True story. https://protonmail.ch/
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Encrypted email is back
On the surface it seems very similar to HushMail – fully encrypted messages between HushMail users, and passphrase-encrypted to users of other email providers.
The main differences seem to be the two tier encryption – one key to access your account and another to decrypt your messages (to which ProtonMail claim they never have access).
Seems interesting, but at the end of the day, it’s just a slap of paint and a few paintings hung on the aged wall that is the current email protocols. I’m still eagerly awaiting more news on the DarkMail project which purports to be redesigning the system from the ground up with encryption baked into the protocols rather than simply patched on.
I’ve been using Wickr for texting and I love it. It lets you set your message on a timer so that is self destructs in the inbox of the person you send it to. Anywere from a few seconds to 6 days. But unlike snapchat it is end-to-end encrypted. They say they are working on a desktop version now but I’m not sure when they expect it to be ready. Maybe in the meantime I’ll have to give this protonmail a look see….
What about startmail? I’m beta testing it now, but don’t have the expertise to evaluate the encryption.
Why are any of these superior to using just PGP? Anything that involves outside trust (out of your physical machine, which itself has issues) seems absurd.
Yes it’s all about convenience and usability. Wickr looks and feels like any normal text or email service. And from my brief glance at protomail’s page it looks like they might have accomplished the same. It’s about making serious encryption that even grandma can use because to achieve some level of herd immunity you need most people using it even if they don’t realize it. Otherwise, the rare person who goes through the hassle of using some user-unfriendly primitive PGP client (while everyone else is using gmail) sticks out like a sore thumb and looks “suspicious” to the bad guys. Generating more scrutiny.
Actually, me grandma is using PGP. And she was not able to even identify a PC like 18 months ago. I admit that it might have something to do with her grandson, but in terms of usability and convenience I don’t see where PGP is neither.
Textsecure is another good project that is open source and is also included in Cyanogenmod.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcrime.securesms
Been using Textsecure for a while now. Very nice, I highly recommend it. I also talked about Proton mail this week in the Ed and Ethan show. I hope to interview the developers and get a better scoop on it by this Saturday.
I’ll be the third to state that Textsecure is excellent and very user friendly (which means all your friends can use it without trouble.) It has a version for Android and a version in the works for iOS which they hope to have out around September.
