patrick.net

I stopped using Mozilla/Firefox too.

I didn't like them for kicking out Brendan Eich because of his own personal and private donation to a group that wants to keep marriage between men and women. But I didn't stop at that time.

After they changed Firefox so that you cannot stop it from continuously calling home, that's when I stopped.

NuttBoxer says

Guess it's time I setup my own email server...

I've been considering this too.

One thing I worry about is if my email traffic will be sent as plaintext. I haven't looked into this topic much yet, but I know maybe 5ish years ago I read an article about how google was pushing lots of other email providers to setup encrypted email channels with gmail and other large providers, because the default was plaintext, making it really easy to eavesdrop if you can sniff network traffic. If google had to hobnob others to do this, it makes me think email encryption isn't some easy default thing given the current industry tech stack, and that it might require quite a bit of effort.

I'm just talking route point to point encryption, which still lets each mail server node along the route read the email, but prevents those along the network from snooping. Ideally I want end to end encryption, but despite being such a valuable thing to have, we oddly still dont have ubiquity of it. I know ~20 yrs ago I think there was a few end to end email providers like hushmail and ziplip, but you had to send and receive from the same provider. So emailing from hushmail to hotmail was still unencrypted, obviously. I think the gmails who like to read our emails have probably sabotaged the industry, preventing end to end from happening. In fact, now that I think about it, I bet that was google's motivation 5 yrs ago to improve email encrypted routes - I bet they were worried if it were to stay unencrypted, end to end might end up being the solution, preventing gmail from spying. So they improve the situation, making it less of a problem, which makes people less likely to care about e2e.

I think for Linux server email setup there is encryption you can add. I started setting it up one day, then realized it was way more work than a few hours over one weekend. There are really good tutorials, so totally doable, just need some time. And if all mail is stored on your server, and it's just the calls from the individuals using the service to the server, that reduces the surface of attack as long as you've set it up correctly. And I don't think it will work for more than personal emails, as most sites will blacklist personal email domains.

Yes, setting up my own email server was quite a pain in the ass. But after that, it's been pretty hands-off. Just works.

So they replied to my "I'm going elsewhere" reply:

Hello,

Thank you for the follow-up.

Please note that we respect everyone's decision and we will be happy if you ever change your mind and try our ProtonMail service.

You can always follow our blog or social media to get the latest updates: https://protonmail.com/blog/

Feel free to contact us if you need any other assistance regarding our ProtonMail service.

Looks like Protonmail is phasing out Google captcha

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27326961

Yes!

Maybe we are helping Protonmail to become more secure.

Ya looks pretty obvious your emails and suggestion to use hcaptcha resulted in this change.

Good job. And It's good to see protonmail be receptive to good advice.

Nice job Pat! I may reconsider now...

Well, looks like your e-mails had some impact!

Nice!

Bummer. Protonmail now releasing IP addresses to law enforcement.

https://thehackernews.com/2021/09/protonmail-shares-activists-ip-address.html?utm_source=patrick.net&utm_medium=patrick.net&utm_campaign=patrick.net

porkchopexpress says

Bummer. Protonmail now releasing IP addresses to law enforcement.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

They have a tor site, and that's the only way i never access my email. Good luck tracking my IP...

By default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account.

Lol, by default.

But at soon as someone objects to gentrification in Switzerland (that's the criminal charge it seems) then Protonmail does indeed track your IP address.

I don't do anything illegal, so meh...but still

porkchopexpress says

I don't do anything illegal, so meh...but still

By whose definition? I'd strongly advise against relying on the law to shield you, as that can be re-written at any point, and your past can suddenly make you a criminal.

NuttBoxer says

porkchopexpress says

I don't do anything illegal, so meh...but still

By whose definition? I'd strongly advise against relying on the law to shield you, as that can be re-written at any point, and your past can suddenly make you a criminal.

Tis true

The real question is whether you can trust the government.

After all this mandate shit and obvious corruption at the CDC/FDA/NIH, the answer is obviously NO.

I was unable to load the Tor address for protonmail this morning. Tor site sometimes go down, but the timing certainly leaves questions.

Maybe time to move on to tox like @RichWicks introduced us to:

https://tox.chat/faq.html

NuttBoxer says

By whose definition? I'd strongly advise against relying on the law to shield you, as that can be re-written at any point, and your past can suddenly make you a criminal.

Absolutely right. I had made some videos about how my company can provide transportation for blind or wheelchair bound folks, and so on. These videos were shown to various agencies who thought the firms were excellent, so they decided to show these videos to a group of city officials in a large auditorium downtown. I had put the films on a Windows laptop so a manager could take it to the auditorium and use their projector. I was not there when it was played, but when the videos finished the manager did not turn off the computer. He just left it running until the video player finally quit and displayed the main Windows desktop. The desktop had the folder where I had put the video, and I had named the folder "CrippleFilms." Well, apparently "cripple" is a bad word now, despite being in the dictionary and not labeled as disparaging in any reference. My boss got calls from city officials and an attorney or two who wanted me fired. None of the blind or wheelchair folks I had worked with making the videos were offended, just the officials. I did not get fired, but instead was given a day off without pay.

HeadSet says

I did not get fired, but instead was given a day off without pay.

Late in my career, I would have considered a day off without pay as a bonus, because benefits continue and time off was becoming the most valuable thing to me.

Now I have all my days off, and I'm very happy with that because it gives me time to do the things I've always wanted to do, like working more on this site and my other personal projects.