What does the media mean when they say Clinton had her own email server?

Question

To say someone has their own email server would imply they own a mail server and have it in their possession and are the administrator of that server. Did Clinton actually have her own server? And configure it herself? Or was it just her own domain hosted elsewhere? Since so many people are so sure about this, please explain. What kind of server did she have and where was it? Where did she buy it? Where did she receive training to administer an email server? Thanks for your informative answers.

Answer 1

The Clinton family possessed-owned or possibly still owns a server. The server was located in her Chappaqua, New York home. Whether she administers it or hired someone to do so I do not know. Her email was [e-mail]. A mail server is probably a major expense that most people would not bother with but the Clinton Family isn't most people. They purchased a 6 million dollar home in New York after leaving the White House so they can probably afford the expense of a server for 1,000 dollars or less and even paid support to administer it.



Added: According to Fox News her server administer was an employee of the family named Eric Hoteham. Evidently Mr. Hoteham wasn't available for interview. Mr. Hoteham administered 2 servers for the Clintons and a website that is now off line. The technical specifications of her server, it's brand, model and so on have not been made available to the general public but that could be an understandable security concern. Her virus protection was or is administered by McAfee Inc. and her server was configured by representatives from MX Logic. Perhaps it is an MX Logic server if they are a manufacturer. That is all I can find.

Answer 2

A server is a software. "Apache Tomcat" is a software. the software cannot run without hardware of course, but it can run on any computer running a supported OS. I can create my own server on my Linux computer. It's better to run it on server class hardware, but if load isn't high, a home computer (even a laptop) can be converted to a server. Administering a server isn't very hard either, it's muct easier than learning a language like C++.

However, if load factor is high (example, the yahoo.com email server) and the server is catering to the needs of millions of users (millions of users are having @yahoo.com emails, and lots of these users are accessing their accounts at the same time), a home laptop with a home broadband connection would be TOO SLOW to provide acceptable performance, hence yahoo.com uses server class hardware (actually they use server clusters) to maintain performance, reliability, and availability of the services they're providing.

ieatlunch needs a lesson in computer science himself.

Answer 3

The company I worked for had its own server it was on the premises and administered by the company's employees. A server is just a program, do a google search and learn about it on Wikipedia much easier than trying to explain it all here. And it is really none of your business where she bought it and whether she administered it herself or had an employee as administrator. I assume this question is meant to denigrate Ms. Clinton- if you are bright enough to ask these questions you are bright enough to freakin look it up yourself.



Federal law at the time mandated federal employees to self monitor and turn over all emails they deemed to be work related. No laws were broken and if you don't like it you should try to get the law changed. But remember that our Constitution forbids prosecution for crimes committed before the law took effect (ex post facto, grade school civics)

Answer 4

Yes, she had her own server and it may have been physically located in her Chappaqua home or nearby. It was probably configured and administered by one of Bill Clinton's former aides working for the former President or the Clinton Foundation.



She did not use a hosting service. A hosting service would have had "best practices" data management with multiple backups and thus data could never have been permanently deleted.

Answer 5

The hardware was in her house. I doubt she set it up herself. That would be beneath her and I doubt she has the skills to do so. I read this morning that she deleted all of her emails. It's just another example of her doing things her way and not following laws and rules.