come along with it, or B) use a third party external relay service to send their messages, thereby eliminating (or at least reducing) the utility of such a device in the first place.
The people who would buy a business-contract internet in their homes are the same people who would be capable of running their own mail server without having to pay $500 for this box.
...from 18 years ago.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
1) Take a piece of well established, publicly available software
2) Throw it on a commodity piece of hardware (optional)
3) Tie it to a proprietary cloud service that requires a subscription
4) Price it so it looks like it has more value to it then it does
5) Profit!!
Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
Just get a $6 a month account at a web host like Pair Networks. Includes domain hosting, web, ftp, and email with spam filtering, easy to use control panel, etc. This is how almost all companies and tech savvy individuals I knew handled email from 1995-2005ish when gmail started to get really popular. Individuals started using gmail and dumped their ISP or web host email. .
1990-1994 - people used local ISP provided email (or AOL) or company email from some large corp.
1995-2005 - tech savvy people switched to email provided by web hosting company using their own domain others stayed on ISP email
2006-2018 - individuals switched to gmail and dumped thier web hosting account
2019- - Everyone switches away from Google and the internet lives happly ever after
Nothing super sensitive or personal should be sent using email regardless of where it is hosted. Using your webhost for email is just a way to not do business with Google which is now a goal for many people.
The problem when looking for gmail alternative is that you start asking yourself why you should trust anyone else either.
Your ISP? A hosting company? Some startup that sells a box? Some guys in Switzerland?
I think this company's bigger issue is their demographic: People who care enough about their e-mail privacy to desire to not-use Gmail, Outlook.com/Hotmail, AOL, or Yahoo, want their own server, and are neither tech savvy enough to set up Zimbra / Mail-in-a-Box / the Synology mail server, nor big enough to use Exchange...and still use e-mail.
This trail was blazed by Microsoft back around 2008-2011 with Windows Home Server - enough server to help manage backups and malware scans (using Live OneCare) and centralize media storage/sharing, enough not-server to prevent it being used for Active Directory or similar. The problem was that it was still "too much server", and they couldn't market it well enough to get average consumers to really want it.
Circling back to the subject line, e-mail is primarily a business form of communication. When was the last time you got a legit, personally-written e-mail from anyone? It's probably been a while, and even if you still correspond with $SOME_PERSON regularly that way, it's far from the de facto form of digital communication it used to be. E-mail is basically for account setup and password resets, bulk mailers, and the occasional business correspondence. Most human-to-human communication tends to take place with Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp or garden variety texting. Though people do still send and receive e-mails, it's been largely supplanted by semi-synchronous messages.
So, to review...an e-server tied to a single provider for the VPN / outbound relay, one or more annual fees to handle spam filtering, runs off Wi-Fi, doesn't fit in a server rack, isn't installable on custom hardware, and is intended to simplify a communications protocol from which home users have largely moved on?
I could be wrong...but it definitely doesn't sound like a winner to me.
They should have said it looks like an upside-down cracked open book. In short, it looks like a tent, or the roof of house without the house. Is there an RTFM equivalent of "Look at the damn photo"?
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Will echo the other doubts with my own concerns - for anything that handles important emails like my domain, I need something that is in multiple spatially redundant data centers, not just one device in my home where I'm screwed if the house loses connectivity, or there's a fire or theft... no fun to be out on vacation and have the email box go down with no way to fix it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
$499 gets you a new Apple Mac Mini. And add Mac OS server and you’ve got a personal email server. Add the MX records to your domain, and dynamic DNS records if you are lacking a static IP. Many registrars have tools to create all the appropriate dns records for SPF, etc. So what is their secret sauce?
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Being at the whim of Google and Microsoft, regarding which of your outgoing mails they are going accept and which ones they wonâ(TM)t. THAT is not a fun experience at all.
Looks like the device sets up a VPN back to them that they can send mail out from with a static IP and reverse dns.
Then you still have to trust a 3rd party. So how is this different from trusting any other provider (other than being really expensive)?
1. Having physical access to your data at all times?
2. Freedom to switch to a different VPN/reverse IP service provider if the current one makes you unhappy or goes out of business?
3. ???
4. Profit
mal-in-a-box + Dell Optiplex 9010 or VPS
Their website is loaded, just chock-a-block full of malicious Javascript spyware and trackers. I would therefore immediately assume that this is just a scam run by a bunch of dirty thieves who should be taken immediately to the parking lot (or behind the boatshed) and shot.
Plus, the description of the thing stinks of insecurity -- I would not permit it within a mile of my computers nor to connect in any way to any network for which I am responsible.
We hear that you don't trust Google to receive and store your email, but
1) You don't want to learn how email servers, domains or the internet works,
2) You don't want to learn how to do the maintenance or worry about security,
3) Your home ISP blocks outgoing email on port 25 or worse anyway
For the sum of $500 we will
1) Funnel all your email through our domain and server (in Amazon's cloud) instead of Google's domain and server
2) Assemble and program a server for you, that we promise does what you want
3) Retain remote admin access to that server to change things without your intervention
4) Regularly run apt-get upgrade without inspecting the code in the new packages because come on now.
Awesome. So this $500 device depends on this company to exist to have any value at all.
Where do I sign up?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
It's so precious that you assume they give you the option to change the upstream VPN provider.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
While this (Helm) does not sound like the kind of device I would ever buy (too little control, despite all their hype), I would be interested in a piece of hardware that was dedicated to email and nothing else. Easy to use interface (deal-breaker, if it's complicated), supports multiple domains, well-made, supports all the normal protocols and is very stable.
Of course, I say this sitting at my desk staring at a landline desk phone that hardly ever rings due to cell phones, and a fax number printed on my physical business card that we maintain with even less justification.
I have all that through VoIP, and it comes with SMS as well. Cheap too, even with the Obihai box.
If I could have a turn-key plug-in and forget server that also did basic voice assistant stuff like the weather and the like WITHOUT sending my audio outside of my home for processing I would buy it instantly.
I want HOME automation to help me control my home....
I don't want the internet/cloud/russia/china controlling my home, and listening, and watching...
A Seattle-area startup is aiming to take on giants such as Google and change the way we do email back to the way we used to do email and overcharge you for it.
FTFY
...
- comes with auditable log of all updates. Preferably updates compiled from authenticated source vs "magic" a la Microsoft
- stores in cloud where I hold the keys
- cloud searchable
- minimal or zero cloud storage costs
- stays up with DMARK etc per other posts
I paid about that for a tivo roamio, and the value to me of not having Google spy on my mails (I run outlook so at least they don't get that interstitial tracking added to mail links
The benefit for the masses is that it's turnkey. for those who want to do their own, like me, the recipe is simple:
Get a $35 Raspberry pi, set up to run raspbian on a $64GB or 128GB SDCard.
Install Dovecot, Postfix, and Getmail.
Install nginx and baikal for the carddav/caldav services.
Configure VPN through your router or use the mail server and port-forward to it.
I've done this many times so it's routine. This usage model requires a VPN connection to retrieve mail from your phone when remote. I wouldnt do it any other way.
This is perfect market timing for Democratic candidates looking for nice alternatives to those pesky government servers
Doesn't free Pegasus Mail already do this?
I have physical access to all my emails and I use Gmail. Every one has physical access to their email. What was your point?
Remove the $99 a year charge and I am in. Or give the device to me free with 5TB and just charge the $99 a year and I am in.
What about folks who send TO me, or I send TO...if other end is gmail or hotmail or etc, those entities can still collect my information and content of emails. So this seems to only work if on both ends, like drug dealers or groups of concerned/paranoid folks.
Just to mention, there are completely free and open alternatives https://www.kinguardproject.or... The Kinguard project is an opensource, currently Debian based, solution that incorporates email, calendar, contacts services etc.
Google isn't in the on-site email server business, at all. Sure, they have GMail for Business, which one might argue is targeted to the same group of customers. But not really. GMail for Business is targeted at those who don't WANT to have their own on-site server.
I predict that no one will use Help for long, because they will be swamped by spam, and unable to send email because they find themselves on RBLs or because they aren't a trusted domain.
This smells like a slashvertisement.
For that kind of money spend get something like a Synology NAS which will do your email plus a whole lot more such as backups, cloud, web server, media server, and even WordPress. It'll cost a bit more because you will have to buy the hard drives or SSDs.
Of course as soon as you open up the server to the outside world you become a target. I know that Synology is good at getting the updates out but will the people apply them?
I have physical access to all my emails and I use Gmail. Every one has physical access to their email. What was your point?
The point might have been that by operating your own SMTP server, your email is physically secure from others at least in the sense that you will know if it is seized.