this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2021
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Privacy
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Protonmail is just the "latest" (it's been open for a few years now) in the technocratic "online privacy" bubble. They probably willingly give backdoors to the NSA.
Basically they sell you the peace of mind, not really any actual security as far as anyone can tell. Until their code is open-source and can be independently reviewed, it's worthless. That they are based in Switzerland doesn't mean much because backdoors are meant to be secret. Like in any other country, there is no official organ in Switzerland that will evaluate your app and say "yes, this app is secure. We give it five stars". However if you find they don't respect Swiss law you have to open a lawsuit, retain a Swiss lawyer, travel there for the court date, and at that point you start to realize they're based over there more to protect themselves than you.
There has been another encryption company operating since the 50s in Switzerland that was somewhat recently found to just be a front for the CIA. So clearly being based in Switzerland is not a gage of quality.
Their support of the Hong Kong protest was also kinda suspicious because as far as I'm aware, they've never been that interested in any other event. And it wasn't just a press release that gets picked up by a few hobbyist magazines; it was a full-length email sent to every protonmail customer, even those like me who hadn't used their account in years.
I also just read that ProtonMail would start using Google infrastructure. While the actual usage of Google's services would be "limited", again Proton does not explain the exact nature of this partnership and which services will be routed through Google.
I don't believe there is any way to be completely secure on the Internet unfortunately. Snowden showed how far backdoors run. So whether you want to keep using protonmail is up to you, but outside of a decentralised p2p system, I don't think we could fully be anonymous and secure. Maybe though it would be possible to open your own email service -- you just have to rent a space on a shared server like you would when hosting a website, and then encrypt it if possible... or open your own mail server in your basement lol. Email doesn't consume a lot of resources.
nice link about google infrastructure
disappointing, google has their hands in everything. I just learned that Standard Notes implemented an opt-out api call to bugsnag, a company backed by Google Ventures.
ProtonMail does seem a bit fishy and flimsy. I tried their VPN for about an hour and kept getting marketing emails afterwards.
I am fucked.