Resisting the centralization of network infrastructure

Posted Aug 18, 2016 20:26 UTC (Thu) by excors (subscriber, #95769)
In reply to: Resisting the centralization of network infrastructure by reedstrm
Parent article: Resisting the centralization of network infrastructure

Their phone is a computer that's turned on and connected to the internet 24 hours a day (except when in tunnels or flying, I suppose), so they can run the mail server on that.

Resisting the centralization of network infrastructure

Posted Aug 18, 2016 23:37 UTC (Thu) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link] (3 responses)

Your home router would be sufficient to run a basic mail server, wouldn't it?

Resisting the centralization of network infrastructure

Posted Aug 18, 2016 23:58 UTC (Thu) by Jonno (subscriber, #49613) [Link] (2 responses)

> Your home router would be sufficient to run a basic mail server, wouldn't it?

Not really, most home routers lack the storage necessary to host even a single mailbox. My personal IMAP server serving 4 people uses 2.4 GiB of storage, while most home routers feature 4-128 MiB of storage.

Resisting the centralization of network infrastructure

Posted Aug 19, 2016 3:14 UTC (Fri) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link] (1 responses)

All but the most basic home routers have one or more USB ports nowadays.

Resisting the centralization of network infrastructure

Posted Aug 19, 2016 13:30 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Running spamassassin on a home router could be a bit challenging, though, even if you get past the storage issue. SA can be a bit of a hog...

Resisting the centralization of network infrastructure

Posted Aug 19, 2016 6:08 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

Their phone is a computer that's turned on and connected to the internet 24 hours a day [...]

Not sure if it is sensible to run an important server on a device that can be lost, stolen, or dropped and crushed under a bus. In many places, the cost of mobile data would also be a problem.