Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares • Hacker News Board

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#61

Post by mccorrinall » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:17 AM UTC

stblack wrote: post #44

To clarify because comments (so far) seem to ignore what Proton Bridge does. Proton Mail is web mail, like Gmail. That part is fine. You use Proton Bridge as a connector to mail client software. The thing that’s perhaps unclear is, Proton Mail is end-to-end encrypted email. You use Proton Bridge to walk your secure email beyond that enclave into whatever YOU are running in your userland scenario. Part of all this is,…

If I understood correctly I run this bridge on my computer which connects to the protonmail API, downloads my mail, then decrypts it and starts a local IMAP server, so I can read it with my thunderbird.

The email stays encrypted on the server, and this extension only decrypts it locally like it would happen in the web browser.

> You use Proton Bridge to walk your secure email beyond that enclave into whatever YOU are running in your userland scenario.

Look, if I won’t trust the software which is running in my userspace, I’m doing something wrong anyway. Even if I wouldn’t use this extension, a malicious userspace application would still hook itself into your webbrowser, or simply steal cookies/tokens from your browser’s profile folder and hijack the protonmail session.

> Which begs the question, why would you use Proton Mail if you’re gonna negate its unique value proposition?

If I’m not mistaken with my assumptions at the top, the email still stays encrypted everywhere except on my PC. I don’t trust the mail provider, and I don’t trust protonmail. Protonmail could just change their web app at any moment to upload your second password which is used for unlocking your keys, and you wouldn’t notice. This can’t happen with an extension which doesn’t even have an auto updater.

Anyway, it goes both ways. And some people just want to use their email client, instead of a web app.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#62

Post by twleo » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:20 AM UTC

stblack wrote: post #44

To clarify because comments (so far) seem to ignore what Proton Bridge does. Proton Mail is web mail, like Gmail. That part is fine. You use Proton Bridge as a connector to mail client software. The thing that’s perhaps unclear is, Proton Mail is end-to-end encrypted email. You use Proton Bridge to walk your secure email beyond that enclave into whatever YOU are running in your userland scenario. Part of all this is,…

I will agree with you if the bridge in a open source project backed by communities.

However, bridge is a paid feature used to attract more users.

Also, I don't understand your point about e2ee.

Bridge to proton server is also e2ee.

The mail interface is just a implementation of e2ee in browser, isn't it?

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#63

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:25 AM UTC

jamil7 wrote: post #60

Toutouxc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, bring your own domain. That way you can just point the same address elsewhere if you need to switch again without having to deal with forwarding. edit: As mentioned by a sibling comment, my email is currently on Fastmail, zero problems.

The only hesitation I have with switching now is Fastmail being based in Australia.

[deleted]

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#64

Post by Natfan » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:25 AM UTC

badpun wrote: post #54

MrDresden wrote: post #49

I've been a paying Protonmail customer for years and recently started worrying about having put my eggs into the Protonmail basket. /rant Recent outage issues surfaced some major flaws with the mobile clients, on top of shaking my faith in the infrastructure (though no one can easily stand up to nation state actors so I do not blame PM). And yesterday I was shown ads inside the web portal, along with a big call-to-ac…

> Never used the bridge, but honestly I am not surprised that it may be broken and not receiving the attention it deserves. The bridge was broken in the past, but since around maybe 2-3 years it seems to be working fine.

According to the linked GitHub issue, bridge is not fine and is deleting messages.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#65

Post by twleo » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:27 AM UTC

mr_mitm wrote: post #8

highwaylights wrote: post #2

They also don’t care about locking you permanently out of your own e-Mail with no warning, for no reason, with no recourse. Honestly - there are far better options out there. They’re not in anyway a responsible enough business to manage an e-mail service. It’s run more like a hobby project than critical infrastructure.

What are those better options that HN likes? I just switched all my accounts to protonmail, but stories like this make me want to reconsider. The fact that they won't allow me to set up a forwarding rule in case I want to switch again doesn't help.

I uses FastMail after I discover this serious issue about Proton. I would say it work flawlessly and their web mail client is super fast; even faster than Gmail.

Besides, FastMail exists before Gmail and the people in FastMail are active standard protocol developers like IMAP and recently JMAP (a modern mail protocol will replace SMTP/IMAP, FastMail as a reference implementation), which is good because at least I know they understand the protocol and implement it by themselves.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#66

Post by twleo » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:29 AM UTC

gobip wrote: post #12

mr_mitm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are those better options that HN likes? I just switched all my accounts to protonmail, but stories like this make me want to reconsider. The fact that they won't allow me to set up a forwarding rule in case I want to switch again doesn't help.

HN is hooked on fastmail which is a great provider to be honest. Have a look at mailbox.org which is in business since the 90s too. Avoid the privacy trending providers promising you to encrypt your emails.

FastMail takes on PGP is very reasonable.

https://fastmail.blog/advanced/why-we-dont-offer-pgp/

I don't believe the encryption/key management from a company.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#67

Post by stblack » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:32 AM UTC

sbuk wrote: post #59

stblack wrote: post #44

To clarify because comments (so far) seem to ignore what Proton Bridge does. Proton Mail is web mail, like Gmail. That part is fine. You use Proton Bridge as a connector to mail client software. The thing that’s perhaps unclear is, Proton Mail is end-to-end encrypted email. You use Proton Bridge to walk your secure email beyond that enclave into whatever YOU are running in your userland scenario. Part of all this is,…

> Proton Mail is end-to-end encrypted email. Well, no, not really. That is the claim that they make but such a thing doesn't really exist, well at least not in the way they suggest. It is e2e if either both parties are using PGP or Proton mail. That is a very small percentage of global mail flow.

Thank you for that. This goes without saying.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#68

Post by stblack » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

mccorrinall wrote: post #61

stblack wrote: post #44

To clarify because comments (so far) seem to ignore what Proton Bridge does. Proton Mail is web mail, like Gmail. That part is fine. You use Proton Bridge as a connector to mail client software. The thing that’s perhaps unclear is, Proton Mail is end-to-end encrypted email. You use Proton Bridge to walk your secure email beyond that enclave into whatever YOU are running in your userland scenario. Part of all this is,…

If I understood correctly I run this bridge on my computer which connects to the protonmail API, downloads my mail, then decrypts it and starts a local IMAP server, so I can read it with my thunderbird. The email stays encrypted on the server, and this extension only decrypts it locally like it would happen in the web browser. > You use Proton Bridge to walk your secure email beyond that enclave into whatever YOU are…

Yes.

Some people want to subscribe to a premium encrypted email provider so they can download that email locally so it can live perpetually in ever expanding sub folders on disk, in plaintext.

These are the people who need Proton Bridge.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#69

Post by stblack » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:44 AM UTC

twleo wrote: post #62

stblack wrote: post #44

To clarify because comments (so far) seem to ignore what Proton Bridge does. Proton Mail is web mail, like Gmail. That part is fine. You use Proton Bridge as a connector to mail client software. The thing that’s perhaps unclear is, Proton Mail is end-to-end encrypted email. You use Proton Bridge to walk your secure email beyond that enclave into whatever YOU are running in your userland scenario. Part of all this is,…

I will agree with you if the bridge in a open source project backed by communities. However, bridge is a paid feature used to attract more users. Also, I don't understand your point about e2ee. Bridge to proton server is also e2ee. The mail interface is just a implementation of e2ee in browser, isn't it?

No.

Proton mail is a paid service. It comes with the bridge. The bridge is not extra.

Free-tier Proton Mail may charge for the bridge. I don’t know, I don’t use free-tier Proton Mail.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#70

Post by josephg » Wed, Nov 02, 2022, 9:48 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #53

urbandw311er wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on your thinking?

If you’ve been using your mailbox (and deleting mail) for a while, have over 50K mails in it now, and see (what you think is) a UID of 51950 on the most recent email, the chances that it’s “U” are extremely low, meaning there’s a gap in understanding or in implementation.

Every time I see that, I’m floored by it. The fact that message IDs in IMAP change when you delete messages has got to be one of the worst design choices in any in-use protocol. I’m flabbergasted by it.

The sooner everyone moves to jmap the better.