ProtonMail criticizes Gmail's confidential mode for being neither secure nor private

ZMsiXone · Jun 22, 2019

https://betanews.com/2019/06/22/protonmail-criticizes-gmail-confidential-mode/

Privacy-focused ProtonMail has lashed out at Google, saying the "confidential mode" available in Gmail is "misleading" and "little more than a marketing strategy". It says that people "don't need to settle for fake privacy"

Pointing out that Gmail's confidential mode lack end-to-end encryption, ProtonMail says that the email service is "not secure or private". The company says that Gmail can still read your emails, and that expiring emails are not as secure as Google would have users believe.
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Daveski17 · Jun 22, 2019

Google telling porkies, surely not? I have a Proton Plus mail account and a free Gmail account. I know which one is scraped for info.

Floyd 57 · Jun 22, 2019

Well according to this here https://restoreprivacy.com/secure-email/ proton mail doesn't look good either if you're looking for privacy... Better than google but still

ProtonMail is a Switzerland-based email service that also runs a VPN service – see ProtonVPN. In researching the company, I discovered some interesting history with ties going to the United States, which we will now briefly cover. ProtonMail appeared on the scene in the wake of the Snowden revelations and was promoted by American media as “The Only Email System the NSA Can’t Access” – which was around the time Lavabit was shut down for not cooperating with the US government.

In 2014 ProtonMail launched a successful crowd-funding campaign where they stated:

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.

Less than one year later, however, ProtonMail accepted a $2 million “investment” from a US-based firm called Charles River Ventures (CRV). CRV is an interesting company that seeks to get a “strong ownership stake” in various startups. Around the same time this was happening, Snowden revealed that the NSA coerces US-owned companies to install backdoors or compromise their encryption to facilitate state surveillance efforts. (This is one reason people avoid US-based tech.)

We also find here how the US-based Venture Monitoring Service assisted Proton in the early phase of the company:

We have been working with VMS since the very beginning and our mentors have been key to our success. Our mentors helped us make some of our most important early hires and also helped introduce us to investors. At the start, we had no experience in running a company so the advice from VMS was crucial in helping us make the transition from idea to product to market success.

Officially, ProtonMail is a Switzerland-based company under the name Proton Technologies AG. Their transparency report, however, does not disclose the degree to which the company is owned and/or controlled by US entities.

Looking at the service itself, ProtonMail does a lot of things right. They utilize strong end-to-end encryption standards for email and store all messages and attachments encrypted at rest. ProtonMail has a unique feature for “self-destructing messages” and they have also added address verification and full PGP support. Regarding encryption, however, it’s important to note that ProtonMail does not encrypt subject lines of emails, which exposes private data to third parties.

Overall ProtonMail is a well-regarded email provider, but it does have some noteworthy drawbacks. If you are looking for the highest standards of security and anonymity, including full encryption of subject lines, you may want to consider alternatives.

Note: Professor Nadim Kobeissi argued in an academic paper that ProtonMail’s architecture is fundamentally flawed and “does not guarantee end-to-end encryption for the majority of users.” Reactions to these allegations have been mixed, especially since these arguments could apply to any browser-based email client. You can find the paper here.

+ Pros

Can import contacts and emails through bridge feature

Strips IP address from emails

Emails are encrypted at rest and stored on Swiss servers

Officially under Switzerland jurisdiction

Apps for mobile devices

Can be used with email clients through the Bridge feature

– Cons

ProtonMail does not encrypt email subject lines

Strong ties to US research institutions; funded by US investors

Utilizes phone number verification

May suspend accounts without warning

Mobile apps, IMAP bridge, and backend are closed source

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Daveski17 · Jun 22, 2019

Floyd 57 said: ↑

Well according to this here https://restoreprivacy.com/secure-email/ proton mail doesn't look good either if you're looking for privacy... Better than google but still

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Hmmm ...

Around the same time this was happening, Snowden revealed that the NSA coerces US-owned companies to install backdoors or compromise their encryption to facilitate state surveillance efforts. (This is one reason people avoid US-based tech.)

And it's buggy. I expected more from the CERN Boffins. They should stick to analysing z particles.

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