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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday August 20 2015, @05:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the plain-text-is-for-sissies dept.

TechCrunch article:

Secure encrypted email provider ProtonMail, which runs a "zero access" PGP mail service based in Switzerland has now open sourced its webmail interface — meaning all the code that runs locally on the user's computer is available for inspection.

The startup was founded last year to capitalize on post-Snowden paranoia by offering client-side encryption and host servers that live far from the NSA's prying eyes (if not the Swiss equivalent). And while it open sourced its cryptography code from the get-go, it's now letting outsiders parse its webmail client too — at the same time as launching v2 of the client. ProtonMail is hosting the source code for v2 on Github.

Co-founder Andy Yen says ProtonMail now invited more than 500,000 users off its waiting list, up from 350,000 beta sign ups back in March. He tells TechCrunch it's planning to remove the waiting list entirely this fall.

Yen says ProtonMail's user-base is currently 55 per cent hailing from Europe (with Germany as the largest EU country in terms of users), and around a third (30 per cent) from North America. The U.S. is the single largest country (as you might expect, given population size).

Given tricky questions of trust in a post-Snowden era, Yen argues that open source is an important component for pro-privacy services — coupled with having a solid financial base. ProtonMail started out by raising $550,000 in crowdfunds, but has since topped that up with a $2 million seed round, from Charles River Ventures and Swiss not-for-profit incubator FONGIT. So it has the security of institutional backing.

Anyone here familiar with the company, or use this? I'm also wondering what form of ROI the 'institutional backers' expect to receive from the $2M seed.


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  • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday August 20 2015, @06:48AM

    by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Thursday August 20 2015, @06:48AM (#225298)

    Hushmail has been around for years.

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