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Suspicious of Proton
(latte.isnot.coffee)
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this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Privacy
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You did a good job to rebutt everything I said, props!
I'm good with letting all of your counterpoints stand on their merits.
I still do wonder how Proton caught on over other encrypted emails and why American government has not gone after Proton like they did with Lavabit, which I did use and then one day all my emails don't exist anymore.
Lavabit was based in the United States. Proton AG operates entirely in Switzerland. Ostensibly the US government would have to go through the Swiss court system to get anything out of Proton.
Others have already touched on the jurisdiction issue.
I'm also going to note, in the last 10 years a lot has changed. E2EE has gone from something that's fringe, to something integrated integrated into lots of products. Signal, Proton, and others launched in the wake of the Snowden revelations. Lavamail was Snowden's email provider.
It's kind of like being the "hipster nerd" playing D&D before D&D was popular vs playing D&D post popularity... It's pretty obvious to most people in 2023 that D&D isn't for demon worshiper, as it's pretty obvious in 2023 that E2EE isn't just for criminals. In other words, the value proposition of ProtonMail isn't as "sinister."
I personally suspect the US Govt (in terms of federal agencies) is adapting to the presence of encryption vs trying to kill or weaken it at every turn (similar to how Microsoft stopped trying to stomp out open source code). 9-11 was a very very very bad thing (and arguably why the US is one of the worst countries to host a privacy service). However, the "big one" when it comes to cyber attacks could be even worse (and I'm pretty sure there are people at NSA that understand how E2EE plays a role in securing the nation -- they're not dumb people after all).
Proton is also a larger company than Lavabit (I suspect), and with that comes lawyers, and money to feed them.
So long as ProtonMail isn't primarily acting to serve organized crime... I suspect "there are bigger fish to fry."
I get ya, and thank you for thoroughly articulating, I enjoy the discussion. And that's all I was looking for, a discussion, and not kick off a grand conspiracy.
Fair enough; I admittedly mischaracterized you and perhaps responded with a bit too "harsh" of a tone initially. I apologize.
I took what you said as honest discourse and dialogue. Maybe the slightest tone of being harsh, but I took what you said as nothing more than an knowledgable rebuttal, not criticism. Seriously, all is well, and I'm completely open to every point you rebutted me on. I sensed no mockery or hostility from you, only solid counter points.
Both of you rock. I love Lemmy. :)
@lengsel @Dark_Arc
Lavabit was formed and located in the US, while Protonmail was not. As a result, the US had jurisdiction over Lavabit, while it does not have the same level of jurisdiction over Protonmail.
That would explain it for Lavabit.
I don't put as much weight on European courts due to seeing how American corporations through American politicians can get Euroeans locked in European prison for years over torrent sitrs of American movies, surely they can force an email service to shutdown and make threats if Switzerland does not comply.
It's worth noting that Switzerland is not in the European Union, which is the entity that probably has jurisdiction over copyright in a lot of the cases you're describing.
Oh! another lavabit victim in the wild. I signed up with em because i just wanted basic security and privacy for a new email account and then poof gone. To top it off, my next email provider had some issues and i lost that account too :(
Now I'm about ready to rant a post about how we down actually control our own email accounts and therefor don't control our lemmy accounts. I'm a big boy and can handle passwords and account control myself without a guarantor!
I am aware about bots and fake account stuff and see the need for better verification, but email is not a valid way to do it.
I miss Lavabit because of how light it ran for an ecrypted service. When I tried Proton it seems more bloated, has too much code and dependencies.
The only way to control your emails is buy a domain and run your own physical server that you maintain the software running on mail server, as in self hosting.
I don't remember a whole lot about lavabit other than how rough it was to lose access.
I'd consider my own email service, but most places that have problems with user accounts will consider a self hosted domain as invalid. :(
Lavabit was smooth, I was using email all the time, but that was before messenging. Lavabit was more text and not so much icons and graphics, it was a well run system. The webmail did not have as many options and services as ProtonMail.
Such a well oiled machine, I still miss using Lavabit email service, 10 years later