Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Do you trust Proton? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by eddie_of_ny@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I've been using Proton Mail and VPN for a while now, and I'm just wondering how everyone else feels about them. I have this kind of inherent alight distrust of them just because they seem like they offer a lot for free and kind of have a Big Tech vibe about them, but there's nothing for me to really substantiate that distrust with, its mostly just a feeling. That being said, I do use their services as mentioned and they work pretty well, even on the free teir. So aside from that one instance where they gave that guy's info to the feds, is there any reason not to trust them with my data?

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[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

You can't create proton account anonymously very easily. If attempting to create account using for, you're prompted to enter phone number or existing email iirc.

Edit: just tested, existing email is needed. This already tells they do not want people to create accounts in a privacy respecting way even if it's somewhat trivial to bypass if you know how

[–] MrMonkey@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tell me you don't understand the difference between privacy and anonymity without telling me

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not talking about anonymity, even though it's also implied. Proton claims to offer privacy in a similar fashion as Google, they protect your data from everyone but themselves and whichever party they "need" to share the data with.

[–] MrMonkey@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Google is an advertising business, so the "need" for our data is built into their business model. Proton is not an advertising company and doesn't have any relation with any other party where our data drives their business. If you are concerned that Proton will record your IP when you create an account (which they are very clear on in their privacy policy), you are pretty much looking for anonymity if even you claim not.

[–] Emanuel 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is it possible to use a throwaway email, such as tempmail.org?

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

Tempmail.com and temp-mail.org are blocking tor users. Tested some other random service that works, but proton blocked their mail domains