Sir Tim Berners-Lee joins Proton’s advisory board

https://protonmail.com/blog/sir-tim-berners-lee-advisory-board/

by grappler • 5 years ago

84 52 5 years ago

fnord77• 5 years ago

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

laurent922• 5 years ago

So they announce he joins the day after they announced that they log everyone’s IP address and give them to authorities?

nxpnsv• 5 years ago

Everyone who the swiss gov explicitly forces them to?

spoonjim• 5 years ago

You cannot negotiate and execute a deal with TimBL in one day. Anyone like that will see your desperate urgency as a major red flag and guys like him, their personal reputation is their only asset (W3C is irrelevant)

blub3• 5 years ago

They apparently log the IP addresses for customers where they receive a warrant from the local authorities. Not everyone’s IP and they don’t just give them away.

But on the positive side, one does not have to use PM. There’s plenty of encrypted e-mail providers out there that will not store any info whatsoever on their customers and should the police ever dare question them they’d rather die shooting than give them anything anyway.

dane-pgp3• 5 years ago

Obligatory hot take: So is Sir Tim going to advise them to add DRM to email?

To be fair though, his decision to approve EME as a web standard[0] has not had the disastrous effects that some of his critics imagined.

[0] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/06/berners_lee_web_drm_w...

ddtaylor2• 5 years ago

* ProtonMail advertises no IP logging and overall this is very unlikely. I prefer the more transparent privacy tools that make it clear what their legally required to log and what that are required to provide to LEOs.

* ProtonMail Tor hidden service is mostly a joke. Their signup isn't available over it. This combined with no support for actually anonymous methods of payment make their advertising of "anonymous email" dubious. I understand the challenges involved, but if you can't overcome/mitigate them, then don't make those claims.

* Email is not a secure protocol and most every permutation of webmail is not securely implemented. Unless you're using PGP on the client side you will be trusting the provider.

* The steps required currently to run webapps and verify they haven't been altered are obtuse especially if you want to continue to get any kind of new features or updates.

blub3• 5 years ago

Yes, and this is the best one can get in 2021. So it would be nice if everyone stopped attacking them at every step and started building that mythical private e-mail service that they’re talking about instead.

ddtaylor2• 5 years ago

I'll take a provider that is transparent over one that makes claims they cannot backup. cock.li is more transparent in that regard despite being a complete meme.

reginold4• 5 years ago

Agreed! Where are the replacements for us to test out :)

reginold4• 5 years ago

Is anyone working on an "email like" app that runs on Signal?

I'm struggling to figure out what comes after ProtonMail. It's clearly an evolutionary dead end but what succeeds it?

dngray4• 5 years ago

Is anyone working on an "email like" app that runs on Signal?

That is unlikely to ever happen as Signal doesn't allow any kind of third party clients. https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...

That said Matrix does lend itself to this. It's also worth noting one of the major VCs (Notion) that funded that has an interest in other email companies. So who knows maybe we will see an email message client based on Matrix protocol.

It certainly would be an improvement on relying on systems such as PGP and allow universal E2EE, but also E2EE to the border (required for many government/corporate) situations where auditing is required.

I'm struggling to figure out what comes after ProtonMail. It's clearly an evolutionary dead end but what succeeds it?

Likely nothing. Many people that use services like this don't require anonymity. For that the threat model is absolutely fine. People seem to forget this page has existed literally since 2014: https://protonmail.com/blog/protonmail-threat-model/

I think people have blown this case out of proportion without really having any facts. Minimal details are actually known the nature of what the criminal charges are about.

There hasn't been any public verified information (court documents etc) pertaining to why the request was made. The most ProtonMail has said is that it was a judicial request made in Swizterland, and there was no avenue to appeal the request.

Media latched on to sensationalist phrases like "climate activist" and "squatter" and those things in itself don't actually tell us very much about the nature of the charges and evidence against the suspect. Those things may not even be the reason the request was made.

raven108• 5 years ago

I have Tutanota to be quite reliable end to end encryption and no ip logging. Also provides ability to send encrypted mail with pre shared passwords. Good client apps too.

Given Protonmail trust issues Sir Lee ought to have avoided.

Signal mail service/client would be great too. Long time FastMail user but they too give fuzzy answers on mail privacy. Mailbox.org seems to be decent with encryption at rest.

upofadown• 5 years ago

Signal also knows your IP address. They also know your phone number. So worse in this case than email.

nix233• 5 years ago

ProtonMail advertises no IP logging and overall this is very unlikely.

Your not required to log IP's as a service provider in Switzerland, however the ISP is required to do so.

deadalus• 5 years ago

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

ginko• 5 years ago

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

nix233• 5 years ago

Why do they call him 'Sir'?

Because that's what you do when someone is a Knight?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee#Awards_and_hon...

mmdoda• 5 years ago

You misunderstood the question. He is asking why are they honoring his title as Knight in Switzerland, when noble titles are usually abolished in republics.

A good example of this can be seen in the Constitution of the US. "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

goto11• 5 years ago

For the same reason people in the US call the Queen Queen even though she is not actually queen of the US?

threshold• 5 years ago

ProtonMail’s reputation is unrecoverable period.

vosper• 5 years ago

Sir Tim has been on the advisory board of the company I work at, for years. As far as I know he has had absolutely zero involvement during the years I've worked there.

His name is occasionally trotted out to impress(?) people, and that's it.

2Gkashmiri3• 5 years ago

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

chinathrow2• 5 years ago

Your deliverability will suck as pointed out here on HN for quite some time.

Also, your VPS provider can still be compelled to (try) deanonymize you.

2Gkashmiri3• 5 years ago

i run a mailinabox for almost a year now. had initial trouble with gmail. now its all fine and i have no trouble connecting to anyone. as i said, when you pay with crypto, the VPS provider has what data on you? you obviously wont use your real name to sign up for vps or domain so what can they give besides access to the server? even if that was done, won't you know?

hammyhavoc4• 5 years ago

"Our vision is to build an internet where privacy is the default by creating an ecosystem of services accessible to everyone, everywhere, every day."

Building an internet and providing privacy don't go hand-in-unlovable-hand with SaaS. Decentralization is an important solution to most threat models, as is having physical possession of your server and data. Centralization is the problem here.

Why complicate things when you could just acknowledge that email is archaic and unsuitable for privacy in 2021, and start running your own Matrix home server if you have something worth keeping private?

Trotting out Berners-Lee isn't helping their credibility following the environmental activist debacle. Actions speak louder than words. As has been evidenced, centralized privacy-oriented SaaS provided by businesses are not fit for purpose. Users should take responsibility for their own data and assume everything is compromised by default.

thereddaikon• 5 years ago

On a reddit AMA several years ago Tim or the PR people representing him claimed that he and his team tat Cern were responsible for the open source movement. Except their browser wasn't opened until after the fact, and Stallman and FSF had been doing their thing for years before. He lost a lot of credibility with me after that.

hammyhavoc4• 5 years ago

Wasn't aware of that claim of starting the open source movement! How someone ever thought they would get away with a claim as silly as that is beyond me.

He's also sold a gimmicky cryptoart NFT through Sotheby’s, contributing to and indirectly endorsing environmental destruction. He of all people should be leading by example with how to make existing and future technologies more environmentally-friendly.

JohnWhigham• 5 years ago

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

nbzso• 5 years ago

I use Tutanota. Canceled payed accounts of Proton in 2018. I don't encrypt messages. And I don't expect privacy. I use this services because of more clean UX than Gmail or competitors.

Every message that I send is mainly related to work and personal communication is related to consumerism topics. Everything else is communicated in physical presence of the person that will receive the talk.

It is over. Internet is commercial outlet. I use it as such. Our devices are data collection tools. Our future is engineered towards automation of policing and processing. Decentralization of Internet will not be allowed and possibly be outlawed in the coming years.

In the moment in which VPN is prohibited I am prepared to go totally offline. I have so many books to read, and music to listen to without paying corporations a dime.

The basic computer functions that are needed in this context can be provided by old computers with Linux without a problem.

Welcome to the future, where you censor yourself willingly and avoid corporate technological advancements as a plague. :)

Sir Tim Berners-Lee joins Proton’s advisory board

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