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Privacy is also meant to protect you from the state, or more specifically state abuse. It's an essential aspect of privacy. Like privacy is also meant to e.g.

Privacy is also meant to protect you from the state, or more specifically state abuse. It's an essential aspect of privacy. Like privacy is also meant to e.g. not disclose topics you have communicated about so that it can't be abused against you. For example there is a long history of states persecuting people for idk. being gay, believing in a certain religion or being a journalist which was involved in a unpleasant disclosure. Still privacy and anonymity are two tightly related but different things. Mainly privacy of communication doesn't always imply anonymity, through sometimes does (and has too!). Anyway it is foolish and somewhat strange to believe that a legally operating email service will protect you against judge backed lawful orders (no matter if it should be lawful or not). Handing out metadata isn't even the worst which can happen, e.g. a judge might order them to make copies of unencrypted mails you receive or make copies of unencrypted mails you write or even undermine your encryption the next time you login. They can try to dispute it and that alone does reduce abuse potential (if they operate in a place which still can be called a state of law) in the end especially for mail there is just no true privacy and even less anonymity. Which doesn't mean their service is useless. Just if you worry about political prosecution by EU countries, or do crime it's not protecting you.

matheusmoreira 2y ago
Some interesting facts about Proton Mail. It generates OpenPGP keys on their own servers, and if you want to use your own keys their instructions show users how to upload upload their entire OpenPGP secret keychain to Proton Mail. Not just encryption/signing subkeys, the master key also needs to be included. I've emailed them to ask that they fix this. I also created a post on their user voice thing about it. https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-proton-mail/suggestions/48298640-import-own-openpgp-subkeys-only https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-proton-mail/s... TLDR; Proton Mail tells users to do this: gpg --armor --export-secret-keys "${USER_ID}" | import-into-proton-mail They should support this instead: gpg --armor --export-secret-subkeys "${PROTON_ENCR_SUBKEY_ID}!" | import-into-proton-mail gpg --armor --export-secret-subkeys "${PROTON_SIGN_SUBKEY_ID}!" | import-into-proton-mail First one leaks the user's master key to them.
- ta988 2y ago
  Of course they will not. If you look at everything they propose there is always that one thing that makes them control everything. Their IMAP bridge, key generation etc
  - trog 2y ago
    I don't know much about Proton Mail but presumably they want that so they can actually provide you with a more complete service, other than just being a mail gateway? I would assume that any technically sophisticated users who just want an SMTP/IMAP server would never let their keys leave their control, but there might be other users for whom a "middle layer" service which has their keys is good enough. (I guess this is especially evident in cryptoassets where people seem to cheerfully let third parties manage their tokens, so it's not really surprising to me that there are a bunch of people willing to do it with their PGP keys for email purposes.) I guess there's an argument about whether or not they're being responsible in providing such an option at all, which is fair enough.
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    It's how they make OpenPGP easy to use. Everyone who's ever tried it knows how hopelessly complicated it is. Their bridge's entire purpose is to present a standard email server to email clients so that all the OpenPGP stuff can be done automatically and transparently behind the scenes. Does that create trust issues? Absolutely. Still, OpenPGP sucks and I just can't fault them for trying to fix it. They're even participating in the standards bodies alongside other OpenPGP projects trying to modernize the whole thing. Somehow it resulted in gpg forking the standard and making everything even worse. It was hard to use before, now it's hard and fragmented. https://lwn.net/Articles/953797/ https://lwn.net/Articles/953797/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38554393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38554393 I suppose they could have gpg or OpenPGP smartcard integration in the bridge, then it could use those keys to sign and encrypt. That's more secure but creates quite a bit of hassle. Suddenly the web and mobile apps become incapable of sending OpenPGP email unless you have the smartcard connected. I've got two NFC enabled YubiKeys and I can't even begin to imagine how to connect this stuff to a smartphone. Looks like there isn't enough support for it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40177539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40177539
happymellon 2y ago
> Mainly privacy of communication doesn't always imply anonymity, through sometimes does (and has too!). Anonymity is simply people not knowing who you are, not necessarily what you say. It's not privacy of communication, but privacy of identity. I can post on the internet as Anonymous Coward, and those posts are public even though my identity is private. I can encrypt an email and send it, and it will be picked up by all the relays. They can look up the source and identify me, but hopefully not read the email contents.
- dathinab 2y ago
  yes but also sometimes just knowing a persons identity can infringe on their privacy I would say anonymity is an aspect of privacy, one you sometimes but not always need. e.g. I would say leaking who was present at a anonymous self help group isn't just breaking anonymity but also infringing on privacy
  - happymellon 2y ago
    I didn't say that identity wasn't privacy. I said that the post I responded to was conflating two different types of privacy. Who said things is different to what was said. Bob and Alice spoke about something, is not the same as Anon to Anon "The government is listening". One is the message and one is metadata. They are protected in different ways and leaked in different ways. Mixing the two means that you will probably not get the protection that you desire.
- oooyay 2y ago
  Just because you don't use your name doesn't make the service anonymous. Pseudo anonymous is still in the privacy bucket because there's still likely (given websites today) personal information associated with your account. True anonymity could be achieved, but it'd be difficult to maintain.

matheusmoreira 2y ago

Some interesting facts about Proton Mail. It generates OpenPGP keys on their own servers, and if you want to use your own keys their instructions show users how to upload upload their entire OpenPGP secret keychain to Proton Mail. Not just encryption/signing subkeys, the master key also needs to be included. I've emailed them to ask that they fix this. I also created a post on their user voice thing about it. https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-proton-mail/suggestions/48298640-import-own-openpgp-subkeys-only https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-proton-mail/s... TLDR; Proton Mail tells users to do this: gpg --armor --export-secret-keys "${USER_ID}" | import-into-proton-mail They should support this instead: gpg --armor --export-secret-subkeys "${PROTON_ENCR_SUBKEY_ID}!" | import-into-proton-mail gpg --armor --export-secret-subkeys "${PROTON_SIGN_SUBKEY_ID}!" | import-into-proton-mail First one leaks the user's master key to them.

ta988 2y ago
Of course they will not. If you look at everything they propose there is always that one thing that makes them control everything. Their IMAP bridge, key generation etc
- trog 2y ago
  I don't know much about Proton Mail but presumably they want that so they can actually provide you with a more complete service, other than just being a mail gateway? I would assume that any technically sophisticated users who just want an SMTP/IMAP server would never let their keys leave their control, but there might be other users for whom a "middle layer" service which has their keys is good enough. (I guess this is especially evident in cryptoassets where people seem to cheerfully let third parties manage their tokens, so it's not really surprising to me that there are a bunch of people willing to do it with their PGP keys for email purposes.) I guess there's an argument about whether or not they're being responsible in providing such an option at all, which is fair enough.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  It's how they make OpenPGP easy to use. Everyone who's ever tried it knows how hopelessly complicated it is. Their bridge's entire purpose is to present a standard email server to email clients so that all the OpenPGP stuff can be done automatically and transparently behind the scenes. Does that create trust issues? Absolutely. Still, OpenPGP sucks and I just can't fault them for trying to fix it. They're even participating in the standards bodies alongside other OpenPGP projects trying to modernize the whole thing. Somehow it resulted in gpg forking the standard and making everything even worse. It was hard to use before, now it's hard and fragmented. https://lwn.net/Articles/953797/ https://lwn.net/Articles/953797/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38554393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38554393 I suppose they could have gpg or OpenPGP smartcard integration in the bridge, then it could use those keys to sign and encrypt. That's more secure but creates quite a bit of hassle. Suddenly the web and mobile apps become incapable of sending OpenPGP email unless you have the smartcard connected. I've got two NFC enabled YubiKeys and I can't even begin to imagine how to connect this stuff to a smartphone. Looks like there isn't enough support for it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40177539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40177539

happymellon 2y ago

> Mainly privacy of communication doesn't always imply anonymity, through sometimes does (and has too!). Anonymity is simply people not knowing who you are, not necessarily what you say. It's not privacy of communication, but privacy of identity. I can post on the internet as Anonymous Coward, and those posts are public even though my identity is private. I can encrypt an email and send it, and it will be picked up by all the relays. They can look up the source and identify me, but hopefully not read the email contents.

dathinab 2y ago
yes but also sometimes just knowing a persons identity can infringe on their privacy I would say anonymity is an aspect of privacy, one you sometimes but not always need. e.g. I would say leaking who was present at a anonymous self help group isn't just breaking anonymity but also infringing on privacy
- happymellon 2y ago
  I didn't say that identity wasn't privacy. I said that the post I responded to was conflating two different types of privacy. Who said things is different to what was said. Bob and Alice spoke about something, is not the same as Anon to Anon "The government is listening". One is the message and one is metadata. They are protected in different ways and leaked in different ways. Mixing the two means that you will probably not get the protection that you desire.
oooyay 2y ago
Just because you don't use your name doesn't make the service anonymous. Pseudo anonymous is still in the privacy bucket because there's still likely (given websites today) personal information associated with your account. True anonymity could be achieved, but it'd be difficult to maintain.