I didn’t know that abt proton, I’ll remove. I use mullvad myself.
For code hosting, codeberg.org seems okay, I have all my repos mirrored there. Otherwise self-hosted gitea. I don’t have a good recommend for a VPS, except for maybe OVH.
cool, thank you for the recommends! and i love your essays, btw. i think you do a really good job of summarizing socialist ideas in a way that is easily accessible.
Wait, what? Didn’t know what about Proton? I don’t see that there is anything in that wall of text that established any harm from Proton.
I think people are just seeing a big wall of text and being overwhelmed by it, and concluding that it must prove somethingorother. But I did my best to squint and read through line by line, word by word, argument by argument, and either I’m just a crazy person or there’s no real concrete connection to the CIA, no anti-privacy behaviors alleged, no anti-competitive practices claimed. There’s a lot of hand waiving and speculation related to CRV and MIT, which is quite intangible and several degrees removed from any direct thing Protonmail is doing.
Contrast that with, say, Google: you can look at their privacy policy or an article about them disabling adblocking extensions, and know immediately that Google is up to shady stuff. None of it depends on speculating about their associations with second or third parties which may or may not be doing something that isn’t proven.
Where are people seeing any proof of wrongdoing on Protonmail’s part? I feel like I’m either crazy or I’m the only one here that read through the whole wall of text.
dess’ comment wasn’t a response to the long comment but response to my first comment, where i had originally said this:
dess you recommend protonvpn but like… protonmail takes money from CIA-backed orgs & talks about “freeing” hong kong…
and then realized i had mixed something up so i commented this:
i’m sorry – i mixed up two facts. it is protonmail who monetarily (and publicly) supports CIA-backed orgs, not the other way around (afaik).
and edited my first comment accordingly.
dess had responded prior to my edit, but i suspect knowing political leanings, proton would not be recommended regardless. i’m happy to be corrected. @dessalines@lemmy.ml
the protests are a color revolution. it is very clear when you look at who the protesters support & where their funding comes from. hong kong is has already been freed - it is no longer a colony of britain.
Protonmail is a little sketch, too. Much of their funding comes from Silicon Valley, and they, in turn, are all in bed with the intelligence services. When it comes to Protonmail, it does sound too good to be true, but they may be the real deal. See: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2021/PSA210115
That link doesn’t have anything to do with funding though, right? And “Silicon Valley” is extremely vague, exponentially so when you attach the claim of connections to intelligence services. You’re not necessarily wrong, but to me this is way too vague to establish anything.
You sound like a shill for ProtonMail. Are they paying you for each post you make in their defense? As all things in life, nothing speaks louder than the people who sponsor you and sustain your operation, and when it comes to that, ProtonMail is highly suspicious, even if there are no clear indicators that they are compromised.
Given the evidence provided you should, at the very least, be a bit skeptical of their operation. Unless, of course, you are shilling for them here, or benefit in other way or form by making people believe that they are legitimate.
i’m sorry – i mixed up two facts. it is protonmail who monetarily (and publicly) supports CIA-backed orgs, not the other way around (afaik). protonmail does have a big US backer but i forget who it is so i will do some digging (and fix my original post) sorry again!!
We firmly believe that ProtonMail can only succeed in its mission if it remains independent. By raising money through crowd funding, we can ensure that our first and only priority is protecting the privacy of our users.
There are certain powerful governments and corporations out there who are in the business of controlling and exploiting personal data that will try to hinder us. If we want to live in a future where privacy on the internet is respected, we must stand together now and fight for those rights. With your support, we can make this brighter future a reality.
There have been people who claim to connect CRV to In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, but my (very brief) research only came up with a loose connection through an employee. I did, however, find out an unrelated piece of information I would not have otherwise: In-Q-Tel lists GitLab in their portfolio. There is another (stronger) connection to the US government through CRV; a partner was appointed by Obama in 2012 to represent the US at the UN General Assembly.
ProtonMail was founded in 2013 by scientists who met at CERN and were drawn together by a shared vision of a more secure and private Internet. Since then, ProtonMail has evolved into a global effort to protect civil liberties and build a more secure Internet, with team members also hailing from Caltech, Harvard, ETH Zurich and many other research institutions.
ProtonMail was founded in summer 2013 at CERN by scientists who were drawn together by a shared vision of a more secure and private Internet
ProtonMail is developed both at CERN and MIT and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. We were semifinalists in 2014 MIT 100K startup launch competition and are advised by the MIT Venture Mentoring Service
Okay, a lot of information that helps me know more detail about various relationships Protonmail has had for fundraising.
But in terms of having any clear takeaways, this is kind of a mess. IT sounds like the connections to CIA are largely speculative, derived from possible connections of CRV and MIT, right?
my biggest takeaway from the search was the venture capital funding. not because i think it means 3 letter agencies are involved (which i don’t, to be clear) but because i think it compromises being committed to the best interest of their users. also on a personal level i hate that they crowdfunded with the promise they were going to remain independent and then broke that promise. it feels really slimey. how can one trust their word that they won’t break more promises in the interest of $$$?
There’s a huge huge elephant in the room here, which I feel like nobody is talking about. And it has to do with how scatterbrained, speculative, and disconnected all of these details are, and how far short they are of establishing, like really establishing anything at all. If you ask me why I shouldn’t use Amazon, I can immediately point you to an article about anti-competitive practices. Same with Google Chrome, I can instantly point you to some article about how they’re pulling adblock extensions from the chrome store or how they’re misbehaving at the W3C. It’s a straight shot to a clearly expressed problem with no speculation needed.
Normally, in everyday life, if I’m in a room with people I know, I could explain something like what I just said above and people would instantly know what I mean. But in internet comment sections, people appear to be completely unable to distinguish between speculative and concrete allegations of harm.
i don’t disagree. i only mentioned the CIA connection because if you look it up, you will find claims. hell, you can find a bunch of claims in this very thread. it is unsurprising, as any US involvement in a privacy project makes people skeptical.
facts (that can be verified on protonmail’s own website):
proton received the funds i listed (crowdfunding, EU grants, CRV, FONGIT, possibly additional grants)
they had teams both in the US + switzerland
they receive counsel from MIT
they have openly promoted orgs who have concrete connections to the CIA
that last point is why some think they are compromised. especially because they are always on the side of the CIA. even though they claim they fight for “freedom of speech everywhere” somehow that has not included censorship which is not advantageous to the US gov’t
i will never pay for protonmail’s services because i refuse to give money to an organisation that supports CIA-backed causes. as someone who cares deeply about others, proton’s support to me is what google pulling adblock is to you.
dess you recommend protonvpn but like… protonmail
takes money fromgives money to CIA-backed orgs & talks about “freeing” hong kong…also what about git hosting? i see this is on github pages (which is mad convenient, no doubt) but is there a hosting provider you recommend?
*edited to fix misinformation
I didn’t know that abt proton, I’ll remove. I use mullvad myself.
For code hosting, codeberg.org seems okay, I have all my repos mirrored there. Otherwise self-hosted gitea. I don’t have a good recommend for a VPS, except for maybe OVH.
I’ll add this stuff.
Mullvad has been pretty good so far!
wireguard is wonderful for phone battery life too.
I have set up a wireguard tunnel on my VPS (german so I can’t use it for torrents) and it works very well. Way better than openvpn,
cool, thank you for the recommends! and i love your essays, btw. i think you do a really good job of summarizing socialist ideas in a way that is easily accessible.
Thank :heart suit:
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Wait, what? Didn’t know what about Proton? I don’t see that there is anything in that wall of text that established any harm from Proton.
I think people are just seeing a big wall of text and being overwhelmed by it, and concluding that it must prove somethingorother. But I did my best to squint and read through line by line, word by word, argument by argument, and either I’m just a crazy person or there’s no real concrete connection to the CIA, no anti-privacy behaviors alleged, no anti-competitive practices claimed. There’s a lot of hand waiving and speculation related to CRV and MIT, which is quite intangible and several degrees removed from any direct thing Protonmail is doing.
Contrast that with, say, Google: you can look at their privacy policy or an article about them disabling adblocking extensions, and know immediately that Google is up to shady stuff. None of it depends on speculating about their associations with second or third parties which may or may not be doing something that isn’t proven.
Where are people seeing any proof of wrongdoing on Protonmail’s part? I feel like I’m either crazy or I’m the only one here that read through the whole wall of text.
dess’ comment wasn’t a response to the long comment but response to my first comment, where i had originally said this:
and then realized i had mixed something up so i commented this:
and edited my first comment accordingly.
dess had responded prior to my edit, but i suspect knowing political leanings, proton would not be recommended regardless. i’m happy to be corrected. @dessalines@lemmy.ml
I don’t know anything about the protests in honk kong, why is it a problem? (it’s a real question, not a troll)
the protests are a color revolution. it is very clear when you look at who the protesters support & where their funding comes from. hong kong is has already been freed - it is no longer a colony of britain.
any more info on where protonmail gets their money?
Protonmail is a little sketch, too. Much of their funding comes from Silicon Valley, and they, in turn, are all in bed with the intelligence services. When it comes to Protonmail, it does sound too good to be true, but they may be the real deal. See: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2021/PSA210115
That link doesn’t have anything to do with funding though, right? And “Silicon Valley” is extremely vague, exponentially so when you attach the claim of connections to intelligence services. You’re not necessarily wrong, but to me this is way too vague to establish anything.
You sound like a shill for ProtonMail. Are they paying you for each post you make in their defense? As all things in life, nothing speaks louder than the people who sponsor you and sustain your operation, and when it comes to that, ProtonMail is highly suspicious, even if there are no clear indicators that they are compromised. Given the evidence provided you should, at the very least, be a bit skeptical of their operation. Unless, of course, you are shilling for them here, or benefit in other way or form by making people believe that they are legitimate.
i’m sorry – i mixed up two facts. it is protonmail who monetarily (and publicly) supports CIA-backed orgs, not the other way around (afaik). protonmail does have a big US backer but i forget who it is so i will do some digging (and fix my original post) sorry again!!
Certainly some of their funding comes from paid memberships. Beyond that, here is what my (not remotely extensive) research found:
In 2014 ProtonMail is listed as a Boston finalist for MassChallenge, (the same MassChallenge Boston who runs a US Air Force Lab), through whose programs start-ups
I am unsure if the MassChallenge application resulted in a grant, though there are finance sites that suggest it did.
Also in 2014, they raised $550,377 from backers on IndieGoGo In their campaign they said this:
And yet…
They took 2 Million USD from venture capitalists at Charles River Ventures (CRV) and from FONGIT, described by ProtonMail as “a foundation supporting innovation on behalf of the State of Geneva and the Swiss Federal government”. The head of ProtonMail’s Advisory Board also serves as Director of FONGIT.
There have been people who claim to connect CRV to In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, but my (very brief) research only came up with a loose connection through an employee. I did, however, find out an unrelated piece of information I would not have otherwise: In-Q-Tel lists GitLab in their portfolio. There is another (stronger) connection to the US government through CRV; a partner was appointed by Obama in 2012 to represent the US at the UN General Assembly.
It is also of note that Protonmail is advised by the MIT Venture Mentoring Service which is exclusively for the MIT community. I mention this because Protonmail has scrubbed much of the MIT influence, presumably because they think it will harm their business. This is the “about” now:
And this was that same page in 2014:
Okay, a lot of information that helps me know more detail about various relationships Protonmail has had for fundraising.
But in terms of having any clear takeaways, this is kind of a mess. IT sounds like the connections to CIA are largely speculative, derived from possible connections of CRV and MIT, right?
that is correct.
my biggest takeaway from the search was the venture capital funding. not because i think it means 3 letter agencies are involved (which i don’t, to be clear) but because i think it compromises being committed to the best interest of their users. also on a personal level i hate that they crowdfunded with the promise they were going to remain independent and then broke that promise. it feels really slimey. how can one trust their word that they won’t break more promises in the interest of $$$?
There’s a huge huge elephant in the room here, which I feel like nobody is talking about. And it has to do with how scatterbrained, speculative, and disconnected all of these details are, and how far short they are of establishing, like really establishing anything at all. If you ask me why I shouldn’t use Amazon, I can immediately point you to an article about anti-competitive practices. Same with Google Chrome, I can instantly point you to some article about how they’re pulling adblock extensions from the chrome store or how they’re misbehaving at the W3C. It’s a straight shot to a clearly expressed problem with no speculation needed.
Normally, in everyday life, if I’m in a room with people I know, I could explain something like what I just said above and people would instantly know what I mean. But in internet comment sections, people appear to be completely unable to distinguish between speculative and concrete allegations of harm.
i don’t disagree. i only mentioned the CIA connection because if you look it up, you will find claims. hell, you can find a bunch of claims in this very thread. it is unsurprising, as any US involvement in a privacy project makes people skeptical.
facts (that can be verified on protonmail’s own website):
that last point is why some think they are compromised. especially because they are always on the side of the CIA. even though they claim they fight for “freedom of speech everywhere” somehow that has not included censorship which is not advantageous to the US gov’t
i will never pay for protonmail’s services because i refuse to give money to an organisation that supports CIA-backed causes. as someone who cares deeply about others, proton’s support to me is what google pulling adblock is to you.
deleted by creator