7 ms·

Proton Meet isn't what they told you it was

167 points by bundie 7mo ago

rvnx 7mo ago
Most of the privacy claims (of all type of apps) are essentially garbage anyway because realistically, if a website or an app can be compelled to push an update to a specific user, then they can intercept anything they want. It doesn't even have to be a specific binary, it can be "just turn on this A/B testing / debug flag for that user" or a piece of javascript
- henearkr 7mo ago
  Is there any evidence that the mechanism to do that is in place? I think that would be widely decried especially on HN if that is one day implemented.
  - Cthulhu_ 7mo ago
    Yes? A/B testing flags, auto-updates, server-side re-routing, etc are just some mechanisms from the top of my head that can do that. The ways to avoid it is by having locked and cryptographically verified software and connections.
    - izacus 7mo ago
      That's not evidence, that's conjecture again. Is there evidence that this kind of client push is actually used to extract data in these projects?
      - Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
        Not sure if that counts as proper evidence, but I have seen some logs[0] albeit with encryption but from my understanding, they control the encryption keys or atleast certainly have the ability to change (if they get hacked themselves for example) Would you like to see a proper evidence of the logging policy? I feel like I can try finding that again if you/HN community would be interested to see that. Edit: also worth pointing out that keeping logs with time might be a form of meta-data, which depending on your threat-vector (journalism etc.) can be very sensitive info. [0]: my another comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624960
        izacus 7mo ago
        I'd like to see any kind of evidence that there's any substance of in these accusations of services not actually being private - not just theoretical theorycrafting about mechanisms. And how does that compare to other services we have available and people actually use.
        Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
        At some point, essentially everyone has to trust the product and more importantly, the company/the people in the company. Firstly its worth clarifying that there isn't really something akin to zero-trust in such cases. Thus the theoretical theorycrafting about mechanisms. Those show that you have to trust proton Now, My issue with proton is that, they try to appear transparent but a lot of what they've done especially with proton meet seems to sometimes even be misleading. If they couldn't create EU/Swiss sovereign infrastructure for meet, then why are they using Cloud-act providers while within the same post talking about the implications of Cloud Act. There is some great irony in all of this and this is what is making me suspicious and how Proton seems to be misleading people rather than leading them towards more privacy. At some point, it raises atleast some questions about trusting proton. > And how does that compare to other services we have available and people actually use. That depends on what service are you talking about from, Do you want a whole eco-system or are you happy with individual apps/companies focusing on one thing in a more unix-fashion of things. Do you prefer non-profits or for-profit companies to handle such infrastructure? How familiar you are with self-hosting and what is your threat vector? Are you a corporate or a person yourself and what are your budget of things? but just to give a pointer without asking these questions, Some good pointers are posteo.de, tutanota, infomaniak (has whole ecosystem) Within the calling system, I personally used to use fairmeeting.net, it used to have screen sharing option for free as well but looks like they might have paywalled it recently. You can find multiple jitsi community instances. I feel like the only way to answer this question is if people ask with more depth. The threat model differs for everybody, for some people (like journalists), even just this proton meet fiasco is enough for them to reconsider proton ecosystem as a whole and consider it too threatening, especially with recent incidents and their lives being on the line. You might say, well where might they go and I feel like they might go to disroot (non-profit activism oriented) or tutanota or even posteo.de depending on what they might prefer.
      - nextaccountic 7mo ago
        That's evidence for the mechanism, as asked The evidence that it's being actively used in the US is in the secret proceedings of a secret court. I kid you not, look up FISA warrant
        henearkr 6mo ago
        There is NO such mechanism (discriminated updates by user), of my knowledge, in: - Linux (apt, pacman, rpm...), - Android And I would add Windows and iOS/MacOS but I'm not at all an expert so I leave others to confirm that their "app stores" don't do such exotic prowesses. You can artificially insert a malicious script in a package that would scan your system, deduce your identity, and install something based on that, but in this case that means that it is just a malware in the first place. And that would mean that the app to be installed contains a "mutable" component of data that is not defined by the contents of the package but rather written upon post-install actions, so that is also dubious to include that for formally in the "app from that package" definition. In any case, such behavior would get your package banned from any app store or Linux distribution.
        nextaccountic 6mo ago
        Yes, the US government and US courts (including the secret court FISC) have tools to compel Google, Apple and other vendors to install malware on users devices. This is exactly the point. The US government routinely deploys malware to users devices, for multiple reasons. Here is a 2017 link about this: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/challenging-government-hacking-whats-stake https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/challenging-gov...
        henearkr 6mo ago
        Would you mind showing me some evidence that software update systems are able to push to you e.g. a different Android update based on your device ID or specific IP? (not just country geolocation) (PS: your link is about deploying malware through other routes, not by normal software updates) Because all the other means I can think of are just basic malwarfare. As you need to rely on a vendor/distributor to get updates, then of course they are able to push you malware, there is absolutely no going around this first ring of trust. Conclusion : there is no point in accusing Proton of anything... there are just being software providers (FOSS by the way!!!).
    - henearkr 6mo ago
      One by one: - A/B testing is agnostic of who the user is, it is randomized. If it was not, that would be a bad practice and would legitimately ruin the reputation of the company doing that, - auto-updates is just the setting allowing the most recently published update to be installed. "Published" means it is for everyone. If that is to be understood in any other meaning, that would also be bad practice, - and I don't see what you mean by server-side re-routing. To be honest, maybe I just live with different platforms and apps than you I don't know. I use Android, and Linux on my Laptop, but I would also expect Windows to not discriminate by user when pushing updates.
  - chrismorgan 7mo ago
    You need mechanisms to avoid the possibility. The mechanisms to do such things exist by default, by both the software provider (e.g. Proton) and the software distributor (e.g. Apple for App Store, Google for Play Store, Cloudflare or AWS for web stuff), and various countries have laws that allow them to secretly compel implementing specific backdoors. In order to block the distributor from going rogue, you need to be able to guarantee that the user device can only install/run code signed by the provider, who must never give those keys to the distributor. My impression is that Android is the only major platform that ever had this, but that Google ruined it a few years ago in the name of lighter bundles by insisting that they hold the keys. (I once had VLC from Google Play Store, but replaced it with a build from F-Droid under the same app ID; Google Play Store shows it has an update for it, but that it can’t install it.) In order to block the provider or distributor sending specific users a different build, you need something more like Certificate Transparency logs: make it so that devices will only run packages that contains proof that they have been publicly shared. (This is necessary, but not sufficient.) And if you’re using web tech, the mechanisms required to preclude such abuse do not at this time exist. If you’re shipping an app by some other channel, it can do a resource integrity check and mandate subresource integrity. But no one does things that way—half the reason for using web tech is specifically to bypass slow update channels and distribute new stuff immediately!
- The_Goonies1985 7mo ago
  >Most of the privacy claims (of all type of apps) are essentially garbage... True. Everything has backdoored CPUs as its foundation. Consider, for starters: (Intel's 'Management' Engine); AMD's (PSP); Apple/Arm (black-box hardware). You can layer as much theater as you like on top of the hardware-surveillance-layer in modern computers; it still won't grant you privacy.
  - badgersnake 7mo ago
    Power is open. But nobody wants to build power devices for some reason.
    - ricardobeat 7mo ago
      Power?
      - supermatt 7mo ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_ISA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_ISA
        ricardobeat 7mo ago
        RISC-V is also open. That “some reason” is likely to be power/performance levels being quite far from ARM & Intel for consumer devices.
        vrganj 7mo ago
        China is building out RISC-V, just like they are leading actually-open AI. https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3347684/alibaba-debuts-its-latest-risc-v-based-chip-amid-shift-ai-agents https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3347684/alibaba-d... Weirdly, the authoritarian state is the one saving us from our own digital authoritarians.
        7mo ago
- boramalper 7mo ago
  > Most of the privacy claims (of all type of apps) are essentially garbage anyway I think that’s a sweeping generalisation.
  - Ylpertnodi 7mo ago
    And sweepingly true.
    - boramalper 7mo ago
      How so? Reproducible builds are a thing.
      - stonogo 7mo ago
        So are networks
        boramalper 7mo ago
        So? If the app is using reproducible builds and is also audited not to contain any backdoors, what do networks have to do with it?
- victorbjorklund 7mo ago
  I don’t think that is a useful definition even if technically true. With that logic even Linux isn’t privacy because in theory they can push code that will only run for you.
  - 63stack 7mo ago
    Linux as in the kernel? Who is "they"? Torvalds?
    - victorbjorklund 6mo ago
      Choose if you think Windows is just the kernel or the operating system. The ones that control whatever source you are pulling the updates from. Very very few people are building everything from source and reading the source in full everytime. Notice I am not saying this is likely. I am saying that it is theoretically possible anytime you accept code from the outside (doesn’t matter if it is pull or push)
  - progbits 7mo ago
    How will they push it?
    - victorbjorklund 6mo ago
      Push or pull is just semantics. Can you honestly say that you never ever updated anything in a Linux distro without first reading the source code, checking all the checksums etc? Be honest.
  - maweaver 7mo ago
    Using what mechanism? Most Linux updates are not pushed but rather pulled at the user request. You can use Linux totally offline. This is fundamentally different than a webapp, where code is sent with every visit
    - izacus 7mo ago
      The automatic updates most distros have enabled by default. Signal desktop outright stops working if you don't constantly pull updates from them.
- kalaksi 7mo ago
  You'll have to be more specific what kind of "privacy claims" you're talking about. Proton is definitely a lot more private than, say, Google. But, as always, you'll have to trust the party delivering the binaries you run. Also, any company operating legally, have to co-operate with court orders etc., but afaik they try to push back
- Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
  I once did some tinkering with Proton Docs and I was able to find that the comments within Proton Docs when I used it via curl definitely felt like it had something like logs (I feel like I should try doing this again to have more definitive answer) Either way, the response was encrypted but they hold the encryption key atleast within proton-docs. I also want to say that Proton allows the ability to change password through OTP, (Something which I sorta appreciate[0]) but that means that their infrastructure can then have the ability to change password and you can toggle that functionality by sending a request to proton to allow OTP and on which number, so proton themselves can do that too. Unless, I am getting it wrong, by default, Proton still has your encryption keys and even if you change them (which 99% including me might not do), even then I definitely feel like there can be some concern. To be honest, There is nothing like zero trust, that's what I learnt, You are still trusting Proton Aka The swiss laws behind it so that you know that they won't get legally forced to give more data than usual (like US companies for example) but they will still comply with the swiss laws (recent proton incident) Then, secondly, you have to trust Proton themselves, but with something like this incident where Proton Meet might be omitting somethings, it doesn't paste a clear picture of transparency or trust. I don't really know why Proton might create something like Meet especially with its infrastructure relying on the CLOUD Act, and then, try to sell it within the idea of privacy. They both are contradictory. Proton is, creating lots of products, On one hand I can appreciate that, but on the other, as part of community, I feel frustrated/sad because they don't have some core features like proper proton drive rsync support or even some API[1]'s surrounding it. I tried to do the experiment in first place because I wanted to create a commenting engine for static websites which could use proton-drive as its backend. They really could gain a lot from transparency with proper API support and letting the community do things with it, but that's not really the case :/ I am still using Proton but they definitely aren't a bastion recently. I might still recommend Proton, but I sort of hope that companies self host some open source applications themselves, whether self-hosting with hardware or in a proper EU cloud like Hetzner/OVH. But Incidents like these are making me a little more hesitant to recommend Proton nowadays. [0]: as someone who had lost one of my previous accounts after my Keepassxc database got deleted because of me accidentally wiping my archlinux with tinkering with it, Now I use Bitwarden with OTP on proton. [1]: I was able to make something like an API myself by relying on something like puppeteer, even with puppeteer though, it was really hard to make something like that. I couldn't create a public endpoint of it because having puppeteer instances for a commenting engine would be very resource intensive.
- akimbostrawman 7mo ago
  >if a website or an app can be compelled to push an update to a specific user, then they can intercept anything they want yes which is why i hoped they would implement a verification system like with a browser addon that compares the website client code used for encryption and alerts the user if it does not match the one served everyone else. ctemplar mail used to have this many years ago https://web.archive.org/web/20200201012958/https://ctemplar.com/ctemplar-checksum-implementation/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200201012958/https://ctemplar....
- illiac786 7mo ago
  Privacy and security are not binary. Statements like “because it isn’t 100% secure or private, then it is not worth it” means one has essentially no clue. There is not such thing as 100% privacy or security, for starters. It’s all layers of protection and/or trust and compromises.
ErroneousBosh 7mo ago
What a shitty website. I got to about the third slowly-fading-in-picture-of-text block and realised that whether or not I wanted to read it, it's more effort than it's worth.
- ramon156 7mo ago
  May I suggest reader view in FF? It's the first thing I do when I open an article (Ctrl+Alt+R)
  - j16sdiz 7mo ago
    Some text (e.g. what metadata is included) are only in the animation -- not in the reader view. The animation is just some text fading in. If you want to read those text, the only way is disable reader mode and wait..
  - arcza 7mo ago
    No, if a website is that obnoxious I just close the tab. It is not worth yet another mental drain on my limited attention span to read slop. Just give me the boring single .htm page with your thoughts or a Wordpress site with minimal plugins. I'd hate to think the strain the author puts on people with accessible needs making this.
    - ramon156 7mo ago
      I mean I agree, but this kind of mindset is stupid. Blaming everyone for your inconvenience gets you nowhere. I can complain, or I can fix
      - IAmBroom 7mo ago
        Many posts on this thread complain about how hard and unpleasant to read the article is. How is that not a valid complaint? And calling their "mindset" stupid... wow.
        6mo ago
a-rbsn 7mo ago
easiest way to private video calls is just to self-host Jitsi Meet anyway
pogue 7mo ago
After Proton has repeatedly turned over users of their email account to law enforcement, always with many excuses, their claims about no ability for any government to see what's going on on their network ran very hollow. I know Brave has offered their talk video conferencing service for awhile, but I don't know if any serious network analysis has been performed on it. https://talk.brave.com/ https://talk.brave.com/ For document collaboration, I'm not aware of much else that's private/encrypted (etc) however. https://www.privacyguides.org/en/document-collaboration/ https://www.privacyguides.org/en/document-collaboration/
- mastermage 7mo ago
  Privacy and anonymity are not the same. I am fundamentally against spyware that constantly monitors you and reports anything. Because of the constant and pre crime nature of it. On the other hand i am actually not fundamentally against turning over data when independent judges sign a warrant. This is arguably a very tight rope to walk but i think thats the most realistic comporomise between my right to privacy and the right of others to get justice when something is done onto them.
  - readthenotes1 7mo ago
    Perhaps you may not remember the US government's tendency to invade privacy for suspicious reasons (that is, at the very least extra-legal and sometimes downright unconstitutional). You mentioned a warrant. I do not believe that has been a required threshold. E.g., https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/jordan-biggs-demand-answers-from-fbi-on-widespread-fisa-violations-after https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/jordan-biggs-d...
    - mastermage 7mo ago
      I am not American so my lense may be a different one. What I am coming from is basically an extension of the German Laws that Govern the Mail Secret (Briefgeheimnis) which actually is constitutionally enshrined in the German constitution. But has notable exceptions that can be made uppon federal law. The burden for these is supposed to be pretty high. I think this should not happen willy nilly. And if thats the case in the US I am obviously against it. It is a complex multi layered subject because it has to weigh the rights of multiple people against each other.
irusensei 7mo ago
I'm sorry I had to use a feature on my browser I rarely use which is summarize. I'm pretty sure your point is valid and concerning but the way that page was designed is just too painful to read.
- q3k 7mo ago
  I'm so tired of this particular kind of LLM (-assisted) slop. The engagement bait, the stupid little hacker-style animations, the drawn out text... Please, people, use your own words, and don't overdo every little thing. It's tiring. When everybody does this, nobody stands out.
  - DoingFedTime 6mo ago
    The article contains live network captures run with `ss -tnup` during an actual Proton Meet call, DNS resolution and ASN lookups performed in real time, a line-by-line read of LiveKit's DPA identifying them as an independent Controller for call detail records, and CSP headers pulled directly from meet.proton.me. If you found a factual error, name it. "I don't like the animations" is not a methodology critique.
    - pk-voice 6mo ago
      Fair point on the methodology. The ss output and CSP headers are concrete. The LiveKit Controller distinction is the part worth debating-independent Controller vs Processor changes the privacy story significantly. Has Proton responded to that specific claim?
- bootsmann 7mo ago
  Yeah this same site did an article on some minor ubuntu bootloader drama some weeks ago and when I recognized the design I just stopped reading. If you have something to say don’t go out of your way to make it hard to parse.
zero0529 7mo ago
Question is will the government learn anything meaningful if they subpoena the LiveKit providers? (Including and excluding HNDL)
- surgical_fire 7mo ago
  After reading the whole article I was left with the same question. I think they can know the IP from every participant in the call and some other metadata?
  - Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
    > some other metadata "We kill people based on metadata." - Michael Hayden (former NSA and CIA director)
syl5x 7mo ago
The quiz at the end of the article is wild honestly.
jrflowers 7mo ago
This is actually kind of hilarious. “We don’t store your data when you use our service. You hand it over in real time when you use it.”
red_admiral 7mo ago
Is this the web version design of the "moon landings were a hoax" conspiracy poster?
- bKHjNaz23wJ 7mo ago
  [dead]
avazhi 7mo ago
Pretty funny because a few weeks ago some dude felt compelled to virtue signal about how he was moving off American-controlled services like Gmail, as some ostensible protest against Trump and the Iran War. I pointed out that Proton Mail, one of the services he moved to, is ultimately controlled by the US Gov, and my comment got flagged lol. Proton being at the behest of Uncle Sam has been old news for a while.
- guilamu 7mo ago
  "Proton Mail, one of the services he moved to, is ultimately controlled by the US Gov," Would you mind elaborating, pretty please?
  - streetfighter64 7mo ago
    "Controlled" is a bit hyperbolic, but there's a collaboration agreement between the USA government and the Swiss government, so Proton has to comply with requests from for example the FBI. Quoting a comment by Proton staff on Reddit > First, let's correct the headline: Proton did not provide information to the FBI. What happened is that the FBI submitted a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) request, which was processed by the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police. Proton operates exclusively under Swiss law, and we only respond to legally binding orders from Swiss authorities, after all Swiss legal checks have been passed. This is an important distinction. > [...] > The only information Proton could provide was a payment identifier because the user chose to pay with a credit card. This is information the user themselves provided to us through their choice of payment method. Proton also accepts cryptocurrency and cash payments, which would not have been linkable to an identity. So basically, don't trust Proton with information unless you want the FBI to know it.
    - Yiin 7mo ago
      "So basically", what a weird conclusion to take out of it, just don't pay with your credit card for services you can pay cash or crypto.
beevelop 7mo ago
Especially questionable choice by Proton not to opt for the self-hosted option. LiveKit offers an enterprise tier that even lets you set up your own mesh, so you are not dependent on their hosted infra.
- progbits 7mo ago
  To be fair, I'm running a selfhosted livekit deployment at work and it's a major pain in the ass. Obviously proton should selfhost everything but I can understand why they didn't want to.
  - Sean-Der 7mo ago
    What’s painful about running LiveKit? What would make running WebRTC server easier?
raverbashing 7mo ago
I just love people who go on their soapbox to complain about a newer alternative when the status quo is worse "nooo but proton mail complies to court orders!!111" wow shocking I know right? Do you think the other providers don't? These are usually the same people who forget rubber-hose decrypting works "But they use LiveKitCloud" yes - however we don't know half the story Can Proton BYOK over their infra? LiveKit's website TOS with a generic user - not ProtonMail. We don't know if there are any agreements there > "all disputes are governed by the laws of the State of California" Yes this is common with TOS. > Their privacy policy explicitly acknowledges FTC jurisdiction and states the company will "access, preserve, and disclose your information" This is the important part, not the other one above it > showed active connections to 161.115.177.32 on port 443, a LiveKit-owned IP block (ARIN OrgId LIVEK) hosted on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Good test, but what/where was the originating IP? Was it using Brave's VPN (to the US) by any chance? TBH I'm still more annoyed about the 90 day cookie - that was just rude So again "why don't we have better privacy respecting options?" Maybe because if we try to do it some "privacy advicates" will throw a massive fit complaining about all its shorcomings (and still not pay for the service)
- ashikns 7mo ago
  People complain because Proton specifically advertises privacy, mainstream providers don't. Which is pretty reasonable as far as complaining goes. Good job on mocking others though :*
  - InsideOutSanta 7mo ago
    Proton does offer more privacy than mainstream providers, because they have less information to hand over when courts compel them. Proton isn't perfect by any means, but the idea that there is no meaningful privacy difference between Proton and (for example) Gmail because both respond to court orders is flat-out false.
- defrost 7mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption
tamimio 7mo ago
Proton is the most shady company out there, especially with the fact that they try to make you put all your eggs into their basket. I stopped using their email (when they used to be an only email company) when they dropped the .ch domain. Same goes with botched security products like grapheneOS and the likes, when the hardware is backdoored, the modem is tracking you more than your psycho ex, yet you are given these illusion of security to buy.. you are not, in fact, you are gonna get more obvious for fingerprinting than using an average iPhone like most people and blend in. Honeypot, hornets nest, whatever the terminology but the concept being used and is still used to lure people in and make the job easier to ID them than going after them in the wild.
- mdhen 7mo ago
  They definitely still have the .ch domain
  - tamimio 7mo ago
    Only on old emails, my old one still has that double password access.
    - mdhen 7mo ago
      nope, you can make new emails with .ch as well, just not on the free tier. I am looking at my settings now. .ch is definitely an option when creating new emails. I believe pm.me is also only for paid plans.
      - tamimio 7mo ago
        Interesting, thanks. They must’ve changed it then since last time i logged in.
- pkaeding 7mo ago
  What do you use/recommend that are better alternatives?
arcza 7mo ago
What a truly unreadable website. As another commenter said I see a few of these get churned out with the same annoying dark patterns.
IceDane 7mo ago
This is the worst form of Article I've ever seen. Did the author read this? Is there even really an author or did Chatgpt just write all of it and generate the page?
davzie 7mo ago
Interesting how so much negative sentiment creeps out when there's a true European competitor to the big US tech companies.
- draw_down 7mo ago
  [dead]
- BLKNSLVR 7mo ago
  Yeah, there's another thread showing a similar trend. In a strange way it's making Trump's incessant nonsensical big-upping of himself and the US as-a-whole make sense in a cultural context that I hadn't thought was as pervasive as maybe it is. It explains that polls still show 30% support. I don't think I'll ever be not surprised by this.
- Orygin 7mo ago
  They're Swiss, so while technically in Europe, they are not in the EU. Maybe they're closer than the US, but they're still a foreign tech company in the EU.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 7mo ago
    Switzerland has a unique deep integration with the EU even though it is not a member. It is not like the UK.
- starky 7mo ago
  Due to some comments the CEO made regarding a few Trump decisions there are a number of people that believe that the company supports the current US government and are looking for any link they can to prove it.
class3shock 7mo ago
The articles format is awful and designed to wast your time. This article also just points out the use of Livekit but doesn't deliver what that means for your security. Maybe instead of writing a hit piece you could have dug deeper, talked to Proton? I've seen alot of articles and posters here being negative on Proton, calling it "shady", regurgitating facts that are supposed to be gotchas but have tons of nuance if you dig and am beginning to think there is some coordinated effort to get people not to use it.
- paulryanrogers 7mo ago
  I recall hearing some controversy around Australian legislation and Proton cooperation with authorities. Though haven't dug into court records or anything yet. Is there a balanced view someone has summarized somewhere? Are there some references you'd recommend where I can begin to read up?
  - Tadpole9181 7mo ago
    From every instance I've seen, Proton has only ever done what is legally required of them by a warrant. They do not get to say no when asked to turn over what they do have; which is going to be things they can't avoid storing - like email addresses or recurring payment information an account has. But they don't store logs and all actual data is E2E / at-rest encrypted, so that data does not exist for them to give away. There's no master key or back doors.
    - mossTechnician 7mo ago
      The problem is the gap between marketing promises and realities. Proton markets itself as a safe Swiss product[0] for activists[1], but the reality is their accounts often expose more than a casual user may expect, like a secondary email address[2] (often required to sign up) or payment info[3]. The Swissness is even more suspect according to this article, if it's true that they rely so heavily on American infrastructure and don't responsibly disclose this even in their privacy policy. [0]: https://proton.me/blog/switzerland https://proton.me/blog/switzerland [1]: https://proton.me/blog/protesters-free-speech https://proton.me/blog/protesters-free-speech [2]: https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/13/infosec_in_brief/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/13/infosec_in_brief/ [3]: https://slashdot.org/story/453084 https://slashdot.org/story/453084
deleted 7mo ago
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palata 7mo ago
Hmm, I am not completely sure what the website is trying to say (there is soooo much text and it's quite unreadable). But it feels like it says "it is hosted on US servers, so it's baaaaad". The thing is, it seems to be end-to-end encrypted with MLS, which means that the servers cannot decrypt the conversations. Probably some metadata are leaking (which IP is in a call with which other IP), but that's a different threat model. Metadata is always a harder problem. Now I don't know if Proton knows which users are together in a call, or if it's just leaking IPs. Maybe the article says it, but I didn't have time to decrypt it :-).
- DoingFedTime 6mo ago
  Reading the article would help. If you can't read it even has audio.
holtwick 7mo ago
For small groups SFU like Livekit is not needed at all. Still E2E and realtime collab. I wrote such a thing: https://brie.fi/ng https://brie.fi/ng
- Sean-Der 7mo ago
  SFU is nice because it gives everyone privacy. Neither you or ISP know who you are communicating with. Otherwise if everything is trusted I love that we can have conversations without depending on others over the internet :)
  - holtwick 7mo ago
    There's nothing bad about SFU, particularly the version you wrote, which forms the basis of Livekit. It would be my first choice for supporting larger groups in Briefing anyway. If the traffic is E2EE, it doesn't matter if an SFU is involved. The critical part is the signalling, in my opinion. This is where the initial communication is established. In the current version of my app, whose source code is yet to be published, this can happen via an untrusted server.
PedroBatista 7mo ago
Please remind me: Is there any legitimate business venture that can operate outside the laws of the country they are registered? If there is, why don’t these people who write blog posts and comments about how “this is all a scam!!” “It’s a psyop! “They” control it all!” If it’s all black and white, if there no real difference between a company like Proton and Google or Microsoft, then why don’t they create a business that provides a service where there’s no way to any government know anything at all, ever? They’ll be printing money.. But perhaps the conspiracy realm and public broadcast of ideals is more attractive than a real business. Yes, you shouldn’t trust 100% in a person let alone a group of people that form a company. Grow up.
burnt-resistor 7mo ago
<aspiration-rant> It may or may not be Proton Meet or Mail, but all I want is ZK E2EE (email at rest, text always similar to Signal) "Lavabit" with better tech architecture, without mandatory KYC de-anonymization, hosted in some US non-compliant location on real hardware they physically control, by a small, worker-owned co-op cadre of talented technical people who run a tight ship. Bonus points if they offer VPS and OpenVPN/wireguard exit nodes too. </aspiration-rant>
kanehorikawa 7mo ago
[dead]
zelphirkalt 7mo ago
> Proton’s launch blog post for their new video conferencing product contains this paragraph: “laws like the US CLOUD Act can compel US-owned video conferencing platforms to hand over any data they store, even if the servers reside outside of the United States. This creates serious compliance challenges for organizations bound by GDPR, CCPA, or similar data protection laws. That’s why we’ve created Proton Meet.” Actually, it creates an incompatibility, period. How much I dislike all this weasling around, trying to find a gap, where none exists, hoping, that the law won't be followed to the letter, lack of interest in following the law to its logical conclusion, all in the name of wanting to conduct business in an easier way, even if not adhering to the law. I wish all those companies trying that would be gone. Let us have solutions that are inside the EU, many of us don't want the US big tech crap any longer. I wish that governments and people in charge of public institutions and their tech decisions realized this. Instead they weasle around and try the "But we are using Microsoft in the EU!" as if that is worth a dime. Try convincing me, that a company like MS in EU won't oblige, when the command from MS in the US comes to send over some data. Good luck!
fguerraz 7mo ago
A lot of AI generated horseshit.
RDaneel0livaw 7mo ago
What the hell kind of horrible website did I just click on. That may perhaps be the single worst format of any web page I have EVER visited in my entire life. Wow.
butz 7mo ago
Proton has too many services. I wonder how many more they will introduce until Proton Drive will finally receive a Linux Desktop client? The worst thing about "we have everything" services, that they will actively try to shove you each and every service repeatedly on each occasion. As "do not put all your eggs in single basket" type of user I absolutely have this marketing nonsense.
_slih 6mo ago
yo, livekit acts as independent controller for call detail records under their own dpa. that means proton's privacy constraints don't even apply to that data. livekit can hand call records to us law enforcement without notifying proton
greggmendz 6mo ago
[dead]

167 points by bundie 7mo ago

rvnx 7mo ago

Most of the privacy claims (of all type of apps) are essentially garbage anyway because realistically, if a website or an app can be compelled to push an update to a specific user, then they can intercept anything they want. It doesn't even have to be a specific binary, it can be "just turn on this A/B testing / debug flag for that user" or a piece of javascript

henearkr 7mo ago
Is there any evidence that the mechanism to do that is in place? I think that would be widely decried especially on HN if that is one day implemented.
- Cthulhu_ 7mo ago
  Yes? A/B testing flags, auto-updates, server-side re-routing, etc are just some mechanisms from the top of my head that can do that. The ways to avoid it is by having locked and cryptographically verified software and connections.
  - izacus 7mo ago
    That's not evidence, that's conjecture again. Is there evidence that this kind of client push is actually used to extract data in these projects?
    - Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
      Not sure if that counts as proper evidence, but I have seen some logs[0] albeit with encryption but from my understanding, they control the encryption keys or atleast certainly have the ability to change (if they get hacked themselves for example) Would you like to see a proper evidence of the logging policy? I feel like I can try finding that again if you/HN community would be interested to see that. Edit: also worth pointing out that keeping logs with time might be a form of meta-data, which depending on your threat-vector (journalism etc.) can be very sensitive info. [0]: my another comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624960
      - izacus 7mo ago
        I'd like to see any kind of evidence that there's any substance of in these accusations of services not actually being private - not just theoretical theorycrafting about mechanisms. And how does that compare to other services we have available and people actually use.
        Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
        At some point, essentially everyone has to trust the product and more importantly, the company/the people in the company. Firstly its worth clarifying that there isn't really something akin to zero-trust in such cases. Thus the theoretical theorycrafting about mechanisms. Those show that you have to trust proton Now, My issue with proton is that, they try to appear transparent but a lot of what they've done especially with proton meet seems to sometimes even be misleading. If they couldn't create EU/Swiss sovereign infrastructure for meet, then why are they using Cloud-act providers while within the same post talking about the implications of Cloud Act. There is some great irony in all of this and this is what is making me suspicious and how Proton seems to be misleading people rather than leading them towards more privacy. At some point, it raises atleast some questions about trusting proton. > And how does that compare to other services we have available and people actually use. That depends on what service are you talking about from, Do you want a whole eco-system or are you happy with individual apps/companies focusing on one thing in a more unix-fashion of things. Do you prefer non-profits or for-profit companies to handle such infrastructure? How familiar you are with self-hosting and what is your threat vector? Are you a corporate or a person yourself and what are your budget of things? but just to give a pointer without asking these questions, Some good pointers are posteo.de, tutanota, infomaniak (has whole ecosystem) Within the calling system, I personally used to use fairmeeting.net, it used to have screen sharing option for free as well but looks like they might have paywalled it recently. You can find multiple jitsi community instances. I feel like the only way to answer this question is if people ask with more depth. The threat model differs for everybody, for some people (like journalists), even just this proton meet fiasco is enough for them to reconsider proton ecosystem as a whole and consider it too threatening, especially with recent incidents and their lives being on the line. You might say, well where might they go and I feel like they might go to disroot (non-profit activism oriented) or tutanota or even posteo.de depending on what they might prefer.
    - nextaccountic 7mo ago
      That's evidence for the mechanism, as asked The evidence that it's being actively used in the US is in the secret proceedings of a secret court. I kid you not, look up FISA warrant
      - henearkr 6mo ago
        There is NO such mechanism (discriminated updates by user), of my knowledge, in: - Linux (apt, pacman, rpm...), - Android And I would add Windows and iOS/MacOS but I'm not at all an expert so I leave others to confirm that their "app stores" don't do such exotic prowesses. You can artificially insert a malicious script in a package that would scan your system, deduce your identity, and install something based on that, but in this case that means that it is just a malware in the first place. And that would mean that the app to be installed contains a "mutable" component of data that is not defined by the contents of the package but rather written upon post-install actions, so that is also dubious to include that for formally in the "app from that package" definition. In any case, such behavior would get your package banned from any app store or Linux distribution.
        nextaccountic 6mo ago
        Yes, the US government and US courts (including the secret court FISC) have tools to compel Google, Apple and other vendors to install malware on users devices. This is exactly the point. The US government routinely deploys malware to users devices, for multiple reasons. Here is a 2017 link about this: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/challenging-government-hacking-whats-stake https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/challenging-gov...
        henearkr 6mo ago
        Would you mind showing me some evidence that software update systems are able to push to you e.g. a different Android update based on your device ID or specific IP? (not just country geolocation) (PS: your link is about deploying malware through other routes, not by normal software updates) Because all the other means I can think of are just basic malwarfare. As you need to rely on a vendor/distributor to get updates, then of course they are able to push you malware, there is absolutely no going around this first ring of trust. Conclusion : there is no point in accusing Proton of anything... there are just being software providers (FOSS by the way!!!).
  - henearkr 6mo ago
    One by one: - A/B testing is agnostic of who the user is, it is randomized. If it was not, that would be a bad practice and would legitimately ruin the reputation of the company doing that, - auto-updates is just the setting allowing the most recently published update to be installed. "Published" means it is for everyone. If that is to be understood in any other meaning, that would also be bad practice, - and I don't see what you mean by server-side re-routing. To be honest, maybe I just live with different platforms and apps than you I don't know. I use Android, and Linux on my Laptop, but I would also expect Windows to not discriminate by user when pushing updates.
- chrismorgan 7mo ago
  You need mechanisms to avoid the possibility. The mechanisms to do such things exist by default, by both the software provider (e.g. Proton) and the software distributor (e.g. Apple for App Store, Google for Play Store, Cloudflare or AWS for web stuff), and various countries have laws that allow them to secretly compel implementing specific backdoors. In order to block the distributor from going rogue, you need to be able to guarantee that the user device can only install/run code signed by the provider, who must never give those keys to the distributor. My impression is that Android is the only major platform that ever had this, but that Google ruined it a few years ago in the name of lighter bundles by insisting that they hold the keys. (I once had VLC from Google Play Store, but replaced it with a build from F-Droid under the same app ID; Google Play Store shows it has an update for it, but that it can’t install it.) In order to block the provider or distributor sending specific users a different build, you need something more like Certificate Transparency logs: make it so that devices will only run packages that contains proof that they have been publicly shared. (This is necessary, but not sufficient.) And if you’re using web tech, the mechanisms required to preclude such abuse do not at this time exist. If you’re shipping an app by some other channel, it can do a resource integrity check and mandate subresource integrity. But no one does things that way—half the reason for using web tech is specifically to bypass slow update channels and distribute new stuff immediately!
The_Goonies1985 7mo ago
>Most of the privacy claims (of all type of apps) are essentially garbage... True. Everything has backdoored CPUs as its foundation. Consider, for starters: (Intel's 'Management' Engine); AMD's (PSP); Apple/Arm (black-box hardware). You can layer as much theater as you like on top of the hardware-surveillance-layer in modern computers; it still won't grant you privacy.
- badgersnake 7mo ago
  Power is open. But nobody wants to build power devices for some reason.
  - ricardobeat 7mo ago
    Power?
    - supermatt 7mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_ISA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_ISA
      - ricardobeat 7mo ago
        RISC-V is also open. That “some reason” is likely to be power/performance levels being quite far from ARM & Intel for consumer devices.
        vrganj 7mo ago
        China is building out RISC-V, just like they are leading actually-open AI. https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3347684/alibaba-debuts-its-latest-risc-v-based-chip-amid-shift-ai-agents https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3347684/alibaba-d... Weirdly, the authoritarian state is the one saving us from our own digital authoritarians.
        7mo ago
boramalper 7mo ago
> Most of the privacy claims (of all type of apps) are essentially garbage anyway I think that’s a sweeping generalisation.
- Ylpertnodi 7mo ago
  And sweepingly true.
  - boramalper 7mo ago
    How so? Reproducible builds are a thing.
    - stonogo 7mo ago
      So are networks
      - boramalper 7mo ago
        So? If the app is using reproducible builds and is also audited not to contain any backdoors, what do networks have to do with it?
victorbjorklund 7mo ago
I don’t think that is a useful definition even if technically true. With that logic even Linux isn’t privacy because in theory they can push code that will only run for you.
- 63stack 7mo ago
  Linux as in the kernel? Who is "they"? Torvalds?
  - victorbjorklund 6mo ago
    Choose if you think Windows is just the kernel or the operating system. The ones that control whatever source you are pulling the updates from. Very very few people are building everything from source and reading the source in full everytime. Notice I am not saying this is likely. I am saying that it is theoretically possible anytime you accept code from the outside (doesn’t matter if it is pull or push)
- progbits 7mo ago
  How will they push it?
  - victorbjorklund 6mo ago
    Push or pull is just semantics. Can you honestly say that you never ever updated anything in a Linux distro without first reading the source code, checking all the checksums etc? Be honest.
- maweaver 7mo ago
  Using what mechanism? Most Linux updates are not pushed but rather pulled at the user request. You can use Linux totally offline. This is fundamentally different than a webapp, where code is sent with every visit
  - izacus 7mo ago
    The automatic updates most distros have enabled by default. Signal desktop outright stops working if you don't constantly pull updates from them.
kalaksi 7mo ago
You'll have to be more specific what kind of "privacy claims" you're talking about. Proton is definitely a lot more private than, say, Google. But, as always, you'll have to trust the party delivering the binaries you run. Also, any company operating legally, have to co-operate with court orders etc., but afaik they try to push back
Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
I once did some tinkering with Proton Docs and I was able to find that the comments within Proton Docs when I used it via curl definitely felt like it had something like logs (I feel like I should try doing this again to have more definitive answer) Either way, the response was encrypted but they hold the encryption key atleast within proton-docs. I also want to say that Proton allows the ability to change password through OTP, (Something which I sorta appreciate[0]) but that means that their infrastructure can then have the ability to change password and you can toggle that functionality by sending a request to proton to allow OTP and on which number, so proton themselves can do that too. Unless, I am getting it wrong, by default, Proton still has your encryption keys and even if you change them (which 99% including me might not do), even then I definitely feel like there can be some concern. To be honest, There is nothing like zero trust, that's what I learnt, You are still trusting Proton Aka The swiss laws behind it so that you know that they won't get legally forced to give more data than usual (like US companies for example) but they will still comply with the swiss laws (recent proton incident) Then, secondly, you have to trust Proton themselves, but with something like this incident where Proton Meet might be omitting somethings, it doesn't paste a clear picture of transparency or trust. I don't really know why Proton might create something like Meet especially with its infrastructure relying on the CLOUD Act, and then, try to sell it within the idea of privacy. They both are contradictory. Proton is, creating lots of products, On one hand I can appreciate that, but on the other, as part of community, I feel frustrated/sad because they don't have some core features like proper proton drive rsync support or even some API[1]'s surrounding it. I tried to do the experiment in first place because I wanted to create a commenting engine for static websites which could use proton-drive as its backend. They really could gain a lot from transparency with proper API support and letting the community do things with it, but that's not really the case :/ I am still using Proton but they definitely aren't a bastion recently. I might still recommend Proton, but I sort of hope that companies self host some open source applications themselves, whether self-hosting with hardware or in a proper EU cloud like Hetzner/OVH. But Incidents like these are making me a little more hesitant to recommend Proton nowadays. [0]: as someone who had lost one of my previous accounts after my Keepassxc database got deleted because of me accidentally wiping my archlinux with tinkering with it, Now I use Bitwarden with OTP on proton. [1]: I was able to make something like an API myself by relying on something like puppeteer, even with puppeteer though, it was really hard to make something like that. I couldn't create a public endpoint of it because having puppeteer instances for a commenting engine would be very resource intensive.
akimbostrawman 7mo ago
>if a website or an app can be compelled to push an update to a specific user, then they can intercept anything they want yes which is why i hoped they would implement a verification system like with a browser addon that compares the website client code used for encryption and alerts the user if it does not match the one served everyone else. ctemplar mail used to have this many years ago https://web.archive.org/web/20200201012958/https://ctemplar.com/ctemplar-checksum-implementation/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200201012958/https://ctemplar....
illiac786 7mo ago
Privacy and security are not binary. Statements like “because it isn’t 100% secure or private, then it is not worth it” means one has essentially no clue. There is not such thing as 100% privacy or security, for starters. It’s all layers of protection and/or trust and compromises.

ErroneousBosh 7mo ago

What a shitty website. I got to about the third slowly-fading-in-picture-of-text block and realised that whether or not I wanted to read it, it's more effort than it's worth.

ramon156 7mo ago
May I suggest reader view in FF? It's the first thing I do when I open an article (Ctrl+Alt+R)
- j16sdiz 7mo ago
  Some text (e.g. what metadata is included) are only in the animation -- not in the reader view. The animation is just some text fading in. If you want to read those text, the only way is disable reader mode and wait..
- arcza 7mo ago
  No, if a website is that obnoxious I just close the tab. It is not worth yet another mental drain on my limited attention span to read slop. Just give me the boring single .htm page with your thoughts or a Wordpress site with minimal plugins. I'd hate to think the strain the author puts on people with accessible needs making this.
  - ramon156 7mo ago
    I mean I agree, but this kind of mindset is stupid. Blaming everyone for your inconvenience gets you nowhere. I can complain, or I can fix
    - IAmBroom 7mo ago
      Many posts on this thread complain about how hard and unpleasant to read the article is. How is that not a valid complaint? And calling their "mindset" stupid... wow.
      - 6mo ago

a-rbsn 7mo ago

easiest way to private video calls is just to self-host Jitsi Meet anyway

pogue 7mo ago

After Proton has repeatedly turned over users of their email account to law enforcement, always with many excuses, their claims about no ability for any government to see what's going on on their network ran very hollow. I know Brave has offered their talk video conferencing service for awhile, but I don't know if any serious network analysis has been performed on it. https://talk.brave.com/ https://talk.brave.com/ For document collaboration, I'm not aware of much else that's private/encrypted (etc) however. https://www.privacyguides.org/en/document-collaboration/ https://www.privacyguides.org/en/document-collaboration/

mastermage 7mo ago
Privacy and anonymity are not the same. I am fundamentally against spyware that constantly monitors you and reports anything. Because of the constant and pre crime nature of it. On the other hand i am actually not fundamentally against turning over data when independent judges sign a warrant. This is arguably a very tight rope to walk but i think thats the most realistic comporomise between my right to privacy and the right of others to get justice when something is done onto them.
- readthenotes1 7mo ago
  Perhaps you may not remember the US government's tendency to invade privacy for suspicious reasons (that is, at the very least extra-legal and sometimes downright unconstitutional). You mentioned a warrant. I do not believe that has been a required threshold. E.g., https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/jordan-biggs-demand-answers-from-fbi-on-widespread-fisa-violations-after https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/jordan-biggs-d...
  - mastermage 7mo ago
    I am not American so my lense may be a different one. What I am coming from is basically an extension of the German Laws that Govern the Mail Secret (Briefgeheimnis) which actually is constitutionally enshrined in the German constitution. But has notable exceptions that can be made uppon federal law. The burden for these is supposed to be pretty high. I think this should not happen willy nilly. And if thats the case in the US I am obviously against it. It is a complex multi layered subject because it has to weigh the rights of multiple people against each other.

irusensei 7mo ago

I'm sorry I had to use a feature on my browser I rarely use which is summarize. I'm pretty sure your point is valid and concerning but the way that page was designed is just too painful to read.

q3k 7mo ago
I'm so tired of this particular kind of LLM (-assisted) slop. The engagement bait, the stupid little hacker-style animations, the drawn out text... Please, people, use your own words, and don't overdo every little thing. It's tiring. When everybody does this, nobody stands out.
- DoingFedTime 6mo ago
  The article contains live network captures run with `ss -tnup` during an actual Proton Meet call, DNS resolution and ASN lookups performed in real time, a line-by-line read of LiveKit's DPA identifying them as an independent Controller for call detail records, and CSP headers pulled directly from meet.proton.me. If you found a factual error, name it. "I don't like the animations" is not a methodology critique.
  - pk-voice 6mo ago
    Fair point on the methodology. The ss output and CSP headers are concrete. The LiveKit Controller distinction is the part worth debating-independent Controller vs Processor changes the privacy story significantly. Has Proton responded to that specific claim?
bootsmann 7mo ago
Yeah this same site did an article on some minor ubuntu bootloader drama some weeks ago and when I recognized the design I just stopped reading. If you have something to say don’t go out of your way to make it hard to parse.

zero0529 7mo ago

Question is will the government learn anything meaningful if they subpoena the LiveKit providers? (Including and excluding HNDL)

surgical_fire 7mo ago
After reading the whole article I was left with the same question. I think they can know the IP from every participant in the call and some other metadata?
- Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
  > some other metadata "We kill people based on metadata." - Michael Hayden (former NSA and CIA director)

syl5x 7mo ago

The quiz at the end of the article is wild honestly.

jrflowers 7mo ago

This is actually kind of hilarious. “We don’t store your data when you use our service. You hand it over in real time when you use it.”

red_admiral 7mo ago

Is this the web version design of the "moon landings were a hoax" conspiracy poster?

bKHjNaz23wJ 7mo ago
[dead]

avazhi 7mo ago

Pretty funny because a few weeks ago some dude felt compelled to virtue signal about how he was moving off American-controlled services like Gmail, as some ostensible protest against Trump and the Iran War. I pointed out that Proton Mail, one of the services he moved to, is ultimately controlled by the US Gov, and my comment got flagged lol. Proton being at the behest of Uncle Sam has been old news for a while.

guilamu 7mo ago
"Proton Mail, one of the services he moved to, is ultimately controlled by the US Gov," Would you mind elaborating, pretty please?
- streetfighter64 7mo ago
  "Controlled" is a bit hyperbolic, but there's a collaboration agreement between the USA government and the Swiss government, so Proton has to comply with requests from for example the FBI. Quoting a comment by Proton staff on Reddit > First, let's correct the headline: Proton did not provide information to the FBI. What happened is that the FBI submitted a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) request, which was processed by the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police. Proton operates exclusively under Swiss law, and we only respond to legally binding orders from Swiss authorities, after all Swiss legal checks have been passed. This is an important distinction. > [...] > The only information Proton could provide was a payment identifier because the user chose to pay with a credit card. This is information the user themselves provided to us through their choice of payment method. Proton also accepts cryptocurrency and cash payments, which would not have been linkable to an identity. So basically, don't trust Proton with information unless you want the FBI to know it.
  - Yiin 7mo ago
    "So basically", what a weird conclusion to take out of it, just don't pay with your credit card for services you can pay cash or crypto.

beevelop 7mo ago

Especially questionable choice by Proton not to opt for the self-hosted option. LiveKit offers an enterprise tier that even lets you set up your own mesh, so you are not dependent on their hosted infra.

progbits 7mo ago
To be fair, I'm running a selfhosted livekit deployment at work and it's a major pain in the ass. Obviously proton should selfhost everything but I can understand why they didn't want to.
- Sean-Der 7mo ago
  What’s painful about running LiveKit? What would make running WebRTC server easier?

raverbashing 7mo ago

I just love people who go on their soapbox to complain about a newer alternative when the status quo is worse "nooo but proton mail complies to court orders!!111" wow shocking I know right? Do you think the other providers don't? These are usually the same people who forget rubber-hose decrypting works "But they use LiveKitCloud" yes - however we don't know half the story Can Proton BYOK over their infra? LiveKit's website TOS with a generic user - not ProtonMail. We don't know if there are any agreements there > "all disputes are governed by the laws of the State of California" Yes this is common with TOS. > Their privacy policy explicitly acknowledges FTC jurisdiction and states the company will "access, preserve, and disclose your information" This is the important part, not the other one above it > showed active connections to 161.115.177.32 on port 443, a LiveKit-owned IP block (ARIN OrgId LIVEK) hosted on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Good test, but what/where was the originating IP? Was it using Brave's VPN (to the US) by any chance? TBH I'm still more annoyed about the 90 day cookie - that was just rude So again "why don't we have better privacy respecting options?" Maybe because if we try to do it some "privacy advicates" will throw a massive fit complaining about all its shorcomings (and still not pay for the service)

ashikns 7mo ago
People complain because Proton specifically advertises privacy, mainstream providers don't. Which is pretty reasonable as far as complaining goes. Good job on mocking others though :*
- InsideOutSanta 7mo ago
  Proton does offer more privacy than mainstream providers, because they have less information to hand over when courts compel them. Proton isn't perfect by any means, but the idea that there is no meaningful privacy difference between Proton and (for example) Gmail because both respond to court orders is flat-out false.
defrost 7mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption

tamimio 7mo ago

Proton is the most shady company out there, especially with the fact that they try to make you put all your eggs into their basket. I stopped using their email (when they used to be an only email company) when they dropped the .ch domain. Same goes with botched security products like grapheneOS and the likes, when the hardware is backdoored, the modem is tracking you more than your psycho ex, yet you are given these illusion of security to buy.. you are not, in fact, you are gonna get more obvious for fingerprinting than using an average iPhone like most people and blend in. Honeypot, hornets nest, whatever the terminology but the concept being used and is still used to lure people in and make the job easier to ID them than going after them in the wild.

mdhen 7mo ago
They definitely still have the .ch domain
- tamimio 7mo ago
  Only on old emails, my old one still has that double password access.
  - mdhen 7mo ago
    nope, you can make new emails with .ch as well, just not on the free tier. I am looking at my settings now. .ch is definitely an option when creating new emails. I believe pm.me is also only for paid plans.
    - tamimio 7mo ago
      Interesting, thanks. They must’ve changed it then since last time i logged in.
pkaeding 7mo ago
What do you use/recommend that are better alternatives?

arcza 7mo ago

What a truly unreadable website. As another commenter said I see a few of these get churned out with the same annoying dark patterns.

IceDane 7mo ago

This is the worst form of Article I've ever seen. Did the author read this? Is there even really an author or did Chatgpt just write all of it and generate the page?

davzie 7mo ago

Interesting how so much negative sentiment creeps out when there's a true European competitor to the big US tech companies.

draw_down 7mo ago
[dead]
BLKNSLVR 7mo ago
Yeah, there's another thread showing a similar trend. In a strange way it's making Trump's incessant nonsensical big-upping of himself and the US as-a-whole make sense in a cultural context that I hadn't thought was as pervasive as maybe it is. It explains that polls still show 30% support. I don't think I'll ever be not surprised by this.
Orygin 7mo ago
They're Swiss, so while technically in Europe, they are not in the EU. Maybe they're closer than the US, but they're still a foreign tech company in the EU.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7mo ago
  Switzerland has a unique deep integration with the EU even though it is not a member. It is not like the UK.
starky 7mo ago
Due to some comments the CEO made regarding a few Trump decisions there are a number of people that believe that the company supports the current US government and are looking for any link they can to prove it.

class3shock 7mo ago

The articles format is awful and designed to wast your time. This article also just points out the use of Livekit but doesn't deliver what that means for your security. Maybe instead of writing a hit piece you could have dug deeper, talked to Proton? I've seen alot of articles and posters here being negative on Proton, calling it "shady", regurgitating facts that are supposed to be gotchas but have tons of nuance if you dig and am beginning to think there is some coordinated effort to get people not to use it.

paulryanrogers 7mo ago
I recall hearing some controversy around Australian legislation and Proton cooperation with authorities. Though haven't dug into court records or anything yet. Is there a balanced view someone has summarized somewhere? Are there some references you'd recommend where I can begin to read up?
- Tadpole9181 7mo ago
  From every instance I've seen, Proton has only ever done what is legally required of them by a warrant. They do not get to say no when asked to turn over what they do have; which is going to be things they can't avoid storing - like email addresses or recurring payment information an account has. But they don't store logs and all actual data is E2E / at-rest encrypted, so that data does not exist for them to give away. There's no master key or back doors.
  - mossTechnician 7mo ago
    The problem is the gap between marketing promises and realities. Proton markets itself as a safe Swiss product[0] for activists[1], but the reality is their accounts often expose more than a casual user may expect, like a secondary email address[2] (often required to sign up) or payment info[3]. The Swissness is even more suspect according to this article, if it's true that they rely so heavily on American infrastructure and don't responsibly disclose this even in their privacy policy. [0]: https://proton.me/blog/switzerland https://proton.me/blog/switzerland [1]: https://proton.me/blog/protesters-free-speech https://proton.me/blog/protesters-free-speech [2]: https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/13/infosec_in_brief/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/13/infosec_in_brief/ [3]: https://slashdot.org/story/453084 https://slashdot.org/story/453084

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palata 7mo ago

Hmm, I am not completely sure what the website is trying to say (there is soooo much text and it's quite unreadable). But it feels like it says "it is hosted on US servers, so it's baaaaad". The thing is, it seems to be end-to-end encrypted with MLS, which means that the servers cannot decrypt the conversations. Probably some metadata are leaking (which IP is in a call with which other IP), but that's a different threat model. Metadata is always a harder problem. Now I don't know if Proton knows which users are together in a call, or if it's just leaking IPs. Maybe the article says it, but I didn't have time to decrypt it :-).

DoingFedTime 6mo ago
Reading the article would help. If you can't read it even has audio.

holtwick 7mo ago

For small groups SFU like Livekit is not needed at all. Still E2E and realtime collab. I wrote such a thing: https://brie.fi/ng https://brie.fi/ng

Sean-Der 7mo ago
SFU is nice because it gives everyone privacy. Neither you or ISP know who you are communicating with. Otherwise if everything is trusted I love that we can have conversations without depending on others over the internet :)
- holtwick 7mo ago
  There's nothing bad about SFU, particularly the version you wrote, which forms the basis of Livekit. It would be my first choice for supporting larger groups in Briefing anyway. If the traffic is E2EE, it doesn't matter if an SFU is involved. The critical part is the signalling, in my opinion. This is where the initial communication is established. In the current version of my app, whose source code is yet to be published, this can happen via an untrusted server.

PedroBatista 7mo ago

Please remind me: Is there any legitimate business venture that can operate outside the laws of the country they are registered? If there is, why don’t these people who write blog posts and comments about how “this is all a scam!!” “It’s a psyop! “They” control it all!” If it’s all black and white, if there no real difference between a company like Proton and Google or Microsoft, then why don’t they create a business that provides a service where there’s no way to any government know anything at all, ever? They’ll be printing money.. But perhaps the conspiracy realm and public broadcast of ideals is more attractive than a real business. Yes, you shouldn’t trust 100% in a person let alone a group of people that form a company. Grow up.

burnt-resistor 7mo ago

<aspiration-rant> It may or may not be Proton Meet or Mail, but all I want is ZK E2EE (email at rest, text always similar to Signal) "Lavabit" with better tech architecture, without mandatory KYC de-anonymization, hosted in some US non-compliant location on real hardware they physically control, by a small, worker-owned co-op cadre of talented technical people who run a tight ship. Bonus points if they offer VPS and OpenVPN/wireguard exit nodes too. </aspiration-rant>

kanehorikawa 7mo ago

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zelphirkalt 7mo ago

> Proton’s launch blog post for their new video conferencing product contains this paragraph: “laws like the US CLOUD Act can compel US-owned video conferencing platforms to hand over any data they store, even if the servers reside outside of the United States. This creates serious compliance challenges for organizations bound by GDPR, CCPA, or similar data protection laws. That’s why we’ve created Proton Meet.” Actually, it creates an incompatibility, period. How much I dislike all this weasling around, trying to find a gap, where none exists, hoping, that the law won't be followed to the letter, lack of interest in following the law to its logical conclusion, all in the name of wanting to conduct business in an easier way, even if not adhering to the law. I wish all those companies trying that would be gone. Let us have solutions that are inside the EU, many of us don't want the US big tech crap any longer. I wish that governments and people in charge of public institutions and their tech decisions realized this. Instead they weasle around and try the "But we are using Microsoft in the EU!" as if that is worth a dime. Try convincing me, that a company like MS in EU won't oblige, when the command from MS in the US comes to send over some data. Good luck!

fguerraz 7mo ago

A lot of AI generated horseshit.

RDaneel0livaw 7mo ago

What the hell kind of horrible website did I just click on. That may perhaps be the single worst format of any web page I have EVER visited in my entire life. Wow.

butz 7mo ago

Proton has too many services. I wonder how many more they will introduce until Proton Drive will finally receive a Linux Desktop client? The worst thing about "we have everything" services, that they will actively try to shove you each and every service repeatedly on each occasion. As "do not put all your eggs in single basket" type of user I absolutely have this marketing nonsense.

_slih 6mo ago

yo, livekit acts as independent controller for call detail records under their own dpa. that means proton's privacy constraints don't even apply to that data. livekit can hand call records to us law enforcement without notifying proton

greggmendz 6mo ago

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