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Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

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Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#91

Post by sbuk »

stblack wrote: post #67
sbuk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Clearly not. I see the claim on every post that mentions ProtonMail. As far as I am concerned, ProtonMail is quite simply snakeoil at this stage.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#92

Post by gobip »

thih9 wrote: post #73
twleo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a click bait? Don't forget bridge is a paid feature of Protonmail.

Current title is "Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares". It makes it seem as if using just protonmail could result in deleting a wrong email. This is not the case, you have to be using proton bridge. People who care about protonmail but don't care about proton bridge have to click the link to learn that.

You don’t have to use the bridge for this to happen. Read the issues.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#93

Post by kkfx »

uselpa wrote: post #31
kkfx wrote: post #9

My own mail policy is simple: - a hosted service because host one myself is too much work CAUSED by anti-spam measure by some "self-appointed sheriffs" of the net; - mail fetched from remote via fetchmail, no messages left on the server, filtered on my homeserver via maildrop, indexed via notmuch, muchsync-ed over SSH to desktop(s)/laptop. That's is.

I like that, any pointers for a Linux-based fetchmail/getmail setup?

So far I've not documented much my setup (but feel free to ask specific questions) I found nice to bookmark:

- https://www.howtoforge.com/procmail_tips_recipes

- https://dnns.no/switching-from-procmail-to-maildrop.html

Who have a little fetchmail part. I've nerve used getmail, before I've used OfflineIMAP (buggy but support IMAP IDLE) and mbsync. The only issue is fetching from multiple accounts that demand firing up multiple instances, but that's not much of an issue. You just set FETCHMAILHOME before any invocation pointing to the right config dir and set a different --pidfile for concurrent* fetching if you wish so. MailDrop is a (very) little (very) big setup since you need filters for anything if you are not a piler and that take MUCH time. Normally here my suggestion is fetch anything on a zfs volume, clone it, test on the cloned maildir or snapshot and revert after any test until you get nothing in the INBOXes. A slow step at a time you'll add the rest.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#94

Post by Eumenes »

Toutouxc wrote: post #13
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.

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.

I don't need a custom domain anymore and I find it trivial to change email addresses. I can use 1password to locate accounts, easily migrate, apply a tag, and work through the change over a few hours. I typically change email every 2-3 years and it serves as a good way to review security settings/change passwords. Modern email providers have mailbox porting tools, and they work fine. I use to like having a domain, but dunno, for a privacy nut, seems more secure to not use one.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#95

Post by sneak »

A good workaround for email hosting is to run an IMAP server somewhere you control, and add it to your mail client. The server doesn’t need 24/7 five-nines or anything. It’s not for receiving mail. It could even be on your local laptop if that is the only place you need old mail, though I keep mine on a dedicated hosting machine in a colo so I can use/search it from my iPhones and iPads and other workstations.

You use an IMAP compatible email service like Proton or whatever to receive and check mail like normal. A couple times per month, move all the messages from the service to your own IMAP server’s folders, instead of the “archive” command that moves them to a different folder on the same server that received them. This is pretty straightforward in Apple’s Mail.app on macOS, and I imagine similarly so in most GUI IMAP clients.

This gives you the best of both worlds: a single set of maildir folders on your own server you can zip or back up with normal tools like rsync or whatever, as well as 24/7 HA reliable provider servers to receive incoming mail at all times in case your long term mail storage machine is temporarily down. You also won’t bump up against provider storage limits.

Self-hosting inbound and outbound email is a drag (though I do it for many of my less critical domains), but a 90% availability selfhosted message storage IMAP service is fairly easy to run. This has the added benefit of a provider hack or legal process presumably affecting only a subset of your most recent messages due to those being the only ones stored there.

I am a Proton and FastMail user (and use the affected software) but I regularly move all the messages from these providers to my IMAP storage server (in different folders) so if their systems fail the blast radius is not “all of my emails going back to whenever I started using the provider”.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#96

Post by tacker2000 »

Yea the bridge is quite a hot mess, really. I use it with Outlook on Mac and there are always syncing issues, passwords missing and i have to re-sync the whole inbox every 2 months or so.

I didnt realise some mail got deleted though, i need to investigate that.

I am a proton customer since 3 years and they seemed like a good bunch but now with all the stuff they are offering it seems like they have lost their way.

There is also no way of integrating the proton calendar into a 3rd party app like Outlook. This feature has been promised forever…

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#97

Post by vr46 »

mostafah wrote: post #19
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.

I’ve been a Fastmail user for about a decade (I just checked; wow!) and am very, very happy with them. I wish more companies were like them. The service is very reliable, the product is great, their support is amazing and very kind. A lot of companies get distracted by big pivots and hyper-growth ideas, while companies like Fastmail focus on doing their main job very well.

Today I've just given up on Protonmail, the Bridge is a POS. When things were reliable, I was ok to jump through hoops in maintaining a separate app, but I cannot be bothered any longer. Just set up a Fastmail account to see what it's all about.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#98

Post by Eumenes »

pkrumins wrote: post #17

How does Protonmail compare to Gmail? Has anyone switched to Protonmail from Gmail?

I switched a few weeks ago. The process was fine. They have a tool to help you port your mailbox, calendar, contacts. The web client is great. The mobile/android app sucks. The search doesn't work. If you archive an email on web, it wont always apply to the app. The sync between clients is screwy. Gmail is no doubt a better email product but given I paid a year, I'm going to suck it up and deal with it.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#99

Post by nextaccountic »

ogogmad wrote: post #90
encryptluks2 wrote: post #5

This sort of reaffirms my belief that UIDs are not sufficient for syncing mail. Emails should be hashed and synced by the hash which would solve other issues, like being able to redownload specific messages that may have got corrupted locally.

Can hashes not collide? Would that not cause problems?

In practice the odds can be astronomically low, as in lower than the odds that an asteroid collides with Earth right now and the entire humanity becomes extinct. But only for hashes without known vulnerabilities.

For a vulnerable hash like md5, an attacker can find a collision in a few seconds.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#100

Post by return_to_monke »

Eumenes wrote: post #94
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.

I don't need a custom domain anymore and I find it trivial to change email addresses. I can use 1password to locate accounts, easily migrate, apply a tag, and work through the change over a few hours. I typically change email every 2-3 years and it serves as a good way to review security settings/change passwords. Modern email providers have mailbox porting tools, and they work fine. I use to like having a domain, bu…

I don't think the hard thing is switching emails. The difficult thing is telling everyone about the fact that you switched.
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