Proton CEO Andy Yen gave a surprisingly sharp interview to the Swiss magazine “watson” (source in German: https://www.watson.ch/digital/wirtschaft/517198902-proton-schweiz-chef-andy-yen-zum-ausbau-der-staatlichen-ueberwachung). He warned that Proton might leave Switzerland if new surveillance laws are passed, which aligns with the company’s strong pro-privacy stance. So far, nothing unexpected.
However, Yen’s remarks about Swiss officials - describing them as lifelong bureaucrats, all lazy, and incompetent - came across as arrogant and out of place, almost like something you’d expect from a capitalism praising Trump supporter. he also was quoted in the interview, that the US works better (so they consider to move there?).
The interview left me speechless, and I’m certain I won’t be considering Proton for any of my future projects
i don’t understand why the proton board doesn’t sack him
i also don’t understand why he’s praising a surveillance state like the us which is currently deporting people because they’re critical of foreign governments
For those in the back:
Most of the links in that list fail or lead to http rather than https. The point about Radware links to an archived webpage that states that proton no longer works with them. Storing Emails as .eml seems to be a rather arbitrary critique. Criticizing Proton for operating in Switzerland because of Swiss laws also seems odd, when the very article you are positing it under is criticizing Swiss laws changing further to make them consider relocation.
You know…. You may be right. But I honestly don’t have the time, patience or willingness to dig further into companies anymore.
My tolerance for brands now is absolute ZERO. I don’t care anymore. One tiny tiny small fuckup, mistake, wrong worded phrase and you end up in my blacklist. It’s unfair? Oh no… ahaha
Proton can fail, Andy and all the employees can be jobless and homeless for what concerns me. Too harsh? Good, quit then, distance yourself.
I read the entire interview, and while it was a browser translation, I didn’t get the same sense from it as OP. It reads to me like standard commentary from someone who works in secure services.
The comment about the US was more about the fact that they wouldn’t have the same obligations to expose users or implement backdoors as what this regulation is asking, and that’s true. The US is still (thankfully) supportive of E2EE services. How long that lasts is unknown, but it is still nonetheless true right now.
And calling the politicians lazy bureaucrats, etc.? I call Democrats stuff like that all the time.
He’s said some other potentially problematic things, depending on how you read them, but this seems pretty innocuous and in line with what I’d expect from someone in his position.
Bereaucrats being lazy is a common theme, for a reason. I don’t get people who act like this isn’t a well-known common issue, in pretty much any government.
The comment about the US was more about the fact that they wouldn’t have the same obligations to expose users or implement backdoors as what this regulation is asking, and that’s true.
true true, not the same ones, different ones. like national security letters and warrants and the like
This is a thinly-veiled attempt at leveraging his past comments to make a normal boring interview seem like a firecracker. Disingenuous as fuck, from title yo body.
The person Andy claimed to support in his past comments is someone named Gail Slater. You should look into her career. She’s very objective and fact-based.
Andy Yen praised JD Vance and Republicans, and attacked Democrats. He was unnecessarily and extremely partisan.
Since you didn’t link to any of Andy Yen’s comments, here is one.
People are bringing up Gail Slater on behalf of Andy Yen here, pointing out she is objectively a megacorporate shill, though.
And yes, these are Andy’s comments "accidentally* posted on the official corporate Proton account.
I don’t see anything wrong here, calling bureaucrats lazy has absolutely nothing to do with Trump. I call then all the time lazy and useless in my country.
In the US at least, federal employees are non-political employees who have protections against getting randomly fired, so a new politician can’t replace the entire workforce with loyal idealogues. Federal employees earn less income than workers in the private sector, but do it for the sense of purpose and the stability.
Insulting bureaucrats as “lazy” on the whole is the first step to removing those protections, and going back to the world of Andrew Jackson and the robber barons, before these rules existed. Where the regulators can be fired for any reason and replaced with staff that are friendly to business, or not replaced at all. This led to huge wealth disparities, deregulation, a global depression, and the wealthy mostly remained unarmed.
So while calling government workers “lazy bureaucrats” seems harmless, in the USA at least it is part of an influence campaign to dismantle and despoil the government.
This has nothing to do with the US. It’s an interview in the Swiss media, of a Swiss-based company.
I think you are stretching they have protection here too that does not mean we can not criticize for bad work. How is calling them lazy a step removing those protection? People should call out those abuse their position being able to do so is good and democratic. Only by calling out the problems of a system that system can be improved, staying silent and ignoring the issues is problematic not calling them out. That does not mean everyone should be fired for any reason, it mean there is room for improvement.
I’m just saying, people have been claiming our warnings are “stretches” for the past 10 years here in the US, and look where we are now
Edit: if you want to criticize bureaucracy, be specific. Don’t just slander bureaucracy as a whole because they’re lazy or something. It breeds anti-intellectualism
You are warning about the wrong thing though being able to criticize the government or federal employees is a fundamental right of democracy.
But they are lazy at least in Europe they are it is very specific they are lazy and do not want to work, not all of the but many.
Voting trump into power so he can gut your administration is also a fundamental right of democracy, I’m just saying he careful with that type of rhetoric
That is something totally different. Seriously I do not understand the problem. You should worry about the opposite, not being able to expression your opinion that leads to dictatorship. Being able to call them out for being lazy should not be something people should be afraid of.
Trump has been going after the deep state and saying drain the swamp since 2015 or so. Really this just means eliminate the bureaucracy and replace it with loyalists and corporatists. Step 1 to that process is sowing doubt on the bureaucracy. I’m not saying that it should be illegal to criticize bureaucrats.
a good alternative to protonmail for secure encrypted email communication is Delta Chat: https://delta.chat/
I hope that this is only a few misguided bureaucrats of the ÜPF, who wake up and notice that they make a big mistake.
I’ve only skimmed but it seems he’s only angry at specific bureaucrats. I don’t see anything too outrageous.
I suspect that computer scientists have a tendency to believe that all complex problems can simply be broken down into many small parts and solved once and for all. But that is because they enjoy thinking that way for writing code or solving computer problems, and they are not educated at all in sociology, economy, psychology or political science. There are those who seek power above anything else - and that is why we can’t have nice things or simple solutions.
He does come across a bit like a libertarian nutjob as if it’s up to the “captains of industry” to fight crime and care for the well-being of people. Except of course about the surveillance area he is right, the surveillance state has always and will always overreach. And organized crime and terrorists can always circumvent legal means of surveillance by faking or stealing identities.
I left to Tuta when he got unnecessarily political last time, and it’s been pretty great.
Also, they just dropped a calendar widget yesterday ;)
tuta and mullvad has been my goto since the proton implosion
I’ll never understand the hate boner people on the internet have for this guy.
He said he supported one of Trump’s staff picks once and hoped the person would do a good job.
God forbid 🙄🙄
I mean yeah, because that pick did have a good track record.
Andy said something positive that was vaguely related to Trump, that means he’s bad now m’kay
Anyway, back to reality…
For those unaware, Gail Slater is the supposedly “controversial” Trump pick. She’s done some good work it seems, and from what I’ve read about her thus far (not just on wikipedia), she takes a very objective and fact-based approach to her cases.
If you go work for a Nazi, you’re a Nazi.
You breathe the same air as Nazis. Better get a gas mask!
source: [removed]
I assume this is poster’s seelf deletion because otherwise more of the post would be gone including title and creator. is this a smear campaign?
I mean, things we have seen in the past does not inspire a lot of trust, but what is this?
On my side it’s
Post is awaiting moderator approval.
I don’t know exactly what that means, but it doesn’t appear like the person who wrote it meant to delete it, or avoid criticism about it
Glad I went with Tuta mail.
Talk about a walled garden
How exactly is this different from Proton?
Proton bridges to other applications via imap. Tuta claims that’s “too insecure.” Even though every email ever uses it.
Isn’t the proton bridge only available for paid customers?
Yes, I use my own domains.
Then you’re good. My main complaint is for the free plan. You either pay or are forced to use their UI and protocols. Most users are on the free plan and as such, enter kind of a walled garden
Their predatory pricing also doesn’t make them look great
I fully agree with you. Sorry, I wasn’t getting your point before.
I paid for Proton for privacy and custom domain. Then I wanted more domain and didn’t love the CEOs words but more over wanted to try Tuta. Price was cheaper and offered more domains.
Tuta had zero non Tuta application use such as thunderbird and you can only email support if you pay! What in the world.
I read online and many recommended mailbox.org. It offers 50 custom domains for less than 4$ a month. I’m now of the opinion that both Proton and Tuta are kind of like VPNs, they prey on scared users who think they need these services. Why does my mailbox need to be encrypted when email already has its own security functions and it’s already unencrypted when sent to another email? Why can’t I use IMAP as all other mail uses? Why should I use a “private” email with a custom domain when I bought that domain with my own name? lol
I don’t have the energy or care to dig deep into those questions like some people might but after my experience switching between those two I find them both quite pointless. It’s good to have google alternatives but, like VPNs, they’re scaring their customers into thinking an extra feature is essential
To be clear, the proton bridge is supposed to be accessed via localhost. Connecting via IMAP over a network connection is less secure.
I don’t think I ever said otherwise but thanks for the details.
I’m using Proton and considering divesting. What are good alternatives without US ties?
I don’t think there’s any all-in-one services like Proton. !PurchaseWithPurpose@lemmy.world has a few suggestions, https://european-alternatives.eu/ has others. You’ll likely have to piecemeal things if you had the full Proton suite.
I’m only using the email though so it is not a hard transition.
Then Tuta or Mailbox.org are often recommended. I use Tuta + Addy.io to give me a bunch of aliases, though if you pay for one of the mail services, they both give you a number of aliases, too.
Only using one company per service is probably the wisest option, regardless of which company it is!
Such a shame to see what seemed like a great alternative to Gmail under such management.
Yeah, fuck that guy for
checks notes
Hating bureaucracy like the rest of the world!
That source is literally scrapping an empty pot for nothing
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