E-mail service

Volatile E-mail federates with:

• most other E-mail providers – we use modern mail technologies such as SPF, DKIM, and TLSA to ensure secure delivery and prevent being sent to spam;
• Tor hidden service providers such as Torbox;
• anoNet mailservers; and
• Yggdrasil mailservers (needs testing).

See this page for information on getting an account.

Privacy notes

Mail headers, including your IP address, are sent as-is. Volatile mailservers make no effort to mangle headers before they are sent out. We wish to provide an unadulterated mail experience, and we do not see the justification in mangling every potentially-identifying bit of information that comes from your mail client.

The best way to maintain privacy while using E-mail is by not sending private information in the first place. You may consider the following possible bits of information:

• Your IP address. This is included in one of the several Received headers that tell a recipient what path the mail took from your client to the destination. You will see any in-between mailserver hops, but you will also see your own client's IP address. Mine may look like this:

  Received: from clamav.wowana.me (unknown [IPv6:2001:67c:2db8:301:1845::2])

  To conceal your IP address in these headers, it is suggested you use Tor or another connection method listed below. You may also use some form of proxy or VPN.

• Your MUA name. Basically, the name and version of your mail client. Again, mine may be:

  X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.17.3 (GTK+ 2.24.32; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

  or even:

  User-Agent: K-9 Mail for Android

  Note that the MUA string may use various header names such as X-Mailer or User-Agent. You will want to check with your client's documentation if you wish to scrub this information from your messages.

• Your system's hostname. This usually sneaks its way into the Message-ID header in the form of:

  Message-ID: 20200107052157.743664f5@clamav.wowana.me

  You may be able to override this in your client. Suffice that, you will have to change your system hostname or use another client.

• Obviously, there's also the From header and signature. It is so obvious that sometimes we forget to adjust our sender identity before sending mail. These values may default to your system's username or real name, so make sure it's correct before you start sending messages.

• Other information that may sneak through depending on your client and system. Make sure to send yourself a test E-mail to make sure everything looks fine before sending out mail to anyone else.

Recommended clients

For desktop I use Claws Mail and on Android I use K-9 Mail. Both support PGP and other common mail client features, and both are compatible with E-mail netiquette (see below).

Etiquette and useful tips

For whatever reason, if you're new to the intricacies of writing mail:

1. Use plain text for composing mail.
2. Reply below or inline to quoted text. Delete quotes that you are not replying to. Each message should stand alone, giving enough context for the reader to remember what the message is about, but short enough such as not to burden the reader with useless text.
3. Use appropriate subjects. The subject should describe your message in one sentence. A detailed subject is helpful for organisation.
4. Know how to use To, Cc, and Bcc fields. Also familiarise yourself with less-common headers, and make sure your client correctly replies to messages (using In-Reply-To header).
5. Wait patiently for a reply. People may take a while to get back to you, and they will get annoyed if you pester them.

For mailing lists, the above points generally apply, but check the specific mailing list's information for additional guidelines and restrictions.

For PGP-encrypted messages:

1. Ensure that your PGP user-id has the E-mail address you want to use. This allows for mail clients to automatically figure out which key to use for follow-up.
2. Include your PGP public key as an attachment or hyperlink when starting a conversation with someone new.
3. Use PGP/MIME rather than inline PGP when possible. PGP/MIME supports attachments, and inline PGP breaks a lot of other things. Good mail clients support PGP/MIME.

Server credentials

You may connect using any mail client that supports IMAP and SMTP, using the connection details below:

Technical details

• SMTP daemon: Postfix
• IMAP daemon: Dovecot
• DKIM provider: OpenDKIM
• You get a username@volatile.bz address

Future considerations

• Test Yggdrasil federation.
• Add DNS records for y.mail.volatile.bz.
• Consider Sieve and other serverside filtering.
• Consider webmail.