[tor-project] A GSuite alternative for the OONI Team

[Rick]

Maria,

Please forgive the top post.

Do please investgate Topicbox, a service offered by FastMail Pty Ltd, an outstanding Australian email service provider. Topicbox is a team-oriented email product available at a cost of just $10/month for up to 10 team members. 

Fastmail is a completely open source based service that takes privacy very seriously. Full disclosure, Fastmail is my personal email service provider, but I have no further interest in the company. Topicbox simply sounds like it may suit the OONI teams needs.

https://www.topicbox.com/

Rick

Maria Xynou wrote:
> Dear Niels and everyone else who has concerns with the OONI team using
> GSuite,
> 
> Thank you for sharing your concerns.
> 
> As privacy advocates, we very much understand your concerns. I
> personally understand your concerns, having hosted multiple "How to
> de-Googlize your life" workshops for the public over the last years and
> having investigated Alphabet as part of my previous job.
> 
> However, I'm sure you understand that (for better or for worse) life is
> full of trade-offs that we all inevitably need to take into account when
> striving to do our jobs the best that we can.
> 
> Our job - our as in OONI - is that of enabling people around the world
> to measure internet censorship.
> 
> To this end, our small team of only 4 (!) developers design, build, and
> maintain the following software components:
> 
> 1. OONI Probe (i.e. multiple free software tests designed to measure
> internet censorship)
> 
> 2. Backend for OONI Probe
> 
> 3. OONI Probe web UI
> 
> 4. OONI Probe mobile app for Android
> 
> 5. OONI Probe mobile app for F-Droid
> 
> 6. OONI Probe mobile app for iOS
> 
> 7. OONI Probe distribution for Raspberry Pis
> 
> 8. OONI data processing pipeline
> 
> 9. Proteus (probe orchestration)
> 
> 10. OONI Run
> 
> 11. OONI Explorer
> 
> 12. OONI API
> 
> I think it's clear that our small team is building and maintaining a lot
> of software and services. And over the next year, OONI will be building
> and maintaining much more software, so the list will go on.
> 
> In addition to the above, we also ensure that our servers are up and
> running so that we can provide daily updates on internet censorship
> based on data collected from more than 200 countries. We also write
> research reports, do data analysis, and many more activities.
> 
> And so while we're not particularly happy about GSuite, we see it as a
> necessary (and temporary?) solution. We simply don't have the resources
> to maintain an email server (and ensure it's properly secured).
> 
> We can of course be reached via encrypted PGP email, and many do so. I
> should probably emphasize that we receive a fair amount of emails from
> Gmail users. And when it comes to really sensitive communications, we
> obviously don't use email.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Maria.
> 
> On 22/10/2017 20:41, Niels Elgaard Larsen wrote:
> >
> > Iain R. Learmonth:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> On 22/10/17 11:39, Arturo Filastò wrote about moving to GSuite.
> >>
> >> Just to add to this, for those that are still concerned. The OONI
> >> website does list a GPG key that can be used to send encrypted emails
> >> that are not readable by Google:
> >
> > And I am still concerned.
> > How much of the email is PGP encrypted?
> >
> >
> >> https://ooni.torproject.org/about/
> >>
> >> Setting up a mail server is easy, but keeping a mail server running,
> >> keeping a lid on spam and preventing your mail server from ending up in
> >> reputation systems as "spammy" is a constant struggle.
> > It is really not that hard.
> >
> > And even if some russian spamservice would mark Tor-emails as potential
> > spam, is that reason enough to give it to Google?
> >
> >
> >> While it is sad that Google has been chosen, I can well understand the
> >> reasoning behind doing so.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Iain.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> tor-project mailing list
> >> tor-project at lists.torproject.org
> >> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-project
> >>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > tor-project mailing list
> > tor-project at lists.torproject.org
> > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-project
> 
> 
> -- 
> Maria Xynou
> Research and Partnerships Coordinator
> Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI)
> https://ooni.torproject.org/
> PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E
> 
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