12 ms·

Sir Tim Berners-Lee joins Proton’s advisory board

84 points by grappler 5y ago

fnord77 5y ago
this was probably in the works before the IP address situation.
- laurent92 5y ago
  So they announce he joins the day after they announced that they log everyone’s IP address and give them to authorities?
  - nxpnsv 5y ago
    Everyone who the swiss gov explicitly forces them to?
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    You cannot negotiate and execute a deal with TimBL in one day. Anyone like that will see your desperate urgency as a major red flag and guys like him, their personal reputation is their only asset (W3C is irrelevant)
    - laurent92 5y ago
      It’s just on the rollout plan. When you want to ensure something is done, you set it in the prerequisites, and joining is only confirmed after the prereqs are fulfilled.
  - blub 5y ago
    They apparently log the IP addresses for customers where they receive a warrant from the local authorities. Not everyone’s IP and they don’t just give them away. But on the positive side, one does not have to use PM. There’s plenty of encrypted e-mail providers out there that will not store any info whatsoever on their customers and should the police ever dare question them they’d rather die shooting than give them anything anyway.
    - Thoughtful 5y ago
      Is there? Could you give some examples of email providers that wouldn't comply with a legal request? Protonmail, from what I understand, does contest the requests it receives, but some they have to follow. My impression is that this would be true for any provider.
dane-pgp 5y ago
Obligatory hot take: So is Sir Tim going to advise them to add DRM to email? To be fair though, his decision to approve EME as a web standard[0] has not had the disastrous effects that some of his critics imagined. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/06/berners_lee_web_drm_w3c/ https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/06/berners_lee_web_drm_w...
ddtaylor 5y ago
* ProtonMail advertises no IP logging and overall this is very unlikely. I prefer the more transparent privacy tools that make it clear what their legally required to log and what that are required to provide to LEOs. * ProtonMail Tor hidden service is mostly a joke. Their signup isn't available over it. This combined with no support for actually anonymous methods of payment make their advertising of "anonymous email" dubious. I understand the challenges involved, but if you can't overcome/mitigate them, then don't make those claims. * Email is not a secure protocol and most every permutation of webmail is not securely implemented. Unless you're using PGP on the client side you will be trusting the provider. * The steps required currently to run webapps and verify they haven't been altered are obtuse especially if you want to continue to get any kind of new features or updates.
- blub 5y ago
  Yes, and this is the best one can get in 2021. So it would be nice if everyone stopped attacking them at every step and started building that mythical private e-mail service that they’re talking about instead.
  - ddtaylor 5y ago
    I'll take a provider that is transparent over one that makes claims they cannot backup. cock.li is more transparent in that regard despite being a complete meme.
    - blub 5y ago
      cock.li seems to be just your average e-mail provider with no security features, as they existed since the dawn of internet. They have access to e-mail metadata and contents, and so does law enforcement or anyone hacking their servers. How can they not be transparent? They don't have any technical reason to make any security claims.
      - reginold 5y ago
        I may not understand cock.li, what feature/aspect does this quote refer to: "Cock.li has not had a successful demand for user information since 2017, thanks in large part to better education of law enforcement that contact cock.li."
deadalus 5y ago
ProtonMail should collaborate with Lavabit to see if it's feasible to implement Darkmail (DMTP/DMAP protocols) in production : https://darkmail.info/ https://darkmail.info/
ginko 5y ago
Switzerland is one of the oldest republics out there. Why do they call him 'Sir'? I know the BBC constantly does it but I guess they have to.
- nix23 5y ago
  >Why do they call him 'Sir'? Because that's what you do when someone is a Knight? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee#Awards_and_honours https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee#Awards_and_hon...
  - mmdoda 5y ago
    You misunderstood the question. He is asking why are they honoring his title as Knight in Switzerland, when noble titles are usually abolished in republics. A good example of this can be seen in the Constitution of the US. "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
    - nix23 5y ago
      >No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States It was the Queen who granted him the title, not Switzerland.
    - valarauko 5y ago
      This is a private company's communication, not official Swiss usage. Nor is he being afforded privileges or rights arising from his title, beyond the use of 'Sir'. The 'proper' usage also would have added his titles after his name - OM KBE (Order of Merit & Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire)
- goto11 5y ago
  For the same reason people in the US call the Queen Queen even though she is not actually queen of the US?
threshold 5y ago
ProtonMail’s reputation is unrecoverable period.
vosper 5y ago
Sir Tim has been on the advisory board of the company I work at, for years. As far as I know he has had absolutely zero involvement during the years I've worked there. His name is occasionally trotted out to impress(?) people, and that's it.
2Gkashmiri 5y ago
why cant you set up your own email server in under 5 minutes on a vps server you paid for with crypto and a domain name and call it a day? you own the server and a such, you are certain only you can see your side of the email. then do whatever shiny PGP or whatever and you are good to go. why is this a problem?
- chinathrow 5y ago
  Your deliverability will suck as pointed out here on HN for quite some time. Also, your VPS provider can still be compelled to (try) deanonymize you.
  - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
    i run a mailinabox for almost a year now. had initial trouble with gmail. now its all fine and i have no trouble connecting to anyone. as i said, when you pay with crypto, the VPS provider has what data on you? you obviously wont use your real name to sign up for vps or domain so what can they give besides access to the server? even if that was done, won't you know?
    - chinathrow 5y ago
      Your VPS provider has your IP address. If it's from a VPN, your VPN provider can be compelled to de-anonymize you.
      - junon 5y ago
        Public facing SMTP, Tor hidden service for IMAP, all on a VPS and domain paid for with tumbled cc? Unless you worry about your ISP knowing you use Tor (there are some ways around that, kinda), I can't imagine how they'd DA you. E: ... aside from some sort of Tor-based attack, of course.
        2Gkashmiri 5y ago
        i would say this. how about we use crypto to pay for a vps. then install tor on it and over that, an email server. i can imagine this being not a difficult endeavour
hammyhavoc 5y ago
"Our vision is to build an internet where privacy is the default by creating an ecosystem of services accessible to everyone, everywhere, every day." Building an internet and providing privacy don't go hand-in-unlovable-hand with SaaS. Decentralization is an important solution to most threat models, as is having physical possession of your server and data. Centralization is the problem here. Why complicate things when you could just acknowledge that email is archaic and unsuitable for privacy in 2021, and start running your own Matrix home server if you have something worth keeping private? Trotting out Berners-Lee isn't helping their credibility following the environmental activist debacle. Actions speak louder than words. As has been evidenced, centralized privacy-oriented SaaS provided by businesses are not fit for purpose. Users should take responsibility for their own data and assume everything is compromised by default.
- thereddaikon 5y ago
  On a reddit AMA several years ago Tim or the PR people representing him claimed that he and his team tat Cern were responsible for the open source movement. Except their browser wasn't opened until after the fact, and Stallman and FSF had been doing their thing for years before. He lost a lot of credibility with me after that.
  - hammyhavoc 5y ago
    Wasn't aware of that claim of starting the open source movement! How someone ever thought they would get away with a claim as silly as that is beyond me. He's also sold a gimmicky cryptoart NFT through Sotheby’s, contributing to and indirectly endorsing environmental destruction. He of all people should be leading by example with how to make existing and future technologies more environmentally-friendly.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      > indirectly endorsing environmental destruction. Didn't creating the web also indirectly cause a lot of environmental destruction? Oh, you mean that your energy use is strictly necessary, whereas other people using energy for something that doesn't interest you is morally wrong. Got it.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
He's been a Google puppet for years, this is meaningless.
nbzso 5y ago
I use Tutanota. Canceled payed accounts of Proton in 2018. I don't encrypt messages. And I don't expect privacy. I use this services because of more clean UX than Gmail or competitors. Every message that I send is mainly related to work and personal communication is related to consumerism topics. Everything else is communicated in physical presence of the person that will receive the talk. It is over. Internet is commercial outlet. I use it as such. Our devices are data collection tools. Our future is engineered towards automation of policing and processing. Decentralization of Internet will not be allowed and possibly be outlawed in the coming years. In the moment in which VPN is prohibited I am prepared to go totally offline. I have so many books to read, and music to listen to without paying corporations a dime. The basic computer functions that are needed in this context can be provided by old computers with Linux without a problem. Welcome to the future, where you censor yourself willingly and avoid corporate technological advancements as a plague. :)

84 points by grappler 5y ago

fnord77 5y ago

this was probably in the works before the IP address situation.

laurent92 5y ago
So they announce he joins the day after they announced that they log everyone’s IP address and give them to authorities?
- nxpnsv 5y ago
  Everyone who the swiss gov explicitly forces them to?
- spoonjim 5y ago
  You cannot negotiate and execute a deal with TimBL in one day. Anyone like that will see your desperate urgency as a major red flag and guys like him, their personal reputation is their only asset (W3C is irrelevant)
  - laurent92 5y ago
    It’s just on the rollout plan. When you want to ensure something is done, you set it in the prerequisites, and joining is only confirmed after the prereqs are fulfilled.
- blub 5y ago
  They apparently log the IP addresses for customers where they receive a warrant from the local authorities. Not everyone’s IP and they don’t just give them away. But on the positive side, one does not have to use PM. There’s plenty of encrypted e-mail providers out there that will not store any info whatsoever on their customers and should the police ever dare question them they’d rather die shooting than give them anything anyway.
  - Thoughtful 5y ago
    Is there? Could you give some examples of email providers that wouldn't comply with a legal request? Protonmail, from what I understand, does contest the requests it receives, but some they have to follow. My impression is that this would be true for any provider.

dane-pgp 5y ago

Obligatory hot take: So is Sir Tim going to advise them to add DRM to email? To be fair though, his decision to approve EME as a web standard[0] has not had the disastrous effects that some of his critics imagined. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/06/berners_lee_web_drm_w3c/ https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/06/berners_lee_web_drm_w...

ddtaylor 5y ago

* ProtonMail advertises no IP logging and overall this is very unlikely. I prefer the more transparent privacy tools that make it clear what their legally required to log and what that are required to provide to LEOs. * ProtonMail Tor hidden service is mostly a joke. Their signup isn't available over it. This combined with no support for actually anonymous methods of payment make their advertising of "anonymous email" dubious. I understand the challenges involved, but if you can't overcome/mitigate them, then don't make those claims. * Email is not a secure protocol and most every permutation of webmail is not securely implemented. Unless you're using PGP on the client side you will be trusting the provider. * The steps required currently to run webapps and verify they haven't been altered are obtuse especially if you want to continue to get any kind of new features or updates.

blub 5y ago
Yes, and this is the best one can get in 2021. So it would be nice if everyone stopped attacking them at every step and started building that mythical private e-mail service that they’re talking about instead.
- ddtaylor 5y ago
  I'll take a provider that is transparent over one that makes claims they cannot backup. cock.li is more transparent in that regard despite being a complete meme.
  - blub 5y ago
    cock.li seems to be just your average e-mail provider with no security features, as they existed since the dawn of internet. They have access to e-mail metadata and contents, and so does law enforcement or anyone hacking their servers. How can they not be transparent? They don't have any technical reason to make any security claims.
    - reginold 5y ago
      I may not understand cock.li, what feature/aspect does this quote refer to: "Cock.li has not had a successful demand for user information since 2017, thanks in large part to better education of law enforcement that contact cock.li."

deadalus 5y ago

ProtonMail should collaborate with Lavabit to see if it's feasible to implement Darkmail (DMTP/DMAP protocols) in production : https://darkmail.info/ https://darkmail.info/

ginko 5y ago

Switzerland is one of the oldest republics out there. Why do they call him 'Sir'? I know the BBC constantly does it but I guess they have to.

nix23 5y ago
>Why do they call him 'Sir'? Because that's what you do when someone is a Knight? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee#Awards_and_honours https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee#Awards_and_hon...
- mmdoda 5y ago
  You misunderstood the question. He is asking why are they honoring his title as Knight in Switzerland, when noble titles are usually abolished in republics. A good example of this can be seen in the Constitution of the US. "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
  - nix23 5y ago
    >No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States It was the Queen who granted him the title, not Switzerland.
  - valarauko 5y ago
    This is a private company's communication, not official Swiss usage. Nor is he being afforded privileges or rights arising from his title, beyond the use of 'Sir'. The 'proper' usage also would have added his titles after his name - OM KBE (Order of Merit & Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire)
goto11 5y ago
For the same reason people in the US call the Queen Queen even though she is not actually queen of the US?

threshold 5y ago

ProtonMail’s reputation is unrecoverable period.

vosper 5y ago

Sir Tim has been on the advisory board of the company I work at, for years. As far as I know he has had absolutely zero involvement during the years I've worked there. His name is occasionally trotted out to impress(?) people, and that's it.

2Gkashmiri 5y ago

why cant you set up your own email server in under 5 minutes on a vps server you paid for with crypto and a domain name and call it a day? you own the server and a such, you are certain only you can see your side of the email. then do whatever shiny PGP or whatever and you are good to go. why is this a problem?

chinathrow 5y ago
Your deliverability will suck as pointed out here on HN for quite some time. Also, your VPS provider can still be compelled to (try) deanonymize you.
- 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  i run a mailinabox for almost a year now. had initial trouble with gmail. now its all fine and i have no trouble connecting to anyone. as i said, when you pay with crypto, the VPS provider has what data on you? you obviously wont use your real name to sign up for vps or domain so what can they give besides access to the server? even if that was done, won't you know?
  - chinathrow 5y ago
    Your VPS provider has your IP address. If it's from a VPN, your VPN provider can be compelled to de-anonymize you.
    - junon 5y ago
      Public facing SMTP, Tor hidden service for IMAP, all on a VPS and domain paid for with tumbled cc? Unless you worry about your ISP knowing you use Tor (there are some ways around that, kinda), I can't imagine how they'd DA you. E: ... aside from some sort of Tor-based attack, of course.
      - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
        i would say this. how about we use crypto to pay for a vps. then install tor on it and over that, an email server. i can imagine this being not a difficult endeavour

hammyhavoc 5y ago

"Our vision is to build an internet where privacy is the default by creating an ecosystem of services accessible to everyone, everywhere, every day." Building an internet and providing privacy don't go hand-in-unlovable-hand with SaaS. Decentralization is an important solution to most threat models, as is having physical possession of your server and data. Centralization is the problem here. Why complicate things when you could just acknowledge that email is archaic and unsuitable for privacy in 2021, and start running your own Matrix home server if you have something worth keeping private? Trotting out Berners-Lee isn't helping their credibility following the environmental activist debacle. Actions speak louder than words. As has been evidenced, centralized privacy-oriented SaaS provided by businesses are not fit for purpose. Users should take responsibility for their own data and assume everything is compromised by default.

thereddaikon 5y ago
On a reddit AMA several years ago Tim or the PR people representing him claimed that he and his team tat Cern were responsible for the open source movement. Except their browser wasn't opened until after the fact, and Stallman and FSF had been doing their thing for years before. He lost a lot of credibility with me after that.
- hammyhavoc 5y ago
  Wasn't aware of that claim of starting the open source movement! How someone ever thought they would get away with a claim as silly as that is beyond me. He's also sold a gimmicky cryptoart NFT through Sotheby’s, contributing to and indirectly endorsing environmental destruction. He of all people should be leading by example with how to make existing and future technologies more environmentally-friendly.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    > indirectly endorsing environmental destruction. Didn't creating the web also indirectly cause a lot of environmental destruction? Oh, you mean that your energy use is strictly necessary, whereas other people using energy for something that doesn't interest you is morally wrong. Got it.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

He's been a Google puppet for years, this is meaningless.

nbzso 5y ago

I use Tutanota. Canceled payed accounts of Proton in 2018. I don't encrypt messages. And I don't expect privacy. I use this services because of more clean UX than Gmail or competitors. Every message that I send is mainly related to work and personal communication is related to consumerism topics. Everything else is communicated in physical presence of the person that will receive the talk. It is over. Internet is commercial outlet. I use it as such. Our devices are data collection tools. Our future is engineered towards automation of policing and processing. Decentralization of Internet will not be allowed and possibly be outlawed in the coming years. In the moment in which VPN is prohibited I am prepared to go totally offline. I have so many books to read, and music to listen to without paying corporations a dime. The basic computer functions that are needed in this context can be provided by old computers with Linux without a problem. Welcome to the future, where you censor yourself willingly and avoid corporate technological advancements as a plague. :)