That’s the thing though, you don’t need to trust them, you trust public key cryptography. And unless the NSA has secretly solved that, Proton cannot hand anything to anyone, because they can’t access anything but encrypted data.
If the NSA solved that, they don’t need Proton’s cooperation, they can just intercept the encrypted traffic directly.
You don’t need to trust Proton inherently, all their apps are open source and you can verify the encryption yourself. They hold your encrypted data and you hold the keys.
The only thing they could be lying about is keeping VPN logs, but there’s no credible reason to believe they are. They do annual third-party audits of their infrastructure to confirm no logs, but if you’re depending strictly on VPN to hide data you think the government is interested in, you’re doing it wrong.
They cannot hand over your emails, because they don’t have the keys. But email is an inherently insecure communication method, and any email you send to a non proton recipient is visible to that recipient’s provider.
They can see the subject line and the recipient’s address, because they need to know where to transfer the email and send notifications with the subject line, but they are transparent about that.
CTDummy@piefed.social 2 days ago
Are you basing this on anything? I agree with another poster that proton being the go to alternative is somewhat suspect in my paranoid brain but some of these remark here seem pretty outlandish.
green_red_black@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Proton has been involved in some situations but it’s like the scenario I provided.
Accounts having an unencrypted line of entry “we can’t get the information off the Proton Server but the account is connected to a Google server so let’s go to Google instead.”
Or Proton not particularly putting up a hard fight against a government request. (Mind you no information is being handed over just an account being turned off with no means to recover)
CTDummy@piefed.social 2 days ago
Sure I saw yours and accept that, but “hand your ass over” doesn’t equate to “complies minimally with legal request they have to in order to remain functioning as a business” in my book.
kumi@feddit.online 2 days ago
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/proton-mail-discloses-user-data-leading-to-arrest-in-spain/18191
Before that: https://www.wired.com/story/protonmail-amends-policy-after-giving-up-activists-data/
There are many, many more cases we don’t hear about in media.
If you consistently connect to Proton via I2P or tor and don’t link a phone number or tracable recovery mail, you’re covering up at least some of the juicy metadata.
CTDummy@piefed.social 2 days ago
Thanks for the links, the recovery email aspect was covered in the initial comment old mate was replying to. I was more interested in if the hand your ass over remark had anything to do with the “they cant read your emails”/encryption part. The second link is very interesting though:
kumi@feddit.online 2 days ago
Auhorities in other European countries are known to MitM SSL certs at VPS providers for years already. Switzerland is moving their legislation towards the EU direction. Proton themselves have been vocal about their concerns about this.
How long until someone realizes they can demand Proton to inject some extra JS into the webmail for desired targets? Folks in a sensitive situation should follow the established best-practice of not relying on browser JS for PGP email. To be safe against this vecor, handle your encryption and signing outside of the webmail; either in your own client or copy/pasting.
Nanook@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Google it.
CTDummy@piefed.social 2 days ago
Burden of proof is on you.
Nanook@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
No it isn’t.