It’s really disappointing as a huge fan of sci-fi myself. I know we won’t get flying cars and stuff anytime soon, but technology in general is super cool. Humans are really ingenious.

And these corporate troglodytes had to go and ruin a good thing. I hope their balls explode.

How opt-out will work in practice:

When you say “boot,” do you mean that your computer started but didn’t start the OS?

And yes, I believe that’s the correct command to pin an image. It’s either that or 1. As you update, it will eventually become image 3 and just live there until you unpin it.

Perhaps, and if they do indeed care and read that blog, maybe they’ll share it with friends who don’t have a clue.

When I say people, I don’t just mean a handful. Some will always pay whatever to get what they want. I mean a significant number, to the point that greedflation is now practically standard business practice.

I wasn’t a customer of theirs (I’m always skeptical of super-popular-anything), but I think I’ll look elsewhere for secure email.

Not because of this article, which I think makes some decent points, but because I would worry in the back of my mind that the Officers of the company would happily bow to their demigods and start secretly tracking people as a show of fealty.

Thank you so much! That was way beyond what I could have hoped.

I’ll read the link you provided in a bit, but that does sound really bad. Must suck to work at a company you think is helping people stay private only to have the CEO come out as pro-fascism.

I’m strongly considering switching to them! How do you like it?

I hate how much this resembles current US business culture.

It might be that they’re equating the name with the app and company, not the open source model, based on one of the first lines:

AI chat apps like ChatGPT collect user data, filter responses, and make content moderation decisions that are not always transparent.

Emphasis mine. The rest of the article reads the same way.

Most people aren’t privacy-conscious enough to care who gets what data and who’s building the binaries and web apps, so sounding the alarm is appropriate for people who barely know the difference between AI and AGI.

I get that people are mad at Proton right now (anyone have a link? I’m behind on the recent stuff), but we should ensure we get mad at things that are real, not invent imaginary ones based on contrived contexts.

Maybe. That’s certainly the fear they’re hoping you give into, and it’s the same rationale they’d use to disparage a union forming.

It’s worth noting that, as far as I’m aware, they’re still completely logless on the VPN. The way most VPNs get around the law in that regard is by storing log data in memory. This prevents any LEOs demanding logs, because the second the memory is refreshed or goes through automatic garbage collection, any “logs” that might exist to facilitate the function of the software are already gone. Essentially, there’s nothing to collect or turn over.

The reason they could turn over that one user’s IP data is because email, by its very nature, has to be stored for long term retrieval. They might still store as little identifying data as they can, but with email, you should always assume they have your IP at a minimum.

Thus, whether you use ProtonMail or Tuta or whatever, you should be using a logless VPN or TOR if you’re trying to stay anonymous. That way, even if the email provider is legally compelled to turn over IP data, it can’t be traced back to you.

And this is why GPU prices keep going up with each successive generation with only a modest increase in performance—because people have demonstrated since 2020 that they will pay through the nose to get the hot new thing.

Appreciate the hard stance and encouraging people to find alternative sources!

Or hire people who are willing to work for less in the office, under the thumb of a micromanager

I want this sticker

That’s actually really good to hear. It really sucks that the animal component is almost pointless, and it seems to be more unethical to include them in the testing process, but it’s good to hear that at least the safety guardrails were working in the past.

Seems we just need to rethink how to ethically test on humans from the start, though I worry about letting the current people in charge execute that plan.

I hadn’t considered that. My company, though large, is private and doesn’t have to appease shareholders, so they still see value in keeping skilled employees.

Yep. I think this is the one I originally read. It goes into some detail about why the mail client functions differently from the VPN (for example) and Proton even suggested a way to prevent what happened for any future users. It’s prescient advice for any user or activist that relies on secure email, Proton or not.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/09/privacy-focused-protonmail-provided-a-users-ip-address-to-authorities/

The trick only works if they can convince you that you are trapped with no alternative.