Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ProtonMail's encrypted email is now available to all

engadget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 111 posts

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

#31

Post by drakenot »

rdl wrote: post #26
moxie wrote: post #24

Some bad signs: 1. Hosted in Switzerland is advertised as a security feature. The point of e2e is that the servers are untrusted. If you need a "good jurisdiction" for your servers, it means they must be trusted. That's a problem, because sadly there are no good jurisdictions in today's world, and your jurisdiction doesn't help you if your servers are hacked. 2. It's webmail. That means the security of whatever e2e t…

Even with e2e you have availability concerns, so picking a "good" jurisdiction makes sense. The rest of your criticisms are completely valid -- webmail is never going to approach the security of true e2e client crypto. The best possible system for webmail would be a browser extension or in the far future world, some kind of browser security extensions. Failing that, there's probably value in "best effort" secure webm…

Speaking of e2e browser extensions, does anyone know what the status of Google's "End-to-End" chrome extension[0] is? They started the project in June of 2014 and the development pace on the project has been somewhat slow.

I don't know if this is just a couple dev's 20% project or if it has dedicated resources, or what.

[0] https://github.com/google/end-to-end

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

#32

Post by [deleted] »

moxie wrote: post #24

Some bad signs: 1. Hosted in Switzerland is advertised as a security feature. The point of e2e is that the servers are untrusted. If you need a "good jurisdiction" for your servers, it means they must be trusted. That's a problem, because sadly there are no good jurisdictions in today's world, and your jurisdiction doesn't help you if your servers are hacked. 2. It's webmail. That means the security of whatever e2e t…

[deleted]

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

#33

Post by denova »

If you care enough about privacy to sign up for protonmail, why not just learn how to use pgp? It's not perfect, but it works. And... oh goodness, I'm looking at this [support page][1]; If you send encrypted mail to non-protonmail addresses, the recipients have to open the message in a web browser and enter in a password to read it. So instead of exchanging public keys, you have to send them a password, probably over an unencrypted channel. I guess it's easier than asking them to generate a keypair. But if your recipient is too lazy to set up pgp, they're probably going to be just as annoyed at having to open your message in a browser and enter in a password, right? It seems like an awkward compromise.

[1]: https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/encrypt-for-ou...

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

#35

Post by MichaelGG »

mtgx wrote: post #20
junto wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Amazon's pretty corrupt. Apart from Wikileaks they've also decided to abuse their position and not compete by refusing to sell Apple TV or Chromecasts. Just get a 404. Their service reps deny everything and say it's just a temporary stock issue or that they "lack the contracts to sell such products". Scummy, and I'm very reluctantly cancelling prime over it, and I'm a customer of 13 years.

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

#36

Post by modernerd »

denova wrote: post #33

If you care enough about privacy to sign up for protonmail, why not just learn how to use pgp? It's not perfect, but it works. And... oh goodness, I'm looking at this [support page][1]; If you send encrypted mail to non-protonmail addresses, the recipients have to open the message in a web browser and enter in a password to read it. So instead of exchanging public keys, you have to send them a password, probably over…

Even Phil Zimmermann, PGP's creator, says it's too hard to use:

“I hardly ever run PGP. When people send me PGP encrypted mail I have to go through a lot of trouble to decrypt it. If it’s coming from a stranger, I’ll say please re-send this in plain text, which probably raises their eyebrows.“

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2013/08/09/e-mails-bi...

I tried the ProtonMail password protection feature today (which is optional; you can just send plain text email to non ProtonMail accounts if you wish – this is the default, but you can click a lock to password-protect any outgoing message).

The feature is well done, and I can see people using it to exchange secure mail, particularly if the recipient does not have a ProtonMail account. It has a built-in 'send secure reply' feature once you've entered the password as the recipient. This allows you to read the message and reply in-browser without returning to your email client, and without having a ProtonMail account, so both the outgoing message and the reply stay more secure than regular email throughout your conversation.

This could be helpful for a wide range of uses, including support email that involves transferring login info and logs.

The read and reply flow looks like this to the logged-out recipient:

- Email with “view secure message” prompt: http://d.pr/i/1cwZ8

- Click “View secure message”: http://d.pr/i/13GlI

- Enter password to view message: http://d.pr/i/11Gg9

- Click to reply in same tab: http://d.pr/i/WWWB

You still have to communicate the password securely somehow, but it's a much more user-friendly approach than PGP.

I'm not saying it's a replacement for https://securedrop.org/, but it still has value.

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

#37

Post by drakenot »

rdl wrote: post #23

There are lots of drawbacks to an SMTP based service vs. something built on a newer protocol with client-side crypto everywhere, but email has a huge installed base. This becomes a question of "good" vs. "perfect", but it might also be a question of "too dangerous to use" vs. "replacement" -- depends on threats, alternatives, and quality of implementation. I know one of the people at Proton Mail pretty well, and have…

I was curious to read about any proposed successor protocols there are for SMTP that offer end-to-end encryption. It looks like Dark Mail might be one of the forerunners in this regard?

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

#38

Post by buu700 »

farfromright wrote: post #30
rdl wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with e2e you have availability concerns, so picking a "good" jurisdiction makes sense. The rest of your criticisms are completely valid -- webmail is never going to approach the security of true e2e client crypto. The best possible system for webmail would be a browser extension or in the far future world, some kind of browser security extensions. Failing that, there's probably value in "best effort" secure webm…

Would you care to comment on Cyph [1]? They claim that they are able to approximate client side programs that provide e2e but in a non-plugin browser environment [2]. I know tptacek doesn't like it but he wasn't willing to go into a detailed account of why. [1] https://cyph.com [2] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XVh4ALXhbfxi70QSUY-xHcla...

Cyph cofounder here; thanks for the mention! It'd be great to hear thoughts from Moxie or anyone else on WebSign.

By the way, I think this was the doc you meant to link to for [2]: http://cyph.team/websigndoc.

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

#39

Post by eganist »

farfromright wrote: post #30
rdl wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with e2e you have availability concerns, so picking a "good" jurisdiction makes sense. The rest of your criticisms are completely valid -- webmail is never going to approach the security of true e2e client crypto. The best possible system for webmail would be a browser extension or in the far future world, some kind of browser security extensions. Failing that, there's probably value in "best effort" secure webm…

Would you care to comment on Cyph [1]? They claim that they are able to approximate client side programs that provide e2e but in a non-plugin browser environment [2]. I know tptacek doesn't like it but he wasn't willing to go into a detailed account of why. [1] https://cyph.com [2] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XVh4ALXhbfxi70QSUY-xHcla...

Hah. I had some time to think about that interaction and concluded (after a chat with a few peers at AppSec Cali) that he and I simply differ in mentality. I understand where he's coming from about the risks posed by that level of flexibility in the execution environment, but I'm also more prone to push for the idea that making encryption more convenient for all justifies taking some risks in terms of the execution environment so long as we can (to the best of our knowledge) sufficiently mitigate them. That and browser sandboxing helps a ton more than having someone break an app running in userspace.

His objection might be at a more visceral level, which I understand but steadfastly disagree with.

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

#40

Post by suprgeek »

moxie wrote: post #24

Some bad signs: 1. Hosted in Switzerland is advertised as a security feature. The point of e2e is that the servers are untrusted. If you need a "good jurisdiction" for your servers, it means they must be trusted. That's a problem, because sadly there are no good jurisdictions in today's world, and your jurisdiction doesn't help you if your servers are hacked. 2. It's webmail. That means the security of whatever e2e t…

Is there a "better" free alternative webmail?
Post reply on HN