Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency • Hacker News Board

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#91

Post by drnick1 » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 3:23 AM UTC

abnercoimbre wrote: post #90

drnick1 wrote: post #69

And this is why I host my own email server, even if I am not a journalist investigating governments or anything of the sort. It's a matter of control over my computing.

Common folklore is that this is extremely onerous to self-host (and have it work successfully.) How did you go about it?

The common folklore is just FUD. The main issue is deliverability to the likes of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. You need a clean fixed IP in non-residential block and a sufficiently aged domain or your mail will be flagged as spam or rejected. Alternatively, you can use a relay service for outbound email. Besides the deliverability issue, hosting email is fairly trivial from a technical standpoint; on Linux, the standard utilities are Postfix, Dovecot and OpenDKIM. The server is for my own use, so I don't even bother with spam and AV filters.

Even if you can't send email at all (unlikely if you use an outbound relay), there are very significant privacy benefits to having your own server. I send very few emails relative to the number I receive. You couldn't pay me enough to go back to one of big commercial providers.

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#92

Post by jegp » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 3:25 AM UTC

johnklos wrote: post #80

The true value of a company can be measured by our ability to communicate with them. If we can't communicate except after public outrage, then what does that say about the company? Here's a genuine question: is Proton Mail the least shitty of companies that provide email services? I self-host email and will continue until I die. But for others who need a company to do this for them, is Proton Mail the least shitty of…

What's your stack? After reading this, self hosting suddenly appeals to me.

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#93

Post by drnick1 » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 3:38 AM UTC

As far as I can remember, you don't even get IMAP access on the Proton free tier. For me, that's a non-starter. The privacy claims are also mostly marketing, as it is basically impossible to verify what Proton actually does when approached by a three-letter agency. I wouldn't use email anyway if I had something to hide, the email protocol wasn't designed with secrecy of communications in mind. For that, Signal seems far better, or perhaps a self-hosted, encrypted Matrix room.

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#94

Post by bigiain » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 3:59 AM UTC

8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote: post #86

fn-mote wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is all cool until Google rug-pulls your influence and you’re back to zero… in which case it doesn’t sound like a tool anymore. Maybe a tool with DRM embedded would be an appropriate analogy?

One of the reasons why I don't use my personal Google accounts for stuff like Firebase.

Sadly, Proton was, until now, a serious and perhaps leading contender for where I might migrate my email as I reduce my dependence on Google. They felt more credible then Tutanova, and less mainstream corporate than Fastmail. Not sure where to look now.

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#95

Post by bigiain » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 4:12 AM UTC

jwrallie wrote: post #82

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastmail is fine. It's somewhat limited in its UX, but technically speaking, everything works, and it's snappy. Very few outages. I really like their integrations with calendars, contacts, and mail for 3rd party sites/services. Not a ton of features or deals re: custom domains or multiple users, but it's fine if it's just for yourself. edit They literally -JUST- turned on Offline support for their app and web interfa…

But if you get a VPS your traffic will always be linked with a unique IP. VPNs have an advantage there.

Most providers will hand you a new IP if you suspend then restart your instance. That at least spreads you pool of IPs across their AS (or some subset of it). For the price of a "reputable" VPN service, you could run 2 or 3 low end VPSes from different providers. A bit of Ansible, Python (or language of your choice), and perhaps some browser automation if the cheap VPN provider doesn't have a usable API - should allow you to automate provisioning VPN endpoints and rotating IP addresses.

That would at least move your needle around a lot, even if it isn't bringing along the haystack of all the other VPN customers sharing their endpoint IP addresses. You couldn't consider this sufficient protection against TLAs or Mossad. Or disgruntled Magic The Gathering players burnt by MtGox...

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#96

Post by elpalek » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 4:21 AM UTC

cscharenberg wrote: post #77

nsagent wrote: post #18

I've need a paying subscriber to Proton since 2018, but I recently canceled my subscription (which ends in November). I just got fed up with the constant bugginess and jankiness of their offerings. Any suggestions for mail hosting and VPN? I hear good things about Fastmail and mailbox.org (I see they very recently rebranded to just mailbox and revamped their offering). Also, I've been a heavy user of the SimpleLogin…

I've been on Zoho for my (and my partner's) email for 4+ years and it has been great. Chose them because there is no per-domain charge, so I have like 12 domains on it. The configurability is extensive in both web app and ios email app. Service has been fast and stable. They rarely change anything in the UI (no random tinkering is what I mean) so it is predictable and easy to use.

I wouldn't trust Zoho. More than 10 years ago, they shadowbanned (can not be shared or publicly viewed) my documents because it criticized Chinese communist party.

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#97

Post by skinner927 » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 4:22 AM UTC

cscharenberg wrote: post #77

nsagent wrote: post #18

I've need a paying subscriber to Proton since 2018, but I recently canceled my subscription (which ends in November). I just got fed up with the constant bugginess and jankiness of their offerings. Any suggestions for mail hosting and VPN? I hear good things about Fastmail and mailbox.org (I see they very recently rebranded to just mailbox and revamped their offering). Also, I've been a heavy user of the SimpleLogin…

I've been on Zoho for my (and my partner's) email for 4+ years and it has been great. Chose them because there is no per-domain charge, so I have like 12 domains on it. The configurability is extensive in both web app and ios email app. Service has been fast and stable. They rarely change anything in the UI (no random tinkering is what I mean) so it is predictable and easy to use.

Also been using zoho for at least 6 years. Cheap and reliable.

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#98

Post by KingOfCoders » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 4:24 AM UTC

a0123 wrote: post #27

j-bos wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Phrack reached out to Proton in private multiple times, and Proton ghosted them. According to Proton's response in the linked reddit post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45227356 They say: "Regarding Phrack’s claim on contacting our legal team 8 times: this is not true. We have only received two emails to our legal team inbox, last one on Sep 6 with a 48-hour deadline. This is unrealistic for a company the si…

Sorry but doubt. The whole "we have only received two emails" is a classic move of every company caught with their pants down. Considering Proton's history, they don't get the benefit of the doubt on this one. As for the "company size excuse" sorry but considering the business you claim to be in (the private and secure email), having an on-call skeleton crew legal team available over the weekend for urgent requests i…

If you don't have enough people to run your business you're doing it wrong. If you don't have enough money to hire people for your business, it's not a viable business.

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#99

Post by bigiain » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 4:32 AM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #72

gruez wrote: post #4

Can proton even win here? The obvious solution would be "we don't take down unless there's a court order", but then you'd get exposé pieces saying how protonmail is a den for drug dealers/pedophiles/doxxers/cyber criminals.

Yes. Most CERT requests are valid and good and should be obliged.. but there should be a manual check involved. Especially when an appeal is filed. Especially when the content is obviously security reporting. Both extremes are wrong - don't ignore CERTs and don't mindlessly oblige them. Find one of the many reasonable middlegrounds.

> but there should be a manual check involved.

I suspect there's a few email providers where the marketing and reputation management teams are hurriedly adding "check the user and the user's affiliated social media reach before suspending this account, and before responding to any support requests from the user."

My new elevator pitch: We proactively research all of our customer's users and new signups to assign them a social media reach score. We then automate escalating external account action requests or user support calls for highly ranked users to senior staff and providing details and evidence of their social reach and industry affiliations. While we generate revenue from these customers, our primary revenue stream is the aggregated data we acquire while doing this, and selling access to that data to law enforcement, the insurance industry, and Nation State intelligence organisations across the globe.

Re: Proton Mail suspended journalist accounts at request of cybersecurity agency

#100

Post by KingOfCoders » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 4:34 AM UTC

From the Proton/X discussion in the Intercept article

"Big Tech CEOs are tripping over themselves to kiss the ring precisely because Trump represents an unprecedented challenge to their monopolistic dominance.”

They don't know how this is going, from what I see Trump threatens something not to change something, but to get something. If there is any anti-trust drive it's there to shake the tree, not to break up big tech. Trump loves big US corporations, like those in the 50s and 60s, those pre-Bell-breakup.