A Hillary-style personal email server - who wants one?

[ocabj]

I'm not sure what you mean by recreate her setup. There's nothing magical about her email server(s).

Light up a Linux box, run postfix, sendmail, qmail, or whatever you want to run and go. If you want to make it more complex, I guess you could run separate servers for individual services (e.g. MTA, MUA / mailboxes, virus / malware checking, etc).

[Merc1138]

I'm misunderstanding the issue of my own thread? If I wanted to start a thread on the Clinton email controversy, I would have done it in OT. (Except I think there ar at least three of those already.) In this forum, I wanted to talk about what it would take to recreate her set-up. Speculation is fine. Comparable configurations would be fine. Anything related to the technical aspects of email servers would be fine.

Yeah, there's a first time for everything.

How to run an email server is knowledge commonly available on the internet. It's really only slightly more complicated than setting up your own FTP, and really takes little resources since the volume for a private email server is typically pretty low.

[lasbrg]

I know that my Snyology NAS has the capability to host a Mail server. You can probably do it on any computer really, just would need some software and a static external IP so it doesn't change unexpectedly.

Plenty of guides out there online on setting up your own mail/relay/smtp server however flavor you want to do it, even with anti-spam resources. Your question is vague because there are many ways to slice this pie, and dependent on your abilities in setting this up and managing it. Most techies will have a basic grasp on what this is about and where to take the first steps.

For example, a growing number of people host their own "cloud" storage for their devices, and mail servers themselves for deep level control of those resources, or just to do it because they can. There are pro's and con's and it depends on what you want throw at it hardware as well, sometimes it doesn't make sense for people even when it sounds like a fun idea conceptually.

I've run my own web server, email server, ftp server, even had file-sharing capabilities on it for a while. All from a residential-class DSL line.

If you have decent computer skills it's not hard to set up.

Eventually I decided I'd rather pay someone $7/month to deal with it... but then I'm not in the business of hiding illegal activities from voters.

Thanks for these. This last comment was pretty close to the mark, just change "illegal" to "my" and "voters" to "anyone". For many types of email, I like mailinator.com (and it's aliases) a lot. Most email messages are not inherently sensitive and so no real security is required. A step up from that is what I think most of people have - a commodity "name" email provider. More secure than that, but not really "secure" would either be the "$7/month" personal cloud-based service or else your own DIY Linux box.

Taking it to the next level, the "Hillary level", is what I was wondering about. Belatedly, I am googling the subject and here are some of the technical articles I've found.

Wired:

The main "fails" it cites are a manpower deficit, compared to .gov IT support, and the possibility the the domain name could be hijacked.

Daily Mail (UK): How Hilary Clinton's homebrew email server was set up

ECN magazine: 'Homebrew' email servers: Genius as well as sneaky?

No one really seems to know yet exactly what she had configured.

[lasbrg]

Hillary says "she's not telling" her homebrew's technical specs.

The Hill: Clinton: Private email had 'no breaches'

...

“There were no security breaches,” Clinton emphasized. “So I think that the use of that server, which started with my husband, certainly proved to be effective and secure.”

Clinton's camp addressed further questions in a memo to reporters released Tuesday afternoon. The document sidestepped questions about the level of encryption used by Clinton's server.

"While the curiosity in the specifics of this set up is understandable, given what people with ill-intentions can do with such information in this day and age, there are concerns about broadcasting specific technical details about past and current practices," the document stated.

"However, suffice it to say, robust protections were put in place and additional upgrades and techniques employed over time as they became available, including consulting and employing third party experts."

...

I hope the details come out via some investigation.

[randomBytes]

I've run my own email server for 20+ years - yes before the internet was widely available.
Any unix system has everything needed.

[epilepticninja]

Yeah, there's a first time for everything.

How to run an email server is knowledge commonly available on the internet. It's really only slightly more complicated than setting up your own FTP, and really takes little resources since the volume for a private email server is typically pretty low.

Unless you are the Secretary of State and are using it for your work related e-mail....And how in the hell did anyone not notice that the end of her e-mail addy didn't have a .gov on it?