ProtonMail's Periodic Problems
The private alternative to Google is under attack.
Did you read Get! Off! Gmail!?
Well, did you?
Then did you actually do it?
Attention Conservation Notice:
If you’re still one of the sheeple, based on your answers to those three questions, you may continue grazing. The rest of you listen up here …
Problems:
When an application is really good for the people using it, the application will come under attack. There’s a curious example that’s been covered here, Signal Funding & Kit Klarenberg. And Signal vs. Telegram has some details on why you don’t want to use the platform that was founded in Moscow.
ProtonMail was down AGAIN this morning, just briefly. Attacks like this can be just a general nuisance, but there’s a darker aspect - if you can DDoS the site down for a bit, but send a target a number of large files, and if you’ve got broad visibility into the encrypted traffic to/from Proton’s clients?? The details are a bit dizzying, but this is one method employed to de-anonymize Tor users.
Who wants Proton degraded? Who wants temporary trouble in order to deduce things about the users? And lastly … who’s at a location with relentlessly crappy cable modem service this fine morning? That’d be me …
Prescriptions:
Delusions are when you don’t know what’s real. Denial is when you do, but you continue to behave as if you do not. So don’t be in denial about the conditions in this country. Instead, read and heed:
Pay attention to Telegram, Twitter & Thee.
Do you already Relay Your Signal Calls?
I don’t expect many of you will Throw Away Your Cell Phone, but you’d darned well better understand the thinking behind this.
There are alternatives to Proton, perhaps Tuta, but if I meant that you should avoid Proton I’d have said that. I’m treating these periodic dropouts as proof that this remains one of the best alternatives to Google.
Conclusion:
Did you see the Cloudflare Location Leak news today? Do you know how to build a fail closed VPN connection for the virtual machine you use to keep this sort of bullshit out of your life? Do you have a remote desktop service like Sapper Labs Cloak?
When this site was launched in the fall of 2023, I knew that I did not want to compete with the endless flood of security advice, so I chose to aim higher. The needed stuff for adversary resistant computing/networking appeared in ToolTime.
But yesterday we all collectively crossed into the shadowlands …
So we are going to keep coming back to this for the next little bit, until all of you have done at least some of the things required to shake off the corporate behavior tracking that serves as a back door for law enforcement … and for intel, and don’t imagine that is constrained to the U.S. agencies that report to the ODNI.
Cuba’s Abandoned Panopticon by Tod Seelie.
Have not followed through with knowing all your links; however this was a good piece you have penned. I like it when you avoid browbeating me every time I read your Substack. Wasn’t it you who told me to use Proton everything - not a cheap date BTW <grin>