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

Proton spam and the AI consent problem

dbushell.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 446 posts

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#301

Post by MiddleEndian »

chrisjj wrote: post #296
MiddleEndian wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's fine. If 20% of the emails from some company (let's say Paypal) are spam, then all email providers (especially Gmail, the largest provider) should mark ALL of their emails as spam by default until they stop spending spam. If they want to keep spamming, they can at least humiliate themselves by telling people to check their spam folders for their emails.

It proved not fine for me on an occasion of missing a service email and losing an account as a result.

I would say the base problem is that said organization sent you spam and then disconnected you, rather than the spam filter.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#302

Post by MiddleEndian »

usefulposter wrote: post #40
chc4 wrote: post #7

I saw a Mastodon tweet a while ago, which went something like: Do tech companies understand consent?: - [ ] Yes - [ ] Ask me again in a few days

Hey, that sounds like Signal! https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4590 >We're not going to remove the reminders. >If you don't want to provide that access, you still don't need to – you can simply tap remind me later once a month (See also: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4373 , https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5809 , ...)

Every so often I consider writing the "STFU license." Something like GPL but if you use this code, even as a library, you can't give people unwanted notifications. Would need to be pretty comprehensive and forward compatible to cover all the crazy cases that notification-enthusiasts dream up.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#303

Post by MiddleEndian »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #57
usefulposter wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, that sounds like Signal! https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4590 >We're not going to remove the reminders. >If you don't want to provide that access, you still don't need to – you can simply tap remind me later once a month (See also: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4373 , https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5809 , ...)

I get their point that you can't provide a "No" in the reminder. But there should be an option (maybe even hidden under "advanced settings - here be dragons!") for this.

>I get their point that you can't provide a "No" in the reminder.

Yes you can. All reminders should have an option "Do not remind me again."

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#304

Post by ldng »

setopt wrote: post #77
bayindirh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is combined with something I call "asymmetry blindness". They may say "but we send an single e-mail per month, this can't be bad". We the users get a barrage of e-mails everyday because every marketing team is thinking we only get their mail, and it makes our lonely and cold mailbox merrier. No, users are in constant "Tsunami warning!" mode and these teams are not helping.

Indeed. I received 28 unwanted emails of this kind in January so far (just counted), which is a bit more than once per day, despite quite avidly unsubscribing from this kind of emails. This month I had to unsubscribe from ChatGPT and GitHub emails of this kind too, although I don’t recall opting in to them in the first place and neither of them spammed me until recently.

Did you by any chance report them to something like spamcop.net ?

Aggressive spamming => Aggressive reporting.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#305

Post by amatecha »

chc4 wrote: post #7

I saw a Mastodon tweet a while ago, which went something like: Do tech companies understand consent?: - [ ] Yes - [ ] Ask me again in a few days

I like to frame it like this: "ask me later" is rape culture. It promotes and reinforces a culture of never taking "no" for an answer, and pushing one's agenda/intent regardless of the preference/consent of the other party/parties.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#306

Post by amatecha »

nxtbl wrote: post #106
stackghost wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is an interesting case study in UX failure. I and a bunch of other tech forward people were on it in its heyday but after they removed SMS support and implemented shitty UX like that nag dialog: Neither I nor a single person I know uses it any more. Everyone is on Whatsapp or iMessage. It may be cryptographically superior, but does that matter at the end of the day if nobody uses it?

Sounds like they just don't care about privacy, do they? Guess showing them https://i.redd.it/0imry50rxy961.png still won't change anything..

The graphic has an error: in the Signal box, "Phone number" should be included.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#307

Post by GreenWatermelon »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #213
arrozconcosas wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you get a machine to have values? Humans have values because of social dynamics and education (or lack of exposure to other types of education). Computers do not have social dynamics, and it is much harder to control what they are being educated on if the answer is "everything".

Maybe if we can't build a machine that isn't a sociopath the answer should be don't build the machine rather then oh well go ahead and build the sociopaths

This has real Torment Nexus[0] energy

[0] Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale.

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#308

Post by norgie »

ink_13 wrote: post #253
davidee wrote: post #231

I've been using proton for a year after migrating from Rackspace and I'm done. Not because of this article, but I might as well pile on: 1. I use a custom domain. Turns out that there are two competing features, not-at-all documented. If you use a catch-all, like I do, AND use specific addresses for sending, the two are incompatible to some degree. Which is bonkers. Example: with a catchall I can create any address I…

What are you going to do instead? I am very close to moving from a 20-year-old GMail address to a custom domain and was planning to use Proton as the email host.

I've been reasonably happy with Runbox. Decent features, pricing, and servers in Norway. The webmail isn't great, but I don't really use it. If you must have encryption, I think the only option is Tuta.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#309

Post by amatecha »

davidee wrote: post #231

I've been using proton for a year after migrating from Rackspace and I'm done. Not because of this article, but I might as well pile on: 1. I use a custom domain. Turns out that there are two competing features, not-at-all documented. If you use a catch-all, like I do, AND use specific addresses for sending, the two are incompatible to some degree. Which is bonkers. Example: with a catchall I can create any address I…

Yeah, even when you turn on "enable local cache of emails", the search is still terrible.

What's pretty surprising to me is that for everything they say about privacy etc., getting Mail Plus gives you nothing better than a free user in terms of VPN options. That was the case in their previous set of plans, too - I've been paying for Proton for some years now, at a cost of like $100-150/yr, and only ever had the same level of VPN offering from them as a free user, which is pretty lame.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#310

Post by setopt »

pixl97 wrote: post #200
setopt wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I received 28 unwanted emails of this kind in January so far (just counted), which is a bit more than once per day, despite quite avidly unsubscribing from this kind of emails. This month I had to unsubscribe from ChatGPT and GitHub emails of this kind too, although I don’t recall opting in to them in the first place and neither of them spammed me until recently.

>unsubscribe from ChatGPT emails Really? I've never got a spam from them. Hell, I just searched and I'm not really seeing anything from them after the point where I signed up.

On Jan 11th I received "Easy self-care you can start today" advertising how ChatGPT can be used for meal planning or finding a local gym (ending with "Ask ChatGPT for more wellness tips"), and on Jan 19th I received "Use ChatGPT to make life easier" advertising how ChatGPT can for example improve my coffee brewing skills (ending with "Ask ChatGPT for more ways to get it all done"). I certainly consider these "spam", and until recently didn’t receive such emails from them.
Post reply on HN