Re: Proton - my understanding of the situation is that they made a (blog) post endorsing one action by Trump (nominating a lady very competent in the tech space, I think specifically relating to privacy), which was blown out of proportion by ppl who want to paint with broad strokes.
IIRC, they even distanced themselves from trump within that post, or shortly thereafter in a social media post. It’s been a while but unless I missed something after the blow up, I don’t think they’ve done anything to endorse him
Edit 2: I’m into it now. I’ll let the Proton CEO’s own words speak on his behalf (from link). Sorry for making this so long.
“First, while the X post was not intended to be a political statement, I can understand how it can be interpreted as such, and it therefore should not have been made. While we will not prohibit all employees from expressing personal political opinions publicly, it is something I will personally avoid in the future. I lean left on some issues, and right on other issues, but it doesn’t serve our mission to publicly debate this. It should be obvious, but I will say that it is a false equivalence to say that agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies) is equal to endorsing the entire Republican party platform.”
I am pretty sure it’s just anti-privacy actors trying to sow discord and generate infighting in privacy communities, and the person your are replying to is either one of them or ate the propaganda.
Any cursory look at the Proton guy reveals he’s a progressive who keeps donating to left-wing causes, girls education, pro-LGBT, pro-consumer. To try to paint him as MAGA for being glad about an objectively good thing the Trump admin once surprisingly did is just ridiculous, and obviously not done in good faith.
This was shitty, but my actual problem with Proton is their lean into crypto wallets and showing that they are willing to bend over for the police, which kinda make their entire differentiation as a “secure” platform entirely moot.
Are they “bending” more than what they are legally required to? Their model is that they cannot provide content if it was end-to-end encrypted, even if they were forced they just can’t. If someone pays for their account with a credit card that’s information they can be forced to give. I haven’t heard that they have gone beyond that and willingly given information. I don’t think we can blame a company for not breaking the laws of the country they operate in.
This is a dumb take. Proton wll not fight or defend their users at all. They had to backpedal on their privacy protections and change their advertising lies multiple times.
It is always blame the user as well. There a plenty of ways that they would never have to store this information on their servers. They choose not to do this. They can also push back against these government requests but they won’t be because they are a honeypot for criminals and they know it.
Re: Proton - my understanding of the situation is that they made a (blog) post endorsing one action by Trump (nominating a lady very competent in the tech space, I think specifically relating to privacy), which was blown out of proportion by ppl who want to paint with broad strokes.
IIRC, they even distanced themselves from trump within that post, or shortly thereafter in a social media post. It’s been a while but unless I missed something after the blow up, I don’t think they’ve done anything to endorse him
Edit: I couldn’t find the original, but at least stumbled across a timeline. Anyways, I remember thinking at the time I can at least understand this position from his perspective. I’ll leave it to other to decide https://techissuestoday.com/proton-ceo-responds-to-backlash-after-his-post-supporting-trump-selection/
Edit 2: I’m into it now. I’ll let the Proton CEO’s own words speak on his behalf (from link). Sorry for making this so long.
“First, while the X post was not intended to be a political statement, I can understand how it can be interpreted as such, and it therefore should not have been made. While we will not prohibit all employees from expressing personal political opinions publicly, it is something I will personally avoid in the future. I lean left on some issues, and right on other issues, but it doesn’t serve our mission to publicly debate this. It should be obvious, but I will say that it is a false equivalence to say that agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies) is equal to endorsing the entire Republican party platform.”
I am pretty sure it’s just anti-privacy actors trying to sow discord and generate infighting in privacy communities, and the person your are replying to is either one of them or ate the propaganda.
Any cursory look at the Proton guy reveals he’s a progressive who keeps donating to left-wing causes, girls education, pro-LGBT, pro-consumer. To try to paint him as MAGA for being glad about an objectively good thing the Trump admin once surprisingly did is just ridiculous, and obviously not done in good faith.
This was shitty, but my actual problem with Proton is their lean into crypto wallets and showing that they are willing to bend over for the police, which kinda make their entire differentiation as a “secure” platform entirely moot.
Are they “bending” more than what they are legally required to? Their model is that they cannot provide content if it was end-to-end encrypted, even if they were forced they just can’t. If someone pays for their account with a credit card that’s information they can be forced to give. I haven’t heard that they have gone beyond that and willingly given information. I don’t think we can blame a company for not breaking the laws of the country they operate in.
This is a dumb take. Proton wll not fight or defend their users at all. They had to backpedal on their privacy protections and change their advertising lies multiple times.
It is always blame the user as well. There a plenty of ways that they would never have to store this information on their servers. They choose not to do this. They can also push back against these government requests but they won’t be because they are a honeypot for criminals and they know it.
Even offering that concession, which I don’t, that doesn’t excuse the crypto wallet.