A few days ago, the U.S. government sanctioned A/I for supporting “extreme far-left antifa terrorists”. If you didn’t know, A/I is an antifascist and anticapitalist group based in Italy, and they host a lot of services (like email, website hosting, etc.) run through donations. Their policy states that they are against racism, sexism, militarism, homophobia, and transphobia, and you have to agree to those principles to use their services. Their website and mailing server has been taken down, and unfortunately, that also means my email no longer works. It’s kind of insane how quickly the American government can take down internet services they don’t like. A/I has denied all of the allegations by the Trump admin, and rightfully so, they’re just a digital services provider who respect your privacy and are against fascism and bigotry.

relevant link if you want to read more about this: https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10076

I still need to use email, so what’s a good alternative email provider that doesn’t profit off of my data? I have used Disroot in the past and had good experiences with their services, so they are currently my fallback. I have ruled out Proton and Tuta, as neither support IMAP properly.

  • diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Right. A user from another server sends you mail. The mail is unencrypted on their side because they don’t know your key yet, or they don’t know how to use OpenPGP, or it’s automated.

    Servers talk SMTP between each other, not just a client sending mail.

    < 220 mail.mailbox.org EpicServerSoftware7000
> HELO mail.riseup.net
< 250 mail.riseup.net Service ready for new user
> MAIL FROM:<coolskeleton98@riseup.net>
< 250 Requested mail action okay, completed
> RCPT TO:<chud@mailbox.org>
< 250 Requested mail action okay, completed
> DATA
< 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
> From: "CoolSkeleton98" <coolskeleton98@riseup.net>
> To: chud@mailbox.org
> Subject: Test Message
>
> Hey, this is a test message!
> .
>
< 250 Requested mail action okay, completed
> QUIT
< 221 mail.riseup.net Service closing transmission channel

    The round trip time in this protocol is fucking insane, but that’s what the people in the year 1980 thought of. They never thought this would be used outside of universities.

    Anyways, inevitably, mail.mailbox.org gets the message, unencrypted. It can encrypt it later. Though I don’t see how this is any safer than just getting the mail out with POP3.