HN

Comments (28)

• ccamrobertson
  I think a lot of these concepts are fun/interesting, but I like that email today functions more like a mailbox than WhatsApp or Telegram. Whilst digital (or paper) spam is obnoxious I dislike the idea of binning every sender into a "unread" box until I approve them. I miss unreads all the time across apps like X and Telegram.As a first step I would focus on something like broad S/MIME support. Unfortunately I suspect that the biggest email providers are disincentivized from doing this as it would disrupt their business models.
• 8organicbits
  I think the network effects make email hard to replace, virtually everyone online has an email address. If this could include a migration path, with backwards compatibility with SMTP, I think it would have a better shot of getting adoption.Modern email already depends on HTTP, with protocols like MTA-STS (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8461/) using HTTPS/TLS to improve transit encryption, or Web Key Directory (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-koch-openpgp-webkey-s...) which uses HTTP for public key distribution. Personally I think these incremental improvements of SMTP are more promising than replacements, but we deserve better email however we can build it.
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  thesuitonym
  > Let's design the successor to email on top of HTTPYou can stop there, I've heard enough. Not everything is hypertext.
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  amelius
  > First-contact consent: an unknown sender doesn't get into the mailbox; they land in a "requests" box with their first message visible (like Signal's message requests). You accept, and the thread opens forever. A stranger can knock on your door, which is the essential property of mail, but they can't fill up your living room.I like this.Question: can this e-mail specification/implementation also replace direct-messaging protocols (like WhatsApp)?
• AKSF_Ackermann
  Content-addressed email breaks mailing lists, as those need to be able to add headers for subscribe/unsubscribe/list id, etc. There is a reason DKIM allows you to pick which headers to sign.
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  wuschel
  > Optional postage for strangers: the server can answer a first contact with a 402. Configurable per mailbox; the cost of cold spamming stops being zero.Interesting take re putting a cost on spam. Perhaps another take would be functionally implementing introductions.> First-contact consent: an unknown sender doesn't get into the mailbox; they land in a "requests" box with their first message visible (like Signal's message requests). You accept, and the thread opens forever. A stranger can knock on your door, which is the essential property of mail, but they can't fill up your living room.Unfortunately, this will only move the problem, and only reduce it in the case when all outside communication is ignored.
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  aboardRat4
  Self-ejecting panels on three sides of the website are a horrible user experience.Other than that...The most important thing is not the protocol, it's the gui.At the moment email's gui is horrible on all platforms without exception.If/when a decent gui appears, protocols will follow.Also, JMAP did reading can probably be just WebDAV?
• syhol
  I'm very excited by this idea. I feel like email/chat is ripe for reinvention.I don't agree with "Domain control as a fallback", as the author said "a domain is not owned, it is rented" and I want to normalise the idea that if you lose your private key, you need to start again. I hate that we keep giving so much authority to domains, it's such a big weakness. The author even left the key rotation chain out of the initial implementation.I still think root/signer keys or sigchains are decent options.
• philipwhiuk
  Old version:* DNS lookup for MX recordNew version* DNS lookup for A record* HTTP request for .wellknown/htmp/known_hostsNot sure why this is being considered as an improvement?> each mailbox of a domain on a different providerWhy is this useful/necessary or even 'good'?
• anon
  undefined
• endre
  still better than CoI
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  gostsamo
  Unfortunately, stopped reading at one moment, because though the idea might be interesting, the packaging was unbearable. The obnoxious real time visitors counter seriously screws with my screen reader. I don't care how many people are reading this every 3 seconds updated not only with numbers, but with randomly chosen emois in my speech stream.If you have a website, please, don't subject your visitors to something like that.