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Good writeup. Since I can already see not everyone here actually read the article, here are some highlights. > Law enforcement has always been able to request

by Jedi72 8y ago

Good writeup. Since I can already see not everyone here actually read the article, here are some highlights. > Law enforcement has always been able to request information from us through the Telecommunications Act with a lawful warrant. Because we have the ability to decrypt all data, there is no need to make changes that circumvent encryption. ... While FastMail is not directly affected, we don’t support this legislation because it carries serious implications for the Australian tech industry. > Of course, should our users choose to end-to-end encrypt their mail via PGP, we have no way to access that content, even under the AABill. Our blog explains why we have never offered PGP ourselves, and describes third-party PGP tools you can use with FastMail if you wish to manage your own encryption. The second one in particular highlights to me the fact that whilst there are many downsides to the legislation, any serious culprits i.e. state actors or organised crime have many counter moves, severely limiting the upside - something all tech people knew anyway.

brongondwana 8y ago
Thanks - that's pretty much exactly it. If someone needs end-to-end encryption, it's only safe from intermediate third parties if they aren't trusting software which is updated by those third parties. So we use effective methods to protect the privacy of our users while performing our civic duty of assisting law enforcement when bad actors use or abuse our platform, and we never pretend to use the bulk of our customers as human shields to protect bad actors trying to hide among them.
- dannyw 8y ago
  It's weird that you take this stance. It almost feels like you're implying that ProtonMail is a bad actor, and end to end encryption is bad because 'civic duty'. That's like "but terrorism". I understand that you're not a privacy-first company, but still, your communications haven't been reassuring me. There is extensive documentation (e.g. Yahoo FISA) that ALL content not end-to-end-encrypted is ingested for bulk surveillance and decades-long (if not infinite) retention. The only solution is 100% end to end encryption, with NO mechanism for unauthorised access (including law enforcement). Like iMessage and Signal. Anything partial of that, while saying you are pro-privacy, is IMHO harmful to privacy.
  - bad_user 8y ago
    Most email being transmitted on the Internet is in unencrypted form. Most people are not on ProtonMail and do not have a PGP key published. If I were to guess, I’d say that 99%+ emails sent or received by ProtonMail customers are seen by ProtonMail’s servers in unencrypted form.
    - kwhitefoot 8y ago
      > Most email being transmitted on the Internet is in unencrypted form. Really? I use Hotmail, GMail, and Yahoo, and all of these use TLS so it is encrypted in transit.
  - grincho 8y ago
    iMessages are encrypted, but it's Apple who hands the client one or more public keys with which to encrypt them—and that's each time; there is no key pinning. They could easily hand you a public key whose private key they or another malicious party knows. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 and especially page 58 of the linked https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf.
- bscphil 8y ago
  Would Fastmail ever consider verifying signed messages? Authenticity is one of many things gained through using PGP, and implementing it in the Fastmail interface wouldn't lead to the false sense of security that "encrypted" email in the browser supposedly gives.
  - brongondwana 8y ago
    Perhaps - though it leads to either offering a way for users to manage their keychain, or managing those trust relationships ourselves - and of course adds a channel where we could be compelled to lie to users about authentication on the message. Right now the only authentication signal we display on the website is a green tick if the message came from one of our staff or one of our trusted systems.
InGodsName 8y ago
I wonder why no one has ever made PGP user-friendly. Some might argue whatsapp or signal or Telegram E2E is exactly that. I talk about the email.
- Niksko 8y ago
  I'm sure this has been said before, but: "easy" = "i don't have to manage my key" = "insecure because then the existing telecoms act covers this". That's likely the crux of it
- dane-pgp 8y ago
  ProtonMail say that they've made PGP user-friendly, and I'm inclined to agree with them: https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/how-to-use-pgp/ https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/how-to-use-pgp... "This means that with ProtonMail, anybody can use PGP, regardless of their technical knowledge." Something like this would make things even more transparent to end users: https://autocrypt.org/ https://autocrypt.org/
  - bad_user 8y ago
    Imo ProtoMail is snake oil: When you’re communicating with email addresses outside of ProtonMail, their servers will see your emails. Your emails might then be encrypted “at rest”, but they’ve passed through their servers unencrypted anyway. To workaround it, for sending to email addresses without a ProtonMail account, AFAIK they also give the possibility to send a link to a ProtonMail interface for decryption. And also web interfaces are inherently insecure for E2E encryption, which ProtonMail encourages. This is not how email is supposed to work. Speaking of email ProtonMail also doesn’t work via standard IMAP and SMTP. You need an adapter to use classic mail clients and that only works on the desktop. In other words ProtonMail is anti-standards. And for me standards are more important than promises of privacy that an email service can’t really meet. Unless you’re doing PGP or similar, independent of the email service being used, then email is incompatible with encryption.
    - zaarn 8y ago

by Jedi72 8y ago

brongondwana 8y ago

Thanks - that's pretty much exactly it. If someone needs end-to-end encryption, it's only safe from intermediate third parties if they aren't trusting software which is updated by those third parties. So we use effective methods to protect the privacy of our users while performing our civic duty of assisting law enforcement when bad actors use or abuse our platform, and we never pretend to use the bulk of our customers as human shields to protect bad actors trying to hide among them.

dannyw 8y ago
It's weird that you take this stance. It almost feels like you're implying that ProtonMail is a bad actor, and end to end encryption is bad because 'civic duty'. That's like "but terrorism". I understand that you're not a privacy-first company, but still, your communications haven't been reassuring me. There is extensive documentation (e.g. Yahoo FISA) that ALL content not end-to-end-encrypted is ingested for bulk surveillance and decades-long (if not infinite) retention. The only solution is 100% end to end encryption, with NO mechanism for unauthorised access (including law enforcement). Like iMessage and Signal. Anything partial of that, while saying you are pro-privacy, is IMHO harmful to privacy.
- bad_user 8y ago
  Most email being transmitted on the Internet is in unencrypted form. Most people are not on ProtonMail and do not have a PGP key published. If I were to guess, I’d say that 99%+ emails sent or received by ProtonMail customers are seen by ProtonMail’s servers in unencrypted form.
  - kwhitefoot 8y ago
    > Most email being transmitted on the Internet is in unencrypted form. Really? I use Hotmail, GMail, and Yahoo, and all of these use TLS so it is encrypted in transit.
- grincho 8y ago
  iMessages are encrypted, but it's Apple who hands the client one or more public keys with which to encrypt them—and that's each time; there is no key pinning. They could easily hand you a public key whose private key they or another malicious party knows. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 and especially page 58 of the linked https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf.
bscphil 8y ago
Would Fastmail ever consider verifying signed messages? Authenticity is one of many things gained through using PGP, and implementing it in the Fastmail interface wouldn't lead to the false sense of security that "encrypted" email in the browser supposedly gives.
- brongondwana 8y ago
  Perhaps - though it leads to either offering a way for users to manage their keychain, or managing those trust relationships ourselves - and of course adds a channel where we could be compelled to lie to users about authentication on the message. Right now the only authentication signal we display on the website is a green tick if the message came from one of our staff or one of our trusted systems.

InGodsName 8y ago

I wonder why no one has ever made PGP user-friendly. Some might argue whatsapp or signal or Telegram E2E is exactly that. I talk about the email.

Niksko 8y ago
I'm sure this has been said before, but: "easy" = "i don't have to manage my key" = "insecure because then the existing telecoms act covers this". That's likely the crux of it
dane-pgp 8y ago
ProtonMail say that they've made PGP user-friendly, and I'm inclined to agree with them: https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/how-to-use-pgp/ https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/how-to-use-pgp... "This means that with ProtonMail, anybody can use PGP, regardless of their technical knowledge." Something like this would make things even more transparent to end users: https://autocrypt.org/ https://autocrypt.org/
- bad_user 8y ago
  Imo ProtoMail is snake oil: When you’re communicating with email addresses outside of ProtonMail, their servers will see your emails. Your emails might then be encrypted “at rest”, but they’ve passed through their servers unencrypted anyway. To workaround it, for sending to email addresses without a ProtonMail account, AFAIK they also give the possibility to send a link to a ProtonMail interface for decryption. And also web interfaces are inherently insecure for E2E encryption, which ProtonMail encourages. This is not how email is supposed to work. Speaking of email ProtonMail also doesn’t work via standard IMAP and SMTP. You need an adapter to use classic mail clients and that only works on the desktop. In other words ProtonMail is anti-standards. And for me standards are more important than promises of privacy that an email service can’t really meet. Unless you’re doing PGP or similar, independent of the email service being used, then email is incompatible with encryption.
  - zaarn 8y ago