How does it differ

BitMaelum tends to fix a few problems with current email systems. Many of the problems originate from the fact that mail should be backward compatible and thus the proposed solutions are often bandages instead of real solutions.

This system wants to provide the following benefits over regular email:

• Secure by default All email is transported encrypted and stored encrypted at rest on each mail server (or proxy) it passes through. Only the recipient can decrypt the message. There is, however, no Perfect Forward Secrecy possible in this kind of scenario.
• Fast on slow connections We try to keep connections to a minimum (work in progress). We also allow to download only the minimum needed for reading a message. For instance, it's possible to only download the text-version of a message, while not downloading the HTML version of it.
• Automatically deal with spam and spoofing Spoofing of email is not possible due to the fact that we can easily detect origin of a message. Also, we can detect the originated mail-server so even when an account is compromised on a client, ONLY the corresponding mail-server can send mail (todo: this is true, but it's trivial to change mail servers... see how we can cope with this)
• Control who puts you on their email lists Email lists are controlled 100% by the subscribers, not the mailing list owners.
• Own your data Your BitMaelum address (non-organisation type) is yours. Nobody could (technically) take this away from you (there can be legal reasons however). Organisational type addresses belong to the organisation which have control over the addreses.
• Easy setup Even though technically, there are a lot of things going on in the background, setting up a new account should be as easy as copy/pasting a few strings.
• Easy migration of your email data to another service Changing your mail-server is a very easy job. With the help of a simple backup and restore command, you can download all your information and messages, and store it onto another mail server.

This means:

• Complete BC breaks with email. Current email clients, servers, etc do not need to communicate with the new email setup.

• Assumes all components can AND WILL be controlled by malicious entities. There will be no meta-data stored in unencrypted form during transit. We assume that each part not explicitly controlled by the user can be taken over, meaning we take a lot of precautions to detect tampering and spoofing messages.

• When "hacked", effects should be minimal.

• Fast. It should work on low-speed internet connections. We try to keep communications to a minimum and run over a HTTPS API system. WIth the help of new protocols like http/2 and quic (http3), we could achieve even greater performance boosts.

• Easy to use for end-users. They need to worry about as little as possible. Even though technically there is a lot going on, we tend to make things as easy as possible for the end-user, while still keeping the option open for the advanced user to use BitMealum the way they want to (porcelain vs plumbing)

• Stand on the should of giants. Combine proven technologies to solve problems. We rely on not inventing wheels ourselves and use the things that are already tested in real life.