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

Proton is trying to become Google without your data

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 185 posts

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#91

Post by metadat »

jibcage wrote: post #61
hammock wrote: post #43

Proton is mired in shenanigans. Evidence points to ProtonVPN being a white-labeled version of Nord VPN. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23571653 and https://archive.is/iZ2l2 (archive of relevant but broken [2] link @ HN thread) Protonmail has its own issues that have been discussed on HN. Source: https://encryp.ch/blog/disturbing-facts-about-protonmail/ Obviously Gmail and such are piped directly into gl…

As someone who works for Proton VPN, I can assure you we do not resell any white label VPN services, and that the people I work with every day are incredibly smart people who truly, deeply care about users’ online privacy. I’ll concede that this isn’t much better evidence than the links you provided, but that archived site in your comment really doesn’t read like a reputable source of truth, either.

How can we really know? At the end of the day, trusting a company to protect your best interests is, on average, a losing proposition.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#92

Post by Ansil849 »

It's kind of disingenuous to keep touting "Swiss privacy laws" as some sort of selling point on their homepage, when shit like this happens https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-addre...

Why's a privacy-first service logging IPs in the first place?

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#94

Post by ziddoap »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #87
ziddoap wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It seems rather harsh to brand them as pure snake oil based on a hypothetical situation that applies to basically every single piece of software and hardware ever invented, but fair enough.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#95

Post by yupper32 »

cowtools wrote: post #71
yupper32 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least they are not selling my data to advertisers That's almost never what actually happens, though. They sell access to you and use your data internally to target ads. A law enforcement request does literally release your data.

It doesn't matter to me whether or not they only use the advertising data internally. Google is such a large monopoly at this point that I am basically forced to deal with them on a daily basis through the businesses and institutions I work with. It's not even the surveillance that I am concerned with at this point. I just am trying to disentangle all these services that I use that demand to become linked in difficul…

> It doesn't matter to me whether or not they only use the advertising data internally.

Okay, but it does matter when you say something significant that isn't true. Do you understand that?

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#96

Post by Havoc »

0daystock wrote: post #59
Havoc wrote: post #33

Definitely plan to stick to proton for the long run. Don't think they'll keep me private & safe...but I do think they'll try harder & more earnestly than the rest of the gang attempting it.

> I do think they'll try harder & more earnestly than the rest of the gang attempting it. Why, though? What do people base this assertion on, other than clever marketing materials which extol virtually meaningless controls like "it's hosted abroad" (which is actually much worse for foreign nationals' privacy, for example)?

>Why, though?

Not US based for starters - definitely willing to pay a premium for that.

Nor five eyes or any of the other [0] eyes.

> extol virtually meaningless controls like "it's hosted abroad"

There is no value in abroad in itself, what matters is how trigger happy countries are with warrants etc.

I'd like to be in a jurisdiction where it is possible for law enforcement to get to the data...but I'd like the logistically/legal hurdles to be rather high so that it is only done for serious concerns not trawler net catch all surveilance operations. Switzerland seems to tick those boxes

[0] https://protonvpn.com/blog/5-eyes-global-surveillance/

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#97

Post by emendation »

Ansil849 wrote: post #92

It's kind of disingenuous to keep touting "Swiss privacy laws" as some sort of selling point on their homepage, when shit like this happens https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-addre... Why's a privacy-first service logging IPs in the first place?

As the article states, they were forced to by Swiss authorities. They tried to fight against it, but in the end no reputable provider is going to put the whole company on the line for 1 user against a lawful order from their government.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#98

Post by 0daystock »

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…

What does "encrypting" an email mean to you? If a Gmail user contacts me on Protonmail and Protonmail "encrypts" the message to me after receipt - what problem have we solved?

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#100

Post by ghspoll »

hammock wrote: post #43

Proton is mired in shenanigans. Evidence points to ProtonVPN being a white-labeled version of Nord VPN. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23571653 and https://archive.is/iZ2l2 (archive of relevant but broken [2] link @ HN thread) Protonmail has its own issues that have been discussed on HN. Source: https://encryp.ch/blog/disturbing-facts-about-protonmail/ Obviously Gmail and such are piped directly into gl…

Obviously any provider can be a honeypot in theory, but I don't understand the following either:

- How can ProtonVPN be free and why is it in Lithuania?

- Why does a Swiss privacy company get EU funding if the EU wants to erode privacy all the time?

- Why is a cell phone number required for registration?

- In general, how do they make money? Other free providers like gmx are full of cheesy advertisements.

Post reply on HN