andy1011000 Proton CEO posted:
āPeople honestly seem to forget that I live in Switzerland, where Republican/Democrat doesnāt mean anything, and Trump isnāt even on our ballot to be voted forā¦ā
Onyx376. replied:
āThe point is that fighting for a more just and equal society is not just about fighting for the fundamental right to privacy but also for all other fundamental rights, including individual rights and life. When you, as the CEO of a company that starts from these principles, nod positively to whatever action a political figure like Trump, who is known for always flagrantly putting his private interests ahead of those of his own nation, makes speeches about eliminating minorities, hurting their rights as citizens and flirting with Nazi movements, it is understandable that members of the privacy community are disappointed as this reveals a little about who is being the face of a company that should follow contrary principles. But now we really know what āfreedomā means to you.ā
Glad I didnāt take them up on a lifetime account for Black Friday sale
Time for a new CEO. Would be great is they went with a nonprofit board with explicit privacy/public good bylaws and at least 1 member elected from the user baseā¦ But thatās pretty wishful thinking, huhā¦
Having 88 (in binary) in your user name is highly suspicious, especially after takes like the one he recently dropped
I just signed up with proton and was strongly considering moving my Gmail account to their services. But this thing with their CEO is giving me great pause.
I guess it goes to show that no matter what, all ceos/rich people are simply out of touch and cannot be trusted. It is greatly disappointing.
Point of order: not the CEO, a board member. Doesnāt change a ton but worth noting.
Proton AG is kinda complicated.
So its majority shareholder is the Proton Foundation, a non-profit. Andy Yen is one of five members of the Proton Foundation. But Proton AG is still a for-profit corporation, and it still has a CEO. Andy Yen is the CEO of Proton AG.
Basically:
Proton AG (owns every Proton service) = For Profit
Itās Shareholders are:
- Proton Foundation (majority share) (Non-Profit)
- FONGIT (the Fondation Genevoise pour lāInnovation Technologique) (Iām pretty sure this is also a non-profit)
And within the Proton Foundation, is the five members of the board of trustees, one of them is Andy Yen. And its apparant that the board of the Proton Foundation has appointed one of its members, Andy Yen, as the CEO of Proton AG.
This actually confusing for me as well, but the TLDR is, Andy Yen is both a member of the board at Proton Foundation, and simultaneously the CEO of Proton AG.
Talk about a conflict of interests. How can he uphold a non-profit and a for profit role mission at the same time? (Spoilers: he canāt) it completely contradicts the reason why the foundation and the company are different entities. They should be a counterweight to each other. This is like the same politician being president, head of Parliament, and Supreme court judge. At that point you have monarchy with extra steps.
Proton CEO turns out to be a far right nut that has a hard on for Trump and everyone thatās paying for privacy (AKA their entire customer base) is pretty allergic to authoritarians.
I wouldnāt bet on that. Just visit matrix if you want to see how many far right nutters there are who are also into privacy.
Iām feeling very conflicted on this overall. I love proton and Iām not even American, but this whole fiasco is making me think of moving.
They handled this very unprofessionally, and Iām not sure if Iām comfortable trusting them anymore.
Can anyone recommend me some alternatives for some proton software?
I cancelled my proton the other day, right after his post.
As alternatives:
- tuta for mail
- psono, keepass, passbolt (self hosted) for the password manager
- mullvad for vpn ( actually never used the proton one, I swear by mullvad)
Im still figuring out the drive, thinking of self hosting that too.
Good luck out there.
Besides the password manager (I use Bitwarden) those are strong recommendations. Thanks
Are you happy with bitwarden? Its very tempting ā¦ Iām just concerned about it being in the US, where some agency could ārequestā data.
While I get the sentiment, what could possibly happen to Proton that makes it unsafe and you wouldnāt know? We already known they do comply with the law and hand over basic information.
But they do not give access or decrypt the actual content of your mailbox and thatās not because they choose not to but because it is technically not possible, or am I wrong about that. If the plan to change that it would hopefully become obvious through some announcements.
If you complie your clients, Proton cannot decrypt your data.
But thereās a lot more than Proton can do.
They could log your IP, the exact time you log in or use Proton services
They could keep a copy of every email you receive, most of them are probably unencrypted.
If you use VPN, they could log everything you do, they wont be able to decrypt the HTTPS data, but if they log all your traffic, it defeats the purpose of using a VPN.
They could potentially swap the web javascript, if you ever log in via browser.
When you send emails to another Protonmail user, Proton could potentially do a mitm and swap Protonās public key and make the other userās client think its your public key, and also give Protonās public key, and make your client think its that userās public key. Proton essentially act as a keyserver, so they could maliciously replace keys.
And most people donāt compile their user clients, so if you just download the clients they compile, they could just not use the source code to compile it, sending you a malicious client.
Thereās just a lot of attack vectors if the company itself becomes hostile.
Itās moreso the trust factor for me. Proton is secure, I know; but the company behind it has been making many bad decisions lately.
They were extremely unprofessional dealing with this. I mean, who comments their own political views on a company account then doubles down??? Thatās just stupid to me.
I should have specified that I might not even switch off of proton, Iād like to know alternatives JIC shit hits the fan :(
The security vulnerability behind any decent VPN is the VPN provider. When theyāre signalling support of fascists and technocrats you need to move on because their mask slipped and their real motives have been exposed. The sheer gall it takes to pretend you can believe Trump supports privacy goals is laughable.
The question is really who is an actual alternative.
Same. After the whole AI fiasco and the crypto fiasco, this is just adding insult to injury.
