ProtonMail now offers elliptic curve cryptography

Off topic

I had a proton email created when it was announced & didn't use it. I found out that my mailbox decryption for that email id is not working (not sure how, I use password manager) & I haven't set a recovery email to recover my account.

I saw a HN comment earlier telling, the user had recovered their Proton mail account by answering few questions to customer service.

I attempted the same, the issue is that I used VPN to create the email id & didn't provide any personal details for the account.

They asked questions like,

-Do you remember the exact time and date when your account was created? -When was the last time you have accessed your account? -What is your display name? -Do you remember to which addresses you have sent your last messages? -Do you remember the email subjects of the last sent messages?

I tried to answer the account creation date by using the date of password creation in my password manager (the login password was working); but the support didn't seem to buy it.

They were insistent on,

-Can you please tell us if you remember from which addresses have you received your last few messages? -Could you tell us if you have used the ProtonMail account to sign up for some other web services?

I told them, I don't remember receiving email from anyone else & I didn't sign up for any service

-There is a service that the xxxxx@protonmail.com address has been used to sign up for. Can you please tell us what that service is?

I told them again that I didn't sign up for any service using that email id.

- Can you tell us the full address below?

no-xxxxx@drxxxxx.com

Even though I could obviously guess the username of that email id. I told them that I didn't sign up with such service, that it must be a spam mail sent by some service.

They said,

- If you have not signed up for this service, the account probably belongs to someone else.

Then I typed 'no-xxxxx@drxxxxx.com' on Google Search, the instant results gave 'no-reply@dropbox.com' as the first result.

I sent them,

Hey sorry, I remembered the service. I did signed up for Dropbox & used the account for a while.

The email id you asked was,

no-reply@dropbox.com

They reset the account & I got access to it.

Edit: Had to fix the xxxxx.

That means their servers cannot be directly accessed but since they're based in Australia the company can be compelled to install decryption software without notifying anyone.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW-OMR-iWOE

I recommend checking out Mailbox.org or Posteo as well. They are much cheaper, and Mailbox.org allows for custom domains, so that's a definite plus.

I have used it for my main email account for some years now. The web client is fine, the iOS client is fine, and the ProtonMail Bridge allows me to bring it into my Mail.app.

The encryption is great and the anti-spam works well enough. No complaints.