Is anyone working on an "email like" app that runs on Signal?
I'm struggling to figure out what comes after ProtonMail. It's clearly an evolutionary dead end but what succeeds it?
I'm struggling to figure out what comes after ProtonMail. It's clearly an evolutionary dead end but what succeeds it?
That is unlikely to ever happen as Signal doesn't allow any kind of third party clients. https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...
That said Matrix does lend itself to this. It's also worth noting one of the major VCs (Notion) that funded that has an interest in other email companies. So who knows maybe we will see an email message client based on Matrix protocol.
It certainly would be an improvement on relying on systems such as PGP and allow universal E2EE, but also E2EE to the border (required for many government/corporate) situations where auditing is required.
> I'm struggling to figure out what comes after ProtonMail. It's clearly an evolutionary dead end but what succeeds it?
Likely nothing. Many people that use services like this don't require anonymity. For that the threat model is absolutely fine. People seem to forget this page has existed literally since 2014: https://protonmail.com/blog/protonmail-threat-model/
I think people have blown this case out of proportion without really having any facts. Minimal details are actually known the nature of what the criminal charges are about.
There hasn't been any public verified information (court documents etc) pertaining to why the request was made. The most ProtonMail has said is that it was a judicial request made in Swizterland, and there was no avenue to appeal the request.
Media latched on to sensationalist phrases like "climate activist" and "squatter" and those things in itself don't actually tell us very much about the nature of the charges and evidence against the suspect. Those things may not even be the reason the request was made.
Any insights from the early days of the development of email? Does LibreSignal fork, provide interoperability, and just take over, becoming the "email" of tomorrow?
I'm a paying ProtonMail customer. I may be incorrect but am not distracted by the criminal charges stuff as you suggest. Protonmail stated they don't log IP on their homepage. What they meant was "unless the cops ask us". So now they've changed their marketing to update this. I'm satisfied but it also exposes the need to "trust our company", and that's just not sustainable, no matter the company.
The project was discontinued. You can't develop a "Signal client" without relying on Signal servers. If you do, then you'll need your own server and there is no facility for it to talk to other servers. That pretty much makes it dead in the water.
Something like Matrix which does have federation lends itself to that usecase though.
> Protonmail stated they don't log IP on their homepage. What they meant was "unless the cops ask us".
They don't log IPs if you don't enable advanced logs. They do however and have always said they will comply with legal requests from a Swiss court.
It is in their privacy policy, https://web.archive.org/web/20210627220655/https://protonmai.... This snapshot is from earlier this year.
> We will only disclose the limited user data we possess if we are instructed to do so by a fully binding request coming from the competent Swiss authorities (legal obligation). While we may comply with electronically delivered notices (see exceptions below), the disclosed data can only be used in court after we have received an original copy of the court order by registered post or in person, and provide a formal response.
It's also mentioned on the threat model page https://protonmail.com/blog/protonmail-threat-model/ and
> The Internet is generally not anonymous, and if you are breaking Swiss law, a law-abiding company such as ProtonMail can be legally compelled to log your IP address.
Also mentioned in their transparency reporting https://protonmail.com/blog/transparency-report/.
So that never was if the "if the cops ask". There would be many cases that are denied, and we know this from their transparency reports.
The issue is some very silly people thought this meant a law abiding company would risk prosecution/contempt by not abiding by the law/courts. They failed to read any of the company's policies which have been on the website clear as day and got upset about that.
The reason Protonmail is modifying their marketing is to keep people happy who don't have the attention span to learn about any of the products they use from reading any of the documentation.
Given Protonmail trust issues Sir Lee ought to have avoided.
Signal mail service/client would be great too. Long time FastMail user but they too give fuzzy answers on mail privacy. Mailbox.org seems to be decent with encryption at rest.
They will do IP logging if they receive relevant court requests.
> Also provides ability to send encrypted mail with pre shared passwords. Good client apps too.
The only client app you can use is Tutanota's client/web browser.
Last I used it you couldn't export a whole mailbox (only individual mails and directories), you couldn't have folders more than 1 level deep, and you couldn't import email.
You also can't encrypt emails to Tutanota users without using a temporary mailbox on their server. They could very easily disable encryption to particular users.
You can't use third party clients (thunderbird, mutt mail.app etc), and if you're used to those it's a no-go.
People always question whether or not ProtonMail could give you dodgy js that exfiltrates your password/private keys, the same goes for Tutanota, but in the case of Tutanota, you have no option to use a mail client, ie code not written by them.