
Admit It. The Clinton Email Controversy Bothers You - msh
https://medium.com/the-curious-civilian/admit-it-the-clinton-email-controversy-bothers-you-yet-you-dont-actually-know-what-the-clinton-511dc1659eda#.4ze2f9al3
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pyrophane
I was more bothered by Clinton's response to the email server controversy than
I was by the facts of what she'd done, once they became clear. The way she has
changed her story over time and deflected many of the questions she was asked
about it by being dismissive of them or avoiding answering them altogether
confirmed some of my fears about how she would behave as president. This will
not be a transparent for forthcoming administration.

Of course, for the next couple of weeks I'll have a hard time being critical
of Hillary Clinton when her opponent is Donald Trump. Even if you set aside
his racism, vulgarity, and sexual assault (not that they should be set aside),
you're still left with someone who has a remarkable lack of understanding of
what it would mean to govern the United States. Remarkable, anyway, for a
presidential candidate representing one of our two major political parties.

~~~
geezerjay
> I was more bothered by Clinton's response to the email server controversy
> than I was by the facts of what she'd done, once they became clear.

Aren't they two particular aspects of the same underlying problem?

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informatimago
I generally agree with that article.

Using "personal" email servers should be the rule, not the exception.

When using centralized email servers, you have a single point of spying,
subpoenating and hacking.

However, messages should be encrypted, not only the transmission, the messages
themselves, and kept encrypted on the servers (be they personal or
organizational, centralized or close to their users).

But the only company that did that had to close under pressure of the US
government's agency (cf. Lavabit).

There is still the opportunity to build an opensource secure and easy to
deploy email server system that end-users could easily install at home.

~~~
dllthomas
> Using "personal" email servers should be the rule, not the exception.

For certain definitions of "should", I entirely agree.

> There is still the opportunity to build an opensource secure and easy to
> deploy email server system that end-users could easily install at home.

Tragically, I don't think that's really the case. _The_ most important feature
for email is that you can expect the messages you send to be received by other
parties. Approaches many have taken to fighting spam make that difficult or
impossible if you are not a large entity.

> When using centralized email servers, you have a single point of spying,
> subpoenating and hacking.

A "single point of subpoenaing" is precisely the point, for the relevant
transparency laws.

> However, messages should be encrypted, not only the transmission, the
> messages themselves, and kept encrypted on the servers

I whole-heartedly agree with this.

> But the only company that did that had to close under pressure of the US
> government's agency

Any email service will do this, if people send you mail already encrypted. Of
course you'll still leak some meta-information.

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dllthomas
Admit it. You don't have much of an understanding of the technology you're
writing about.

