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ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

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Re: ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

#11

Post by programLyrique »

SonicSoul wrote: post #2

The strong encryption makes it impossible for the company to comply with government demands for data. And since ProtonMail and its servers are located in Switzerland, there's nothing that US authorities can do to shut it down. The company gained a lot of publicity, much of it bad, when a leaked document revealed the app was a preferred choice for ISIS terrorists. Couldn't any company host their servers outside of jur…

I think the US government would make it very difficult for this company to operate in the US and sell their services there (maybe blocking transactions?).

But with bitcoins...

Re: ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

#13

Post by zokier »

> The app is a good example that even if they government forces US companies like Apple to create backdoors, users will still have communication options that the government can't crack. If you're interested, it's now available for Android, iOS or the web.

That is immensely misleading. If some adversary has a backdoor in the OS/platform, then in many cases no amount of encryption will save you.

Re: ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

#14

Post by Natanael_L »

SonicSoul wrote: post #2

The strong encryption makes it impossible for the company to comply with government demands for data. And since ProtonMail and its servers are located in Switzerland, there's nothing that US authorities can do to shut it down. The company gained a lot of publicity, much of it bad, when a leaked document revealed the app was a preferred choice for ISIS terrorists. Couldn't any company host their servers outside of jur…

Except... They can demand injection of backdoored code.

Re: ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

#15

Post by junto »

SonicSoul wrote: post #2

The strong encryption makes it impossible for the company to comply with government demands for data. And since ProtonMail and its servers are located in Switzerland, there's nothing that US authorities can do to shut it down. The company gained a lot of publicity, much of it bad, when a leaked document revealed the app was a preferred choice for ISIS terrorists. Couldn't any company host their servers outside of jur…

They'll do what they did to Wikileaks. The USG phone Visa and MasterCard CEOs and threaten the shit out of them personally. Suddenly you lose the ability to take credit card payments.

You can turn to Bitcoin, but that's like trying to quench the hunger of a million people with one faucet.

Plus if you are an American then it doesn't matter where your servers are hosted. The men in black suits are going to be knocking on your door.

Re: ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

#17

Post by infodroid »

zokier wrote: post #12
dil8 wrote: post #3

Is this service open source? How can we know it does what it says it does?

> How can we know it does what it says it does? How does being open source help with that?

Open source makes it is easier for security experts to review the code and determine whether it meets its security claims. If it is closed source, then there is no guarantee that the code the experts review is the same code that is used by the service. And also it is at the company's discretion whether to allow a security audit or not, and then which auditors to allow or exclude.

But if the whole of the client software is open source, then it also eliminates the need to trust binaries provided by the vendor (which can be MITM) because you can build the software yourself or use a version audited by an entity that you do trust.

Re: ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

#18

Post by bisby »

zokier wrote: post #13

> The app is a good example that even if they government forces US companies like Apple to create backdoors, users will still have communication options that the government can't crack. If you're interested, it's now available for Android, iOS or the web. That is immensely misleading. If some adversary has a backdoor in the OS/platform, then in many cases no amount of encryption will save you.

If you input your encryption passphrase on a keylogged device, your entire encryption userspace falls apart.

Re: ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

#19

Post by davidkellis »

dil8 wrote: post #3

Is this service open source? How can we know it does what it says it does?

Open source really is irrelevant. We don't know what code they deployed - it could be an open source project (we hope so), it might be an open source project with some minor changes - an NSA-approved backdoor for example, etc. We don't have any guarantee, so far as I'm aware, of what they're running, much less that it does what it claims to do.

Re: ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

#20

Post by mtgx »

junto wrote: post #15
SonicSoul wrote: post #2

The strong encryption makes it impossible for the company to comply with government demands for data. And since ProtonMail and its servers are located in Switzerland, there's nothing that US authorities can do to shut it down. The company gained a lot of publicity, much of it bad, when a leaked document revealed the app was a preferred choice for ISIS terrorists. Couldn't any company host their servers outside of jur…

They'll do what they did to Wikileaks. The USG phone Visa and MasterCard CEOs and threaten the shit out of them personally. Suddenly you lose the ability to take credit card payments. You can turn to Bitcoin, but that's like trying to quench the hunger of a million people with one faucet. Plus if you are an American then it doesn't matter where your servers are hosted. The men in black suits are going to be knocking…

> The USG phone Visa and MasterCard CEOs

Don't forget Amazon. Never forget Amazon:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-websi...

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