Hi Mick, On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 10:39:57PM +0100, mick crane wrote: > well when I became aware of all this stuff, I thought this is great, > everybody can connect and do what they like, if of course following > protocols. > But you can't do that can you ? you have to connect through a service > provider.
In theory any host in the Internet can talk to any other host on the Internet because that is what an internetwork is. In practice some hosts on the Internet do not want to be talked to by just anyone for any reason. So, firewalls, application firewalls, blocklists and other restrictions in the name of security. An unfortunate reality of the centralisation of email services into just a handful of very large providers is that those providers in practice dictate stricter rules for who can talk to them. IP netblocks that are known to be assigned to end users (as opposed to hosting providers) are generally outright blocked or distrusted to a degree which makes it difficult for them to be used to send email to everyone that one might want to correspond with. On the other hand, hosting services have got a lot cheaper over the years to the point where one can rent a virtual server at a decent provider for not a lot of money, and as long as one complies with modern email practices one should not generally have much of a problem. Very few people wish to go to this extent, but if you are someone who wanted to do it at home then doing it on a rented server instead is not much more effort. Running your own mail service is still within reach, just not from your own home in most cases. If intending to do this I would however caution against using the very cheapest of providers, some of which come in at just a few Euro per month. These providers do not have functioning abuse departments and as a result are widely blocked for the misdeeds of their customers. As someone who operates in this space I will not name any providers, but if it seems too cheap to be true then it probably is. Cheers, Andy
