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The problem with Fastmail is its based in Australia. A big no no if you care about your privacy. They need to backdoor every session to comply with Australian
by jacooper 4y ago
The problem with Fastmail is its based in Australia.
A big no no if you care about your privacy.
They need to backdoor every session to comply with Australian rules, and every Australian is forced legally to comply, even if in an international company.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-security-data-idUSKBN1O42SR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-security-data-i...
https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/australia-surveillance-bill https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/australia-surveillance-bill
- Intermernet 4y agoThis is correct. Fastmail have actually spoken about this, and their silence on any particular topic can possibly be seen as a canary. They're a great company trying to survive in a hostile environment. I really hope that the new Australian federal government will get around to winding back some of the draconian laws the previous mob brought in, but I'm not holding my breath.
- Kalanos 4y agoI too have heard about many surprisingly draconian policies in australia
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoIt is not correct. In order to need a backdoor, the service would have to be E2E in the first place, which it is not. Uninformed HNers bring this up on every Fastmail thread like it's a big deal when it has zero actual impact on Fastmail at all.
- phpisthebest 4y agoA government forcing backdoors into E2E is always a big deal, not with standing on if it impacts fast mail or not
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoBut this is a Fastmail thread, so a government forcing backdoors into E2E is an off-topic comment, actually.
- NegativeK 4y agoE2E isn't a requirement for something to be called a backdoor, even though governments are constantly demanding E2E backdoors. An attacker having shell access or a government getting plaintext dumps of whatever email conversations they want (when users don't expect it) are perfect examples of backdoors. AT&T giving the NSA a secret room for them to suck up all comms, encrypted are not, is also a classic example.
- aldonius 4y agoDefinitely not holding my breath. Every time the Coalition say the magic words "national security" Labor jump without even stopping to ask "how high".
- WesolyKubeczek 4y agoProbably a good thing I’m not planning to overturn the Australian government using a combat-trained herd of pissed off emus.
- Wildgoose 4y agoFor those unaware of the subtle wit above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
- counttheforks 4y ago
- rakoo 4y agoFastmail is a company providing email services. No company doing that can every give you privacy against a government looking at who you're talking to, when you're talking to them. Only a minority protect the content, and even then it's only when using a proprietary protocol. The protocol itself prevents email from being safe privacy-wise. It feels weird to single out Fastmail for that.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoIt's really disappointing to see this comment second on a page despite the fact that yet again... the law has no impact on Fastmail and never has. This is the unfortunate impact of FUD, where clueless comments will carry forward wrong views for years, even in the face of overwhelming truth around it. Fastmail is not an end-to-end encrypted service. There is no requirement to backdoor it, like nearly every other non-E2E service, the Australian government can just... send a legal request. Like they always could. Or like they can do with nearly every other email service.
- atmosx 4y agoTrue, the fact they are based in Australia is the only reason I'm thinking about switching mail provider. Australian laws are scary.
- iszomer 4y agoBased/headquartered in Australia yet have servers hosted in multiple locations around the world? IIRC, some are in New Jersey and don't know how accurate it still is [1]. - https://fastmail.blog/company/nyi-datacentre-move/ https://fastmail.blog/company/nyi-datacentre-move/
- zwily 4y agoIf the Australian laws are like the US’s, where the servers are located does not matter.
- severino 4y agoSo, that's the worst of both worlds, right? Servers are in the US but still have to be subject to Australian laws, and also, they are subject to the US law for being in that country.
- iszomer 4y agoTo put it into greater (debateable?) context, Australia is part of the Five Eyes too. Food for thought I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
- danielheath 4y agoDid we collectively forget Echelon exists? Email contents are not private from any five eyes state, no matter the provider (maaaaybe one protonmail to another protonmail account, but I doubt it).
- phpisthebest 4y agoI dont view email has a "private" service in the first place, if you want privacy in communications use something other than email
- danesparza 4y agoIf this is your biggest concern, just use PGP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy
- cmg 4y agoThis is fine if you're not concerned about metadata (date, recipients, subject).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- danesparza 4y agoIf that's the case, you definitely shouldn't be using email. :-)
- masukomi 4y agopedantry: PGP hasn't been a product for many years. The product is "Semantec Encryption". GPG is still a thing. Separately "just use <public key encription>" implies it's easy to do. Even if we ignore the fact that software support is generally terrible, there's the much bigger problem of convincing the people you email with to use it too. If you're not doing super secret or illegal stuff that's generally not a thing that's going to happen.
- beermonster 4y agoCould just use ProtonMail
- anderspitman 4y agoThey still control your keys. I probably trust Proton more than the Australian government, but if my threat model includes caring about any government accessing my data then e2ee is the only option.
- entropyie 4y agoFact is, 99% of your email exchanges will be with MS and google anyway, so that horse has bolted. In terms of the threat model facing 99% of people, getting auto banned from Gmail is a far bigger risk than big brother reading their email. I care about privacy and seriously considered protonmail, bit it was too hard to use effectively (no IMAP) and FastMail is still a huge step up from Gmail or self hosting, balancing ease of use and risk mitigation. Excited to try out the API!
- jacooper 4y agoPersonally I use Protonmail with no problems. The bridge on Desktop is OK, and their mobile app is better than every mobile open source android client I have seen.
- bsder 4y agoAs opposed to, say, Gmail? Fastmail, even with Australian rules, is way better than having your stuff buried in Google or Microsoft. However, if you don't like fastmail, who would you recommend instead?
- jacooper 4y agoProtonMail, Tutanota, Mailbox.org
- bsder 4y agoI don't need encrypted email and all the hassle that goes along with that. That's not my threat model (and it wouldn't help since 50%+ of my email goes to Google and Microsoft anyway ...). All I want is an email provider somewhere that will actually force someone to show up in person with a subpoena rather than turn over all my emails to a random bureaucrat who waggles some electrons suggestively.
- stereoradonc 4y agoThere's no point in being paranoid about "privacy". Where's the perfect privacy? I have been with Fastmail for over 14 years now, and I didn't feel the need to abandon them for other "privacy toting email service providers like Proton and Tutanota". I welcome the Australian government to check my filter rules on how to manage inbox zero and an excellent spam filter. While they are at it, I would welcome if they have a tutorial on sieve filter rules. I'd be delighted if their technocrat helps me with managing my MX records a pain-free experience.
- anecdotal1 4y ago> They need to backdoor every session to comply with Australian rules, and every Australian is forced legally to comply, even if in an international company. No, they need a warrant https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178
- jacooper 4y agoRead the comments of that post.