Helm is a personal and private mail server that does not share your data.

Here's the bottom line: for all discussions regarding her email server, Hillary Clinton has not been hacked. "I'm going to record that with that," said Giri Sreenivas, Helm's founder. "Podesta was a Gmail user. He made phishing.

The subject of privacy and email security has never been more relevant. Not just as a result of Russian hacker attacks in Clinton and DNC's campaign chairman's email accounts, but in light of all that has happened in recent months, revealing just how much he can be easy for web giants like Facebook and Google to accidentally expose huge amounts of personal information. information about us.

It would be better if we know for sure that our information remains confidential. So that's what Sreenivas decided to create with Helm: a personal server that manages your email, your calendar and your contacts, without transmitting the information to anyone. The data belongs to you, is protected by Helm and kept directly in your house.

This is an idea that I think will appeal to many people who are concerned about their privacy. But privacy is not everything; and if Helm can eventually compete with the security of Gmail and other popular email services will be a crucial issue, as it seeks to replace the messaging service you already use with something more personal, but also more complicated and expensive.

Here's how it works: Helm sells his device, the Helm server, for $ 499, which includes a one-year subscription and then costs $ 99 more. The device looks like a fun router, and when you plug it in, you will use an application to perform a short configuration process that quickly configures the server to work with the domain name of your choice. Then, you just have to set up a way to access your new accounts.

Unfortunately, Helm has no presence on the web. You can not view your email or calendar from a browser, such as with Gmail and Google Calendar. Helm does not have its own applications either. Instead, it uses standard protocols, so you should be able to use your accounts with an unlimited number of email and calendar applications. You simply want to choose the ones that work locally, so that the data is not synchronized with that of a company. cloud. On an iPhone, Helm will automatically connect to Apple Mail after installation.

These problems can be solved, but they are inconvenient: if you want to use Helm, it is very possible that you have to change the application and get used to a new way to check your email account and calendar on all your devices.

Helm secures these accounts in different ways. Your administrative account, which controls the server, is password-protected and one of these six-digit two-factor authentication codes, generated by a local application. Email accounts do not use two factors; instead, they require a one-time password per application. In theory, this prevents hackers from connecting to any device without generating a new password. It also means that if your password is leaking due to poor security practices of the application or if you are a phishing victim like Podesta, your account should always be safe.

But keeping your password safe is only part of the battle. Each device can be hacked, and Helm ensures the security of these servers. Helm's annual fee allows the company to continue adding new features (a password manager and file storage are coming soon) and to update its servers, but the company does not have access to the resources of a competitor like Google who can devote huge teams to the protection of his data. . There are only 12 people in the Helm team.

"Google has an excellent security team," says Sreenivas. "They also have a very wide target." Helm users being isolated on separate servers and locations, Sreenivas thinks that they will be less attractive to hackers, who often try to obtain huge amounts of data at a time. "Very large concentrations, big targets, that's what hackers are looking for," he says. "We believe that we can make the Internet more secure by decentralizing these services."

Of course, this does not mean that the server is completely secure. If someone you specifically target, all that matters is to know if he can find a flaw in the Helm software. And Sreenivas says that many people regularly browse the web for servers. Thus, your Helm server will not be hidden from the world simply because it is at home. Helm itself also contains a certain amount of data because it facilitates the routing of traffic to and from the servers and stores an encrypted backup of your email, in case your local storage is crashing.

So, if the privacy benefit exists, you have to ask yourself if you rely on Helm to protect your data, while we've always assumed that Google, Microsoft, Apple, and so on.

Running a private server is not a new idea in itself. Large companies often choose to host services themselves to better control their network. Individuals can do it too – it's just difficult, and it's certainly not easy enough for everyone.

Helm manages to make it very easy for individuals. And the product arrives at the right time, weeks after the discovery of a major flaw in Google+ and a Facebook hack that shows how vulnerable these companies can be.

But as with all these services, the ultimate question is trust. Helm has the advantage of selling a service that has no interest in taking your data. If it can convince people that the server is safe and secure in every way, then it has the privacy solution that many have been waiting for.