BMG FAQ

• Important You will never be asked for your password ever
  Logins are always SSL secured and are on bitmessage.ch
  You will only be asked for your BM-Address if you explicitely opened a support case
  Never click on links in messages, that do not refer to /...
  
• What is this? This is a service, that allows you to use your E-Mail client (or the webmail) for sending and receiving Bitmessages.
• How much does it cost? BMG is free of charge. There are no hidden fees or premium services. You can donate if you wish (see bottom of page)
• But somehow you make money out of this, don't you? No. There is no tracking or advertisments on this page. Payment for the hosting comes out of my private funds, however you can donate if you wish using bitcoin or dogecoin. The addresses are on the bottom of most page.
• How to use it? look at the setup guide for detailed Instructions.
  
• Can I create deterministic addresses? no.
• Can I change my addresses? No, because it is bound to your bitmessage identity. However you can register one alias for it. Just go to the alias registration.
• Can I download my address block? No. Your Address block is what we try to protect the most. It is currently not possible for it to leave the system the way it has been set up and it should never ever be transported over the Internet.
  You only have two methods to get the address block: either nuke your account or delete it. Nuking makes the address block visible for everyone.
• Can I send messages to DML addresses? No. New clients (0.3.5 and onwards) will not send you the public key of the address, also you could only see the answers, that were sent to you, not to others.
  If you send a message to a DML address, it will most likely hang at the public key request. Messages, which are stuck at this stage for multiple days are deleted.
• How to set up a Mailing List? Login at the Mail Administration Panel with your account and go to the "Forwarding" Tab.
  enable forwarding and enter broadcast@bitmessage.ch as address.
  If you want to prevent your inbox from filling up without the need to delete messages manually, leave the "keep original message" disabled.
• Can I forward messages to an external E-Mail address? Yes. If you want to forward messages, go into the Mail Administration Panel and head for the "Forwarding" tab. Enter the destination address and (recommended) leave the "Keep original message" checkbox disabled or you will fill up your account.
• Can I forward messages to a bitmessage address? Yes, this is a bit more complicated. Follow these steps carefully:
  
  
  1. Open the Mail Administration Panel and log in
  2. Click your address on the left side and then select "Rules" on top
  3. Click "Add", give the rule any name and leave the checkboxes as is. Click Save
  4. Click "Add" in the "Criteria" title
  5. Select the Predefined Field "From", change the Search type to "Contains" and the value to @. Click save.
     (You can define other criterias, if you only want to get notified for specific messages)
  6. Click "Add" in the "Actions" title
  7. Select "Set header value", enter X-Bitmessage in the "Header name" field and enter the bitmessage address, which should get notified, as value (without @bitmessage.ch). Click Save.
  8. Click "Add" again in the "Actions" title
  9. Select "Forward email" and enter the same bitmessage address you just entered again (with @bitmessage.ch). Click Save
  10. Check the box "Active" and click "Save"
• What is the Garbage text others see in my Messages? This data "Garbage" are E-Mail Headers. They are put in by your client (or the webmail system, whatever you are using).
  These headers are important for E-Mail applications to understand and display E-Mails but they can get quite nasty when the message is read in Bitmessage.
  The gateway will automatically process E-Mails that are sent in a "text-only" mode and will remove the headers.
  The Squirrel Webmail can be used to send text only messages, but you can also use your E-Mail Application. Most Mail applications can switch to plain text in the editor. To have your E-Mail processed properly as text, do not attach any files.
  
  If the receiver uses the B2M Application his E-Mail client will parse the Headers back and you can send each other E-Mails with attachments and text formatting.
• What usage scenarios allows this service? The most amazing feature is the usage of the Bitmessage Network for E-Mailing, without people noticing any difference.
  Another cool feature is real E-Mail. If both use the B2M application or one uses it and one uses this gateway you can send E-Mails to each other. You can sign and encrypt messages with S/MIME or PGP if you want.
• What are my login credentials? If you signed up with an E-Mail, you have received the username and password as a response.
  If you used the registration page (not E-Mail), it was displayed to you. The username is always you full @bitmessage.ch address.
• Can I have multiple addresses? Yes, you can generate as many addresses as you want. Just access the registration page multiple times, or send multiple mails to address@bitmessage.ch. You can even use the same E-Mail address for multiple accounts.
• What if I lost my password? You can search in your E-Mail inbox for the Message you received with your credentials. If you havn't the Mail address anymore or you changed your password you need to generate a new address.
• Can I delete my account? Yes, here.
  You can Nuke your account if you need plausible deniability or if you want to get rid of it for other reasons.
• How long is an account kept, if inactive? Your account is considered inactive, if no login has been made for 30 days. a login is counted, when you use the webmail, E-Mail clients or the Administration.
  You do not need to send or receive messages, logging in is enough.
  
  Accounts are removed after being inactive for 180 days.
  
• Why do accounts get inactive? It would not be fair to count all addresses. It's like a company that claims to have 1000 customers, but 500 of them were just there one time in their life and never came back.
• Why do you remove inactive accounts? It keeps the server clean and saves a lot of storage. Bitmessage is a very resource intensive application and every unused account decreases performance.
• I registered an account but why doesn't the counter increase? The statistics are collected every 15 minutes, so the counter might be a few units off.
• How do I broadcast? Send a mail to broadcast@bitmessage.ch.
• How do I receive broadcasts? This is currently not possible but will be added in the future.
• Are there any limits? Yes, while you can have unlimited attachments, a message must not be bigger than 2 MB.
  The maximum POW, the Server is willing to do is 2.0
  You can send 500 Messages a day. Your inbox is limited to 20 MB.
• My messages are not sent, why? Verify you are using your bitmessage.ch account and not your regular E-Mail account. If it is regular E-Mail, check the spam folder at the destination. Your bitmessage address is so long and looks like nosense, that some E-Mail filters sort it out as spam. If it is a mail for a bitmessage recipient, check his address, if it is all lowercase or uppercase it is probably invalid because proper casing makes a difference in bitmessage. If you use an E-Mail client, verify it keeps addresses with the proper casing and try sending the message from the webmail.
• Can I use this as a regular address? Yes, you can send and receive regular E-Mail with this address. We recommend setting up a shorter alias address first. To do so, go to the alias registration.
• Can the spam filter delete messages? No. The spam filter moves messages into the "Spam" folder. The system never deletes messages without asking the user first.
• What Data requires my E-Mail client? Thunderbird and Outlook can automatically detect the Settings when using the wizard.
  Below are the parameters for manual setup in almost any E-Mail client:
  IMAP/POP3/SMTP Server: mail.bitmessage.ch
  Ports: leave default or see table below
  Username: Your complete @bitmessage.ch address.
  Password: Your Webmail Password.
  SSL or TLS: Required if you choose a port from TLS row
  STARTTLS: Recommended if you choose a port from Regular row
  
  The SMTP Server requires username and password to send E-Mails. If you can select this Option, do so
  Port Table:

  /	SMTP	POP3	IMAP
  Regular *	25 / 587	110	143
  TLS	465	995	993

  
  If you use TOR hidden service to access this service, do not enable SSL,TLS or STARTTLS as you get certificate errors. TOR hidden services have encryption on their own.
  If you choose a port from the TLS row, you must enable SSL/TLS in your E-Mail client (sometimes called implicit SSL). If you use a port from the regular row, your traffic is unencrypted at default. You can enable STARTTLS in your client to prevent this.
  E-Mail clients sometimes use the terms SSL and TLS for the same type of encrypted connection. Most E-Mail applications can detect, if SSL or TLS is used. If you are asked to specify the protocol or if you have the choice in your settings, use TLS instead of SSL.
  Not using TLS or STARTTLS will transport your password and messages over the Internet unprotected. Please enable the provided security features, as unencrypted connections may be blocked in the future.
• Certificate Errors The Certificate is issued by StartCom. StartCom is a relatively new CA and therefore some mobile phones and E-Mail clients will display a security alert.
  The Fingerprint/Hash of the Certificate is: D1 1A F1 3F 5C F1 58 B9 8C E2 C5 10 46 AE CD 18 2F F1 3A 49
• POP3 or IMAP? This depends on your needs.
  
  IMAP
  
  IMAP stores messages and folders you create and work with on the server and allows you to have your E-Mails and folders synced across the webmail and multiple computers.
  Since messages are left on the server, anybody getting access to your mailbox can read all messages in it, also it fills up your message storage quota.
  
  POP3
  
  POP3 is simpler. Mails are just downloaded and then the connection is closed. The client do not needs to send updates to the server every time a message is readed or moved.
  Working with messages is done offline, so no connection is needed to the server. POP3 does not supports folders or read/unread status. If a client deletes messages from the POP3 server after downloading, the messages are gone for IMAP too (for example the Webmail) but not for other POP3 clients, because they have a local copy.
  Use POP3 if you do not bother about the webmail or if you don't have other E-Mail clients.
  
• How much will it cost? You have asked this question already (2nd position in the FAQ).
• Do you collect stats? We collect some stats:
  
  - We count the number of active accounts on the login page
  It gives you an overview on how many users trust this service.
  
  - We count the number of messages sent and how many were rated as spam (SPAM/HAM ratio)
  It allows us to see if something goes wrong and if the spam filters need adjustment.
  
  - We count the number of messages sent to the bitmessage network compared to E-Mails.
  The BM/EM ratio tells us, if we need to attach more servers to provide fast delivery.
  
  - We count the number of currently open IMAP, SMTP and POP3
  Compared with the BM/EM ratio it gives us informations if we need more servers.
  
  All statistics except the number of addresses are not stored and only "live". In case of server restart they get set back to 0.
• Can the admin see my message? the admin cannot not even see the addresses. To debug issues he needs to contact you.
  Never give out your password
• Is it secure? Depends what you define as secure. The whole Transport system runs inside a sandbox, that disallows Information to leave it except through previously defined channels. The data on the disk is stored encrypted. Your Messages are comepletely removed from this system if you delete them from your Account.
  But security also depends on you:
  - Never connect without SSL
  - Do not use the same password for multiple services
  - Use a good password
  - Do not send E-Mails with sensitive content to external addresses.
  
  If you send E-Mails from your bitmessage account to an external account (for example gmail), the mail is transported encrypted from you to our server, provided you use an SSL connection. If the E-Mail leaves the server it happens unencrypted, because this is the way E-Mail has been designed in the 80s.
• What is a good password? A good password should meet the folowing specs:
  - At least 10 chars in length
  - Uppercase letters
  - Lowercase letters
  - Numbers
  - Punctuation chars
  - Does not contains a word from the dictionary
  - Does not contains repeated chars
  - Has not been used on another service to log in
  - Is not known by someone else
  
  Example: d{wS4!3E.1
  This is a bad password, because now you know it.
• Can I access it over TOR? Yes. The Address is bitmailendavkbec.onion. You can access the website and the E-Mail server with this address.
• Can I access it over I2P? Yes. The Address is bitmessage.i2p. You can currently only access the website and not the E-Mail server with this address.
• What is the idea behind this? The idea is that people can use bitmessage with an application that is known to them. It also allows you to stay offline for more than two days without missing any messages.
• Are there alternative solutions? There is a local client for windows here (including source): B2M | Bitmessage<->Mail Gateway
• anything else to know? We also have terms and conditions.
• Can I contact you? Yes, either over Bitmessage: BM-GuJTDgqDdpGCkH4gFKk8LyQ3F9gbtLnD
  or over E-Mail: admin@bitmessage.ch.
  

Bitcoin Donations: 1ML5aXvR3WTn2vB3ehTgqyZUhSGDjVWe4B
Dogecoin Donations: DTYm95v2i6meSqHxAfUHkaCbEkkgxLCrC9