Ethan BlantonFeb 18
I reminded my #DistributedSystems class today that DNS is a global, decentralized, eventually consistent database with a continuous uptime and client compatibility window of 40 years, and I'm not sure that they were suitably impressed.
Show threadStewart TolhurstFeb 18
@elb We’ve sleepwalked into breaking that resiliency by relying on about 4 major providers of DNS services though. The protocol itself is designed to be bombproof and self-healing, but somehow we’ve managed to undermine that…
Show threadfleazFeb 19
@foxbasealpha @elb Same story for email :(
Show threadStewart TolhurstFeb 20
@fleaz @elb Part of that is down to spam etc - it’s really hard to run a mail service securely any more, so most people don’t bother and leave it to Microsoft or Google…
Show threadfleaz

@foxbasealpha @elb Filtering out spam works kinda okay and isn't even the harderst part of selfhosted/small-biz mailservers.

The much bigger problem is imgo that the big players dictate the rules you need to follow. I gmail says "your mail envelope needs to be purple" the whole world will adapt because otherwise you can't be part of the global email network.

And the fact that e.g. Microsoft throws away mail, AFTER they sent you a 250 OK is fucked up. Good luck contacting their support...

Feb 20 at 8:17pmWeb
Show threadStewart TolhurstFeb 20
@fleaz @elb It’s all the bits you need to set up (as you say, determined by the big players) to actually make sure the message gets to the recipient!
Show threadfleazFeb 20
@foxbasealpha @elb And even when you do EVERYTHING, the other side will still drop your mail because somebody else in your IP range is doing some shit that hurt your IP reputation and they blocked the whole subnet... :(