2w ago

Does Proton really support Trump? A deeper analysis (and surprising findings)

Just a moment...

I heard people claim for some time that Proton supports the Trump administration. I've only ever really seen the claim made based on a single tweet.

This person did a pretty deep dive and comes to the conclusion that they don't, nor does their CEO.

I'm not saying I know what's in that guy's head, nor do I want to. But I'm wary of coming to an extreme conclusion about someone because of a couple of sentences that person wrote online.

https://io.waxandleather.com/users/alisynthesis/statuses/115245340493250991

Privacy @lemmy.dbzer0.com

Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.com

8mo ago

Does Proton really support Trump? A deeper analysis (and surprising findings)

medium.com /@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e

27 comments

That anonymously submitted medium article that gets floated around ignores Internet Association, so wouldn’t be shocking if it was from proton attempting to do PR damage fixating on identity politics with intentional omission of Internet Association involvement.
Yen conveniently ignored that after working at the FTC, Slater become the vice-president for legal and regulatory policy for the Internet Association lobby group. Which was founded by “small business” like Google, Amazon, eBay and Facebook.
And involved in trying to infringe upon privacy rights. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/lawmakers-must-not-let-internet-association-weaken-california-consumer-privacy-act
So yeah, proton founder cherry picked information that tried to make it seem like it was acceptable to praise the pick when reality her past is too murky to endorse.
Apple Tim Cook showed that ideology doesn't matter when monetary greed is involved, so falling to look how not intolerant Yen just comes off as a diversion from the criticism regarding him choosing to praise Slater by omitting details of her history that didn't fit the pro consumer narrative for the little guy.
- I wrote the their customer support and they actually sent me a medium post saying how the CEO's opinion was misconstrued.
  Which was weird as hell because it just made things more suspicious. Anybody can write a medium post.
  
  Not that surprising since on reddit the proton-team account stated the same positions as Andy did on Twitter before deleting after they saw the message wasn't taken well. They didn't bother to distance it as opinions of Andy, but took the stance of it being an organizational opinion.
  https://archive.ph/quYyb
  And you can see reddit user responses bringing up Slater's background but being ignored. Kind of funny the medium article writes an essay and does so much research into showing how Andy isn't racist, but doesn't do any research on Slater.
It was more than a single tweet. It was the way they handled the pushback too. I couldn't find any mention of the deleted official response in the article you linked. It's here. And this does not prove that they are supporting Trump, it just shows a complete lack of ability to read the room. I ditched my Proton subscription because there are other providers who have not praised JD Vance (just for showing up).
- For which provider did you ditch proton?
  
  I copied that comment from the linked masto post. I use disroot, autistici, and riseup for email
Proton's CEO once agreed with something Trump said (did). Trump appointed a lackey who appeared to Yen (Proton CEO) to be friendly toward "small tech" companies (as opposed to big tech) so he congratulated the move.
If someone we don't like does one thing we do like, are we wrong to praise that one thing? If you don't like me, hypothetically, why should I do anything you like if you will still hate me regardless of how much you agree with what I do? I'm not saying we could turn Trump with kindness. Most likely not. But this rift between people is widening. Of course the rich and poor will always be at odds, but the poor don't have to be (as) divided by it. I think we're less likely to radialise people on the other side if we show we're not a monolith ourselves and willing to see good where we find it.
- Trump appointed a lackey who appeared to Yen (Proton CEO) to be friendly toward “small tech” companies (as opposed to big tech) so he congratulated the move.
  If someone we don’t like does one thing we do like, are we wrong to praise that one thing?
  Trump took the US out of the TPP, which should be praised by this board. Every once in a while his admin does the right thing for the wrong reasons, and a stopped clock is right twice a day.
  Fuck him for everything else.
  
  Ending penny minting is my example. Got nothing bad to say about that one!
- Is he even american or U.S. citizen? Like honestly it really seems like something a European tech exec would do.
Get outta here with your facts.
- What facts? It's Medium article, which is less credible than op-eds.
No, they don't. The entire reason for this is because there are too many terminally-online morons who are wholly incapable of understanding nuance, or that a broken clock can still be correct twice a day.
Understanding this metaphor does not mean the clock is functional in any way, shape, or form.
This article should be pinned to the sidebar to be referenced every time people jump on the "omg proton so bad" bandwagon based on one out of context excerpt from that tweet that everyone seems to love to bring up but without actually doing any further research into the subject.
Hopefully people will actually read this and adjust their opinions accordingly rather than just repeatedly jumping on that stupid, ill informed bandwagon!
- This article was written by an anonymous/throwaway Medium account. For all we know, it was written by a PR firm they hired. Corporate propaganda has zero credibility, and the anonymity makes it impossible to verify that it's anything else.
  And if anything, now that time has proven that Trump/Vance were, in fact, worse than everyone was saying, it's further reason to hate Proton for using their influence/reach to support them. Did it help them win the whitehouse? Hard to say, but even in the best case scenario, it comes off as a lame, opportunistic move to advertise their services to MAGA and profit off political turmoil.
- Protons history
  They are less bad than other providers, but there is still enough to criticize. For example, the fact that their claims always pretend otherwise or when you ask support about it, it is directly and vehemently denied.
  I don't want to call for a boycott. After all, I use Proton myself and am satisfied, but
  Is Proton Mail still secure and private?
  The answer to this question all boils down to determining your threat model and the adversaries you are trying to protect yourself against.
  In short, the answer is yes if you are looking for a secure, encrypted email service that does not have access to the contents of your inbox. After all, ProtonMail is far better than Gmail or Yahoo when it comes to privacy.
  If you are doing things to attract the attention of law enforcement, then the data you provide when you use ProtonMail, such as IP address and recovery email, may be shared with authorities if Proton Technologies is legally compelled to do so in Swiss court.
- Stop calling text published on Medium 'articles'. Literally anyone can sign up and write on that site.
- There's a lot more to distrust about Proton than one tweet. For example, they assisted a fascist government persecution of environmental activists.
  
  For example, they assisted a fascist government persecution of environmental activists.
  I don't know a ton about that situation, but if you stick to the facts and stop going off wild speculation (like so many here love to do), you can start to understand the "why" of that situation. A journalist's accounts were blocked because a CERT (separate from Proton - they are all over the world) reported them to Proton. The accounts weren't even deleted. They were, in fact, reinstated.
  The only facts we know:
  The journalist's timeline
  Proton's response
  That's it. That's all the information we have.
  Look at it through the lens of Occam's Razor:
  The CERT/Proton maliciously targeted this journalist, OR
  The CERT recognized a usage pattern similar to that of a malicious actor, passed that information to Proton, and Proton acted accordingly
  Which of those is more likely?
  If I ran an email server that provided encrypted email, knowing 1) that potentially malicious actors could be using it, 2) that I could be prosecuted for allowing malicious activity via my services, and 3) that I was informed of potentially malicious activity by an organization that specifically deals with that kind of thing - I would preemptively block those accounts as well. You would too - don't lie to yourself.
  Regarding the "ghosting":
  My guess is that Proton probably has a policy or something in place preventing their "normal" support from even speaking to owners of blocked accounts when Legal (or CERT, in this case) is involved - just like almost every other company that has customer support. Which would quite easily explain why Proton took the "shoot first ask questions later" approach. And when Proton was inevitably called out by the owner in question, who turned out to be a non-malicious person? That's probably when Proton leadership actually got wind of the situation and decided they could reinstate the accounts. In nearly every company, leadership is almost never involved with customer support until it becomes high-visibility - like being called out on social media.
  I could be totally off here, but again, I'm only going off of the facts of the situation and what I know about cybersecurity practices (having some experience there myself).
IMO this episode was a decent litmus test of how much we value free speech, and indeed freedom of thought. Apparently we just don't so much, these days.
- Individuals are in fact allowed to disagree

27 comments