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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
ProtonMail suggests fear of the Donald prompting lockdown
"ProtonMail follows the Swiss policy of neutrality. We do not take any position for or against Trump," the Swiss company's CEO stated on Monday, before revealing that new user sign-ups immediately doubled following Trump's election victory.
ProtonMail has published figures showing that as soon as the election results rolled in, the public began to seek out privacy-focused services such as its own.
CEO Andy Yen said that, in communicating with these new users, the company found people apprehensive about the decisions that President Trump might take and what they would mean considering the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency.
"Given Trump's campaign rhetoric against journalists, political enemies, immigrants, and Muslims, there is concern that Trump could use the new tools at his disposal to target certain groups," Yen said. "As the NSA currently operates completely out of the public eye with very little legal oversight, all of this could be done in secret."
ProtonMail was launched back in May 2014 by scientists who had met at CERN and MIT. In response to the Snowden revelations regarding collusion between the NSA and other email providers such as Google, they created a government-resistant, end-to-end encrypted email service.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/14/protonmail_subs_double_after_trump_victory/
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday November 15 2016, @08:57AM
GPG. You'd probably have to set it up for Grandma. In my office where we all use macs, I've set up GPGtools and even the most incompetent gets by just fine because once you set it up, they don't even notice (providing they save their key password to their keychain -- I like mine to timeout but there are limits as to what you can expect others to do).
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday November 15 2016, @03:35PM
That's the obvious solution, but you've highlighted the fundamental problem in it. I'm trying to solve that "other side" problem without needing to touch every last person's email client. Email encryption isn't terribly useful if the other side can't/won't use email encryption.
Of course, even if I pulled it off, the problem is reduced from "install plugin-friendly and trustworthy mail client -> install trustworthy plugin -> setup plugin (and make everyone else do this)" to "install my mail client (and make everyone else do this)" when the level of expectation of everyone else for email is "open 'the internet' and click the aol/hotmail/yahoo bookmark". That's at least a bit easier though.
Programming human behavior is hard. Maybe if I started a campaign that claimed not using encryption was racist or sexist or something. That'd at least convert the under 30 crowd, but the problem is that they WANT everyone to read everything they're typing at all times.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday November 15 2016, @09:06PM
It might be worth looking at how IM apps do this, like Signal, but the problem is that others would have to be using the same email application, or at least there would have to be a process in place where different email apps could negotiate an exchange. This moves the problem away from getting users to implement encryption, to getting email client programmers to implement the solution. At least the developers are more likely to understand why it is important to encrypt.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by joshuajon on Wednesday November 16 2016, @06:50PM
If the solution is to replace the client, replace the servers, and then replace all other clients and servers it seems like trying to fix email might be the wrong tactic. I think you're right that Signal (or something like it) is the way to go.