"Not Even Government Agencies" - Proton's misleading marketing

"Not Even Government Agencies" - Proton's misleading marketing(blog.ppb1701.com)

17 points by leotravis10 38 days ago | 17 comments

tamimio 37 days ago |

I am always amazed but how many times I have to tell people NOT to trust anything and act accordingly, yet, especially technical ones still fall for the same trick. Email as a protocol is never private, let alone anonymous, even if you encrypt it, it will still leaks meta data, assuming you encrypt even the meta data, you are still IDed by cross over fingerprinting and the likes. But also you have to look for indicators, when a company tries to make you have all your eggs in their basket, all your digital life with a false sense of privacy, you know in your gut something is wrong, without spending an extra minute to research the details, same goes when a company still uses a phone number to signup or register with no alternative option, like Signal and/or others, you should know this is not to be trusted. You are probably better safe using a Chinese product if you are in the US for example than using a US or European one despite all the privacy promises, but the same rule still applies, don’t trust them or anyone. Security through obsecurity is another option, especially in AI era, where automated systems can easily ID you based on behavior rather than metrics, that way you can blend in and making it difficult to pinpoint.

_fw 37 days ago |

Absolute insanity from other commenters here. I totally disagree about it being hard to read - it’s fine.

And others bitching about being instructed to read the whole thing, clearly didn’t.

It’s not JUST about Proton Meet. The article goes on to point out that even for Proton Mail, around 10,000 foreign subpoenas were complied with last year.

It draws attention to the STARK contrast between their messaging and their actual culpability when it comes to compliance with foreign powers.

The author also goes on to talk about the hypocrisy in Proton’s use of AWS, Google, DigitalOcean and Google and Apple app stores, which goes to more or less completely undermine Proton’s standing here.

It’s also worth drawing attention to their class action waiver, AND their bizarrely hypocritical ToS which flies in the face of their positioning.

Which, you know, others would have found out if they read before commenting.

Like the article requested.

gruez 37 days ago | |

>Absolute insanity from other commenters here. I totally disagree about it being hard to read - it’s fine.

>And others bitching about being instructed to read the whole thing, clearly didn’t.

The problem isn't that it's indecipherable, it's that the reader feels their time isn't being respected. If the author (seemingly) can't be bothered to put the time into writing a blog post, resorting to AI generated slop, why should readers devote time into reading it in its entirety?

>Which, you know, others would have found out if they read before commenting.

Part of your job as a writer is to get your readers to actually read what you're writing. If you want to write about how Trump sucks with the aim of convincing Trump voters to change their minds, but start off with a diatribe about how Trump voters are brainwashed cultists, that's poor writing even if it's theoretically not "hard to read".

_fw 37 days ago | | |

Maybe my slop detector isn’t as sharp as yours, maybe the antagonist in me appreciated the author’s tone.

I guess I just liked the article!

tamimio 37 days ago | |

Proton is very active in HN and other sites, and notorious in “debunking misinformation”, at least used to with their official account, so maybe now they went in different approaches of debunking and try to discredit criticism. You also have the fanbase phenomenon, rooted from some denial of active users, so such articles always get attacked one way or another.

unethical_ban 37 days ago | | |

It's fair to be suspicious of astroturf. FWIW I am a Proton user, but I get no benefit other than self-soothing from criticizing proton criticism.

My main beef was with the writing style, which is so over the top and repetitive and seemingly AI-generated that I couldn't stand it.

Proton Meet relying on a bunch of US infrastructure is something they should call out themselves loudly when they advertise it, to be sure.

floren 37 days ago |

Just post the prompt next time.

unethical_ban 37 days ago |

Not a fan of the format of the essay. Short sentences. Repetition. Not normal language — punctuated fragments.

Ironically, I ran this AI-generated post through AI to summarize and isolate the claims of fact. TLDR: The complaint is largely about Proton Meet, which is hosted by a US-based company and is underpinned by a lot of US-hosted companies. Other core Proton services are not part of the complaints, though it's noted that sometimes Proton has given up user metadata from US court orders (such as payment and contact info, not actual VPN or email contents).

I may be downvoted for acknowledging I used AI to help add context with my comment, but the essay was truly painful to try to read after a few paragraphs.

osmsucks 37 days ago | |

Thank you. I also found it exhausting to read so many short sentences that just assert little pieces of information without saying anything of substance.

gruez 37 days ago | |

>Other core Proton services are not part of the complaints, though it's noted that sometimes Proton has given up user metadata from US court orders (such as payment and contact info, not actual VPN or email contents).

Nah, later in it makes a bunch of spurious claims about how it's theoretically possible to infer that you used/downloaded/paid for protonmail, therefore it's not as "private" as promised. The problem with that claim is that most people don't expect their usage of the app to be private. After all, if you're using protonmail, have a @protonmail.com address, and have a payment to protonmail in your bank statement,can you really reasonably expect the fact you're using protonmail to be kept private? Complaining about this makes as much sense as complaining that Signal isn't private because it doesn't operate off Tor, and cops can figure out you have it installed through the notification icons on your lockscreen.

The part about livekit's privacy policy deserves attention, but the rest of the article seems like mostly AI generated slop to so the author can make a broader claim about how proton isn't private.

alwa 37 days ago |

Sigh. It's one thing to plop out 7500 words of fluffed-out LLM-staccatto, but then to demand that I:

> Read the whole piece. Not the first section. Not the first section and a skim. The whole thing.

...boy. Sure seems in tension with the claim that

> when the receipts are this good you don't need to editorialize. You just need to line them up and let people read.

tl;dr: Proton complies with legal process, and Proton Meet routes traffic through California.

And somebody paid for something they wanted to keep secret using a credit card in their name. The latter of which was disclosed via MLAT request, when the former came under investigation for terrorism.

Perhaps their Proton Wallet product might be of interest to the more discerning breed of alleged-terrorist...

Ms-J 37 days ago |

Proton works with spy agencies and has been caught so many times with their pants down, doing the worst, that I can't keep up with it any longer.

Then on every thread they deploy a massive army of people to defend their bullshit. They do this here, Reddit, Twitter, etc.

It's CryptoAG all over again.

But to be fair, they aren't the only ones doing it.

"Prrrreeeaseee trust us with yerr sekretss!!1!!"

Edit: I'll throw this bone. They leverage your data.

unethical_ban 37 days ago | |

Which accounts in this thread are fake?

What is the documentation about spy agency collabs? I've literally not heard of that. I've heard about them complying with requests that give away metadata and payment info based on court order.

At this point I see more suspicious rants from the people claiming proton is compromised than from the people who say "eh".

queenkjuul 37 days ago | | |

In fairness, there's basically no difference between a US law enforcement agency and a US intelligence agency

blahblaher 37 days ago |

It's fine. It's better than gmail, fuck "big tech"