ew, proton’s back on fedi again and acting like someone’s uncle who just discovered shitposting
-
ew, proton’s back on fedi again and acting like someone’s uncle who just discovered shitposting
I guess this is your regular reminder that proton officially ended their participation in the fediverse after their CEO came out in favor of the Republicans (yes I’ve read the nonsense rebuttal from the supposed journalist who didn’t author anything before or after that) and that in spite of pretending otherwise, proton profits off of several insecure AI features they only pretend are e2e encrypted
@zzt Yeah... I've been migrating away from Proton for a bit here. Almost ready to nuke my account.
-
“but guys, the room, remember the room?” not as clearly as I remember you insisting features that send message data in plaintext to your servers are “end-to-end encrypted” because you consider yourself one of the ends
not as much as I remember how much your users are fucked if they interact with your services with anything but perfect opsec. but anyone with anything approaching perfect opsec doesn’t use proton
not as much as I remember how much of a shit your CEO is
oh also in addition to the AI crap they’ve been pushing bitcoins as a privacy coin which: lol
I hate cryptocurrencies so much I can fucking taste it but if you have to use one for privacy, bitcoin is the worst fucking choice. if you must use crypto, use something like monero. don’t fuck up your life cause proton says a coin mixer is private enough. they have obvious political motivations for wanting you to use specifically bitcoin.
but ideally don’t use fucking cryptocurrencies
-
ew, proton’s back on fedi again and acting like someone’s uncle who just discovered shitposting
I guess this is your regular reminder that proton officially ended their participation in the fediverse after their CEO came out in favor of the Republicans (yes I’ve read the nonsense rebuttal from the supposed journalist who didn’t author anything before or after that) and that in spite of pretending otherwise, proton profits off of several insecure AI features they only pretend are e2e encrypted
Proton Mail focusing so heavily on the "We're European!" angle was always a red flag to me. And then I learned that "secure email" is oxymoronic. And then I learned that they paywall features as basic as using an email client. And then I learned that their CEO is a Trumper. There are so many red flags here it might as well be the reunion of Comintern.
-
“but guys, the room, remember the room?” not as clearly as I remember you insisting features that send message data in plaintext to your servers are “end-to-end encrypted” because you consider yourself one of the ends
not as much as I remember how much your users are fucked if they interact with your services with anything but perfect opsec. but anyone with anything approaching perfect opsec doesn’t use proton
not as much as I remember how much of a shit your CEO is
@zzt they got those spanish climate activists jailed because they absolutely do keep logs and point to swiss anti-terrorism law and then FUCKING LIE about it! this is why i'm so harsh on anyone claiming to do crypto that shit is an IMMENSE responsibility
-
ew, proton’s back on fedi again and acting like someone’s uncle who just discovered shitposting
I guess this is your regular reminder that proton officially ended their participation in the fediverse after their CEO came out in favor of the Republicans (yes I’ve read the nonsense rebuttal from the supposed journalist who didn’t author anything before or after that) and that in spite of pretending otherwise, proton profits off of several insecure AI features they only pretend are e2e encrypted
@zzt I had just seen some posts about valve and steamOS before reading this, and was VERY confused for a moment before remembering that there are multiple things called proton.
-
oh also in addition to the AI crap they’ve been pushing bitcoins as a privacy coin which: lol
I hate cryptocurrencies so much I can fucking taste it but if you have to use one for privacy, bitcoin is the worst fucking choice. if you must use crypto, use something like monero. don’t fuck up your life cause proton says a coin mixer is private enough. they have obvious political motivations for wanting you to use specifically bitcoin.
but ideally don’t use fucking cryptocurrencies
I’m so glad proton is wasting the money I used to give them for expensive email on pointless AI horseshit instead of implementing one of the many ZKP options for payments, so that giving them money doesn’t constitute an account compromise and massive privacy breach
signal considered not linking payments to account activity to be table stakes before they implemented even a single paid feature, and their implementation of their payment mechanism is open source
-
ew, proton’s back on fedi again and acting like someone’s uncle who just discovered shitposting
I guess this is your regular reminder that proton officially ended their participation in the fediverse after their CEO came out in favor of the Republicans (yes I’ve read the nonsense rebuttal from the supposed journalist who didn’t author anything before or after that) and that in spite of pretending otherwise, proton profits off of several insecure AI features they only pretend are e2e encrypted
@zzt And creating more vendor lock-in instead of backing FOSS solutions.
-
@zzt they got those spanish climate activists jailed because they absolutely do keep logs and point to swiss anti-terrorism law and then FUCKING LIE about it! this is why i'm so harsh on anyone claiming to do crypto that shit is an IMMENSE responsibility
@hipsterelectron @zzt When I posted that article about the Stop Cop City protestor who got unmasked to my Proton-using comrades they replied that it wasn't Proton's fault they made no effort at all to inform people who paid for their service that their payment details could be made available to authorities in foreign countries and tied to their accounts. They "only hand over data when compelled to by Swiss law," and disclose that info on their transparency report, so it's not their fault that they aggressively advertise themselves as a privacy-focused Google that will never comply with a foreign government's orders and assure you your data is encrypted and protected by Europe's privacy laws and don't include anywhere on the payment page that this is a possible outcome.
-
@zzt Yeah... I've been migrating away from Proton for a bit here. Almost ready to nuke my account.
@sharpcheddargoblin @zzt I'm aware of Tutanota; what are some other decent alternatives?
-
@hipsterelectron @zzt When I posted that article about the Stop Cop City protestor who got unmasked to my Proton-using comrades they replied that it wasn't Proton's fault they made no effort at all to inform people who paid for their service that their payment details could be made available to authorities in foreign countries and tied to their accounts. They "only hand over data when compelled to by Swiss law," and disclose that info on their transparency report, so it's not their fault that they aggressively advertise themselves as a privacy-focused Google that will never comply with a foreign government's orders and assure you your data is encrypted and protected by Europe's privacy laws and don't include anywhere on the payment page that this is a possible outcome.
@tael @hipsterelectron it’s bizarre how much proton’s remaining users defend them, and how much all of them have the same talking points full of holes they haven’t evaluated. the point about how signal takes payments usually gets them into “well you’re just a hater” mode
and yes weirdly enough I do hate when a company takes money to keep people safe and then sells them out and I do hate when that same company signals loyalty to a fascist regime
-
@tael @hipsterelectron it’s bizarre how much proton’s remaining users defend them, and how much all of them have the same talking points full of holes they haven’t evaluated. the point about how signal takes payments usually gets them into “well you’re just a hater” mode
and yes weirdly enough I do hate when a company takes money to keep people safe and then sells them out and I do hate when that same company signals loyalty to a fascist regime
@zzt @hipsterelectron AFAIK Proton is mostly fine as a service as long as you do NOT pay them for anything and you do NOT give them any personal information (incl. in your account info, pseudonymous ONLY, email headers are public info, only the message body is encrypted) and you do NOT access their website without a VPN (IP address logs can be associated with your account and will doubtlessly be turned over). But at that point they have no particular claim to privacy or security. Which doesn't stop them from claiming it anyway. And none of these disclaimers are provided up-front. Thus luring activists into a honeypot that will ensure they are turned over to fascists. It's just another example of how neutrality does not work, services must be aggressively pro-user, like Mullvad, which DOES warn you when you pay which options are not privacy-friendly.
-
I’m so glad proton is wasting the money I used to give them for expensive email on pointless AI horseshit instead of implementing one of the many ZKP options for payments, so that giving them money doesn’t constitute an account compromise and massive privacy breach
signal considered not linking payments to account activity to be table stakes before they implemented even a single paid feature, and their implementation of their payment mechanism is open source
I mean don’t get me wrong, proton’s posts here are hilarious
no not because they’re recycling tired memes. it’s very funny that after they left fedi (for reddit and twitter, where corporations can pay for friendly moderation) in a loud public huff because their CEO supports fascism and we wouldn’t buy their deflections, they’re back trying to blend in as some dickhead’s awful caricature of what a small instance queer fedi shitposter must be like, purely because Tuta gets engagement here
-
@zzt @hipsterelectron AFAIK Proton is mostly fine as a service as long as you do NOT pay them for anything and you do NOT give them any personal information (incl. in your account info, pseudonymous ONLY, email headers are public info, only the message body is encrypted) and you do NOT access their website without a VPN (IP address logs can be associated with your account and will doubtlessly be turned over). But at that point they have no particular claim to privacy or security. Which doesn't stop them from claiming it anyway. And none of these disclaimers are provided up-front. Thus luring activists into a honeypot that will ensure they are turned over to fascists. It's just another example of how neutrality does not work, services must be aggressively pro-user, like Mullvad, which DOES warn you when you pay which options are not privacy-friendly.
@tael @hipsterelectron exactly, and in addition you have to avoid a bunch of their other features and services:
- lumo isn’t end to end encrypted at all, but you can feed proton drive files into it which decrypts the file and sends it to proton
- their LLM email features leak your email contents to Proton as plaintext when used in non-local mode
- if you’re using their VPN to access their services (as most proton users would), you’re compromisedand of course their no-logs policy is worthless
-
@tael @hipsterelectron exactly, and in addition you have to avoid a bunch of their other features and services:
- lumo isn’t end to end encrypted at all, but you can feed proton drive files into it which decrypts the file and sends it to proton
- their LLM email features leak your email contents to Proton as plaintext when used in non-local mode
- if you’re using their VPN to access their services (as most proton users would), you’re compromisedand of course their no-logs policy is worthless
@tael @hipsterelectron and most of those may be paid features, and there may be more of them (I don’t keep up with proton’s bullshit anymore until they pop up here or in the news) but like what are we doing here? what the fuck kind of privacy and security software grows more sharp edges nobody asked for as it’s developed and if you pay them? why don’t any of the warnings you mentioned exist? who the fuck is this for? certainly not the normal non-technical people I was hoping to email securely.
-
@tael @hipsterelectron and most of those may be paid features, and there may be more of them (I don’t keep up with proton’s bullshit anymore until they pop up here or in the news) but like what are we doing here? what the fuck kind of privacy and security software grows more sharp edges nobody asked for as it’s developed and if you pay them? why don’t any of the warnings you mentioned exist? who the fuck is this for? certainly not the normal non-technical people I was hoping to email securely.
@zzt @hipsterelectron it's the NordVPN/Incogni of the space; a worthless unprincipled bottom feeder which exists to hoover up money from those concerned with privacy without actually protecting them like they claim to
-
I mean don’t get me wrong, proton’s posts here are hilarious
no not because they’re recycling tired memes. it’s very funny that after they left fedi (for reddit and twitter, where corporations can pay for friendly moderation) in a loud public huff because their CEO supports fascism and we wouldn’t buy their deflections, they’re back trying to blend in as some dickhead’s awful caricature of what a small instance queer fedi shitposter must be like, purely because Tuta gets engagement here
@zzt honestly I almost regret blocking them solely because I want to point and laugh at their bullshit
-
@zzt @hipsterelectron AFAIK Proton is mostly fine as a service as long as you do NOT pay them for anything and you do NOT give them any personal information (incl. in your account info, pseudonymous ONLY, email headers are public info, only the message body is encrypted) and you do NOT access their website without a VPN (IP address logs can be associated with your account and will doubtlessly be turned over). But at that point they have no particular claim to privacy or security. Which doesn't stop them from claiming it anyway. And none of these disclaimers are provided up-front. Thus luring activists into a honeypot that will ensure they are turned over to fascists. It's just another example of how neutrality does not work, services must be aggressively pro-user, like Mullvad, which DOES warn you when you pay which options are not privacy-friendly.
@tael @zzt @hipsterelectron As I understand it, Proton doesn't claim to guarantee your privacy, let alone anonymity. What it does claim is that it provides an infrastructure that allows you to achieve better levels of privacy and even some degree of anonymity if you take the necessary precautions. One example is its onion site for email and its recommendation to use TOR in certain threat scenarios. And you'll always come across warnings like this (taken from https://proton.me/blog/protonmail-threat-model)
-
I mean don’t get me wrong, proton’s posts here are hilarious
no not because they’re recycling tired memes. it’s very funny that after they left fedi (for reddit and twitter, where corporations can pay for friendly moderation) in a loud public huff because their CEO supports fascism and we wouldn’t buy their deflections, they’re back trying to blend in as some dickhead’s awful caricature of what a small instance queer fedi shitposter must be like, purely because Tuta gets engagement here
proton’s fedi account, 2025: Due to the misinformation about our CEO spread by mastodon users, the only official communication channels are now Reddit and Twitter.
proton on fedi, 2026: our admin loooooves they live and the room they’re his favorites! don’t trust silly microsoft’s ai! what’s that?
…
No, for the last time it’s misinformation that Lumo is just a normal LLM. It’s private and secure because our blog said it was. Are you calling me a liar?
…i mean uhh lumo’s mascot is soo cute
-
proton’s fedi account, 2025: Due to the misinformation about our CEO spread by mastodon users, the only official communication channels are now Reddit and Twitter.
proton on fedi, 2026: our admin loooooves they live and the room they’re his favorites! don’t trust silly microsoft’s ai! what’s that?
…
No, for the last time it’s misinformation that Lumo is just a normal LLM. It’s private and secure because our blog said it was. Are you calling me a liar?
…i mean uhh lumo’s mascot is soo cute
it feels pretty disrespectful that we’re supposed to fall for this crap. it hasn’t even been that long
-
@tael @zzt @hipsterelectron As I understand it, Proton doesn't claim to guarantee your privacy, let alone anonymity. What it does claim is that it provides an infrastructure that allows you to achieve better levels of privacy and even some degree of anonymity if you take the necessary precautions. One example is its onion site for email and its recommendation to use TOR in certain threat scenarios. And you'll always come across warnings like this (taken from https://proton.me/blog/protonmail-threat-model)
@ecosdelfuturo @tael @hipsterelectron proton appears to be garbage that isn’t for anybody because it does nothing to mitigate any of the known problems with how it handles user data, and you reposting proton’s marketing blog has done nothing to change my mind on that
I also love that the warning you posted doesn’t mention the fucking thing we were talking about, payments being a privacy leak.
maybe you need to spend less time reading proton’s marketing and more time reconsidering your opsec
