• 1 Post
  • 18 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: November 8th, 2023
  • LWD@lemm.eetoPrivacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com•Building a Safer Matrix
    6·
    8 days ago

    The most important section of this post is here (I turn these things into a list):

    Over the past six months, we’ve invested in improved tooling for the frontline team who review user reports.

    1. We’ve sponsored the addition of account suspension to the Matrix Specification, and added a mass redaction API endpoint for the most popular Matrix server implementation, Synapse, so that both the Matrix.org server and other server instances in the ecosystem can benefit. Suspension gives us reversible account enforcement, which means we can develop more automated systems for faster takedown ahead of investigation. This should reduce the time that illegal material is accessible, while enhancing the rights and protections of our users.
    2. We’ve also recently added authenticated media, stopping abuse of Matrix as a content distribution network. We worked with the IWF on this project, following reports of abuse of Matrix servers as a content delivery mechanism for ICAP sites.

    In terms of privacy alone, neither of these points appear to benefit users. #1 benefits law enforcement and room moderators, and #2 benefits server owners, but not really from a privacy perspective.

    Could the suspension API be maliciously used to lock down users’ accounts further? Based on this post alone, I can’t tell, but Matrix has a sketchy relationship with consent when it comes to having data deleted. (Constantly referring to their chat app as “like email” is also a bit misleading, the same way that referring to Bitcoin as “crypto-currency” is misleading.)

  • LWD@lemm.eetoPrivacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com•Email Aliasing is a Great Privacy Tool
    4·
    9 days ago

    In my opinion, email aliasing is the best tool when you share a domain name with a bunch of other people. The more, the merrier!

    Hosting a custom domain is cool and all, but unless you share it with friends, two data breaches could tie your accounts together if somebody was reasonably competent about identifying domains that aren’t typically associated with email hosting.

  • LWD@lemm.eetoPrivacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com•Does Proton really support Trump? A deeper analysis (and surprising findings)
    41·
    10 days ago

    To me, the article almost reads like it was written by a conservative trying to parody liberal ideology. After starting the article from the beginning, I got the distinct impression that the author was saying “hello, fellow liberals” to the audience.

    Now, as someone who deeply opposes Trump and everything he stands for, this situation is worrying to say the least.

    Especially after seeing significant gaps in information about both Andy Yen’s actions from this author, despite the claims that

    I scoured copious amounts of information, thousands of tweets, replies, and comments, as well as blog posts.

    It doesn’t help that the author is anonymous and has no other articles to their name.

  • LWD@lemm.eetoPrivacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com•Does Proton really support Trump? A deeper analysis (and surprising findings)
    451·
    11 days ago

    There are multiple issues with this blog post.

    Paints entire issue as “politics”

    The post falsely assumes Andy Yen’s politics exclusively matter - they don’t. Andy Yen stupidly posted a opinion online, then stupidly got the official corporate Proton account to stupidly repeat it on multiple platforms.

    This is the issue: they demonstrated massive corporate mismanagement.

    Then the company tried sweeping it under the rug, and many users are unaware about the corporate statements.

    The article never addresses that issue. The author probably wishes Andy Yen’s mistake was just political, because that would be easy to write off. But it’s not.

    Trust matters

    If the CEO is able to bungle something this badly in full public sight, I lose a tremendous amount of trust in the actual product. And because Proton gets a good chance to read over every single email that comes in from an external source - password reset emails, confidential documents, etc - now I’m worried that they could bungle something that I can’t see… Until it’s too late.

    Article misrepresents Slater

    If you read this Medium article alone, you might come away with the impression Gail Slater is a champion of small business. After all, it says

    Legal experts have described Slater to be “not known as a friend of Big Tech”, and “not good for Google” despite her Republican ties. It is likely that knowing this, Andy was caught by surprise at Trump’s pick…

    I was caught by surprise too: this article misses key details about Gail Slater. Several people pointed this out to Andy Yen.

    Her Wikipedia page suggests she worked for the FTC before working for a lobbying firm and joining the first Trump administration. Then she worked for Fox and Roku and is now rejoining the Trump administration.

    That lobbying group that employed her for four years was the Internet Association.

    The Internet Association (IA) was an American lobbying group based in Washington, D.C., which represented companies involved in the Internet. It was founded in 2012 by Michael Beckerman and several companies, including Google, Amazon, eBay, and Facebook…

    In 2017, the Internet Association opposed California AB 375, a data privacy bill that would require Internet service providers to obtain customers’ permission to collect and sell their browsing history, citing desensitization and security as the basis for their opposition.

    Maybe Andy Yen stupidly didn’t know better when he made his post (as “Proton Team”) when he claimed she had “a solid track record of being on the right side of the antitrust issue”.

    But this article should have known.

    Technical issues

    This article also makes a poor technical assumption: if you read it without knowing better, you’d think Proton isn’t capable of scanning and recording the text of mail as it arrives.

    Lines like these

    Proton is end-to-end encrypted, meaning it cannot decrypt user data.

    tell the reader, either ignorantly or intentionally, the opposite of most email works. Banks, service providers, and password reset emails are all likely to be readable on receipt. E2EE emails in Proton are literally exceptionally rare.

    Assorted notes

    • This article is the one the Proton team officially endorses. (Or is that Andy Yen commandeering the account again?)
    • Assuming racism isn’t possible for Asian people is, at best, a naive thing to say as a defense.
    • The article equates women with automatically being feminist; for a paper with so many links, it’s strange that this claim was unsourced