this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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I really wanna support these folks but I'm also curious about the recent headlines with Cameron Ortis (Canada's own selfish version of Snowden who deserves a damn Peace Prize for reals) referencing these.
Also, I think people need to learn there is nothing "private" about email beyond not scanning which is like paying for a not-service (like don't fuck me over). Hell, its hard enough to work up the courage and stamina to vanishing-messages-set someone adversarial who desperately needs you to make and ebforce that decision upon them as a baseline for engaging with them at all.
I will pay $1/month for email company to not be an asshole but that's the extent of my patience with the notion and I have zero illusions about what is likely still happening on some level.
Edit: Snowden deserves reward, not Ortis.
Edit: whats the timeline/continuity in terms of Ortis' mention and
Tutanotarebranding toTutaProton is doing privacy the right way.
Proton lost me when I found out you can't receive notifications from their app on a de-googled phone. Their app requires Google services for notifications. Since then I've moved to Tuta and am very happy with the service and notifications work. I mean how hard is it to set up a new email check every half hour in the app. What's the point of private email when you have to run it on a spyware (Google) infested phone.
Can you share more about why you think Proton's approach is better than Tuta?
From a casual read through they both appear to use end to end encryption when users are on the same service. (Proton emailing Proton or Tuta emailing Tuta) and both offer the option to password encrypt an email so you can message someone on other services as long as you can share that password with them IRL somehow.
The biggest difference would be the theoretical claim that proton can't know anything about your emails because the mailbox itself is encrypted. The calendar too. This also means these accounts aren't compatible with any IMAP/POP3/Activesync clients, and you need to install your own proton plugin to use it with them. On the desktop. On the phones they have their own apps, since you can't use the phone email app nor the phone calendar. They are a bit lacking there too. Regarding the mailbox theoretical encryption claim, I'm sure it's really encrypting everything. It's just, email is inherently unencrypted (unless it's proton to proton) as it travels along the servers, unless you go to several pains to encrypt it, and your destinatary too, to decrypt it on their end. So for most purposes, right now the main difference between these two doesn't seem all that useful and it continues to be relatively simple to intercept/read your email along the way, since most likely it won't be encrypted anyway.
Proton supports openPGP natively in its apps which is neat so encrypted emails are easier but you can use openPGP with k9 and Thunderbird too.
Unfortunately openPGP is very rarely used by anyone.
My point exactly. What's the point of having an encrypted mailbox if everything that arrives to it is unencrypted and easily intercepted?
Along with what has already been said, for the same package deal they offer an email, a vpn, a password manager, drive, and alot more space than the competition (500gig).
they include services such as proton sentinel.
https://proton.me/blog/sentinel-high-security-program
and secure core
https://protonvpn.com/support/secure-core-vpn/
one of the few still allowing port forwarding
https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding/
how to use them in high risk countries
https://protonvpn.com/blog/vpn-servers-high-risk-countries/
development over the years and their dedication to bringing privacy, security, freedom of information to the masses speaks for itself.
Encrypt the planet
I wasn't familiar with the headlines you're referring to so took a look, here is one story from the CBC. And here is Tuta's post responding to the allegation.
Besides knowing the name I was not super familiar with Tuta, but it appears their source code is publicly available for review for any backdoor (and that Cameron Ortis doesn't seem trustworthy or even especially knowledgeable).
That's my instinct, but its good free publicity I think. The worst thing is not being talked about, maybe there's some truth to that