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Proton is trying to become Google without your data

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Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#81

Post by almet »

0daystock wrote: post #56

Asserting "private email" is a modern litmus test for someone's technical understanding and capabilities, or lack thereof. Snake oil companies will always hide behind "it's encrypted" and "it's hosted in Switzerland" tropes that mean nothing to anyone who has done a modicum of research. Real privacy is not the result of some product, especially not when its so desperately and obviously shilled.

Thanks for stating this. It's still good to have people working on tools to help us have better usable solutions though.

Depending who is your enemy (threat model), I guess proton tools can help you protect your intimacy though.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#82

Post by tediousdemise »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #78
tediousdemise wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't have said it better myself! Privacy is first and foremost a discipline and a practice, just like security. It's a form of self-respect, in my eyes. Some would say it's even a natural human right. Commoditizing it is a recipe for disaster. Edit: Expansion of the self-respect tidbit. Lack of privacy enables others to have control over you. Feeling like you are not in control, or actually being controlled by so…

I don’t know. I don’t think all “commoditization” of privacy is a bad thing. WhatsApp commoditized it, Signal; SSL/TLS; Tor; Privacy Coins; these all vastly improved the privacy of comms on the planet. One needs to determine outcomes rather than declaring it app disasters. maybe democratizing privacy is a better way to phrase than commoditization — which implies some cost savings rather than the just consumer availab…

Thanks for chiming in. I've been having some difficulty expressing my thoughts lately so sometimes I don't make the most sense.

Yes, I definitely agree with you--democratization is a much better way to put it.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#83

Post by ziddoap »

charcircuit wrote: post #77

The privacy of GMail is good enough, if not better than ProtonMail. Client side encryption also comes with downsides since they can't allow third party email clients to work and you have to do all processing client side.

>The privacy of GMail is good enough, if not better than ProtonMail.

How do you figure? Google actively scans both email and drive for CSAM. If they can scan it for CSAM, they can scan it for whatever the hell they want.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#84

Post by almet »

ptero wrote: post #24

Proton is not perfect, but nothing is. We need more competition on the internet, and if Proton has a chance to provide an email and storage for an upfront price without trying to distract me with ads or pimp my data to advertisers, I want to support them. As a data point, I have been a very happy user of their plus service for the last 3 years.

The only thing that bugs me with Proton is that it's still very complicated to integrate with thunderbird (or any mail app?), which makes it practically unusable for my needs.

Having a tab always open in my browser for my mail seems so wrong.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#85

Post by metadat »

ziddoap wrote: post #70
imwillofficial wrote: post #23

But they'll give your data away if asked.

If asked via lawful court order, yes. Can you provide me the name of any company who does not comply court orders of the country it operates in and continues to operate freely? Edit: I thought this was a more than fair question, evidently people do not think so.

> Can you provide me the name of any company who does not comply court orders of the country it operates in and continues to operate freely?

AT&T, Google, Apple, Comcast, Verizon, ...

Oh, did you mean companies who refuse to comply specifically to legal inquiries about their users or customers? No company will (or even should) stick their neck out for you personally.

With sufficient resources and clout, they will risk it for themselves because $$$ and power.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#86

Post by glitchc »

vzaliva wrote: post #40

I have been a ProtonMail user for a long time but have yet to make it my default email provider. The main problem is that I keep an email archive of all my emails: all sent and most received since 1995. It is 17Gb. I've imported it into Gmail, and it is instantly searchable. With ProtonMail, such a search must happen on the client-side due to encryption. I suspect it will not work very well.

The most private option is to delete (most of) that email. Then no one has it and your secrets are safe forever.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#87

Post by Tijdreiziger »

ziddoap wrote: post #76
0daystock wrote: post #56

Asserting "private email" is a modern litmus test for someone's technical understanding and capabilities, or lack thereof. Snake oil companies will always hide behind "it's encrypted" and "it's hosted in Switzerland" tropes that mean nothing to anyone who has done a modicum of research. Real privacy is not the result of some product, especially not when its so desperately and obviously shilled.

> Snake oil companies will always hide behind "it's encrypted" and "it's hosted in Switzerland" tropes that mean nothing to anyone who has done a modicum of research. Do you have evidence that Proton does not actually encrypt their emails? > Real privacy is not the result of some product, I do wholeheartedly agree with this, at least. Privacy is a scale and there are many, many pieces which tip the scale one way or t…

> Do you have evidence that Proton does not actually encrypt their emails?

It doesn't matter. Proton supplies the client software, so if they want (or are forced to by law enforcement), they can easily push an update that exfiltrates decrypted data back to their server.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#88

Post by ziddoap »

metadat wrote: post #85
ziddoap wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If asked via lawful court order, yes. Can you provide me the name of any company who does not comply court orders of the country it operates in and continues to operate freely? Edit: I thought this was a more than fair question, evidently people do not think so.

> Can you provide me the name of any company who does not comply court orders of the country it operates in and continues to operate freely? AT&T, Google, Apple, Comcast, Verizon, ... Oh, did you mean companies who refuse to comply specifically to legal inquiries about their users or customers? No company will (or even should) stick their neck out for you personally. With sufficient resources and clout, they will ris…

>AT&T, Google, Apple, Comcast, Verizon, ...

Really? I understand that they fight court orders when they feel they need to, which Proton at least claims to do as well (have not verified that, though), but they get away with just... ignoring them? Or not complying after losing an appeal? I stand corrected if that is the case.

>With sufficient resources and clout

Does Proton have the clout to do so? I don't believe they do, which makes me wonder why it's such an unpopular opinion to believe exactly what you said ("No company will (or even should) stick their neck out for you personally.") when it comes to Proton.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#89

Post by charcircuit »

cowtools wrote: post #27
imwillofficial wrote: post #23

But they'll give your data away if asked.

I mean, they are legally obligated to. At least they are not selling my data to advertisers or arbitrarily locking me out of my account like google. Hell, i'd pay for their premium service if wasn't so expensive and they accepted anonymous payments through monero or something. I mean, this is what email has basically come to. I've tried to host my own email server, all my outbound mail ends up in spam. If you want pr…

>At least they are not selling my data to advertisers

No they don't.

>We do not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10434152

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