The sender and the receiver both have a copy of the email. The receiver's MTA pretty much has to have a copy of the email for sane antispam to work. Email itself intrinsically leaks the sender, recipient, and time as part of the SMTP message, which means anyone with access to email server logs can recover this information no matter how much security and encryption you try to put on top of it, and that means that whatever three-letter agency you care about probably has access to all the information they want anyways.
The only meaningful difference in security is going to be whether or not the outgoing MTA is going to try to use (or even require) TLS on the MTA-MTA connection, and what level of encryption is applied to the at-rest email.
Personally, I'm not too fussed about a mail system administrator being able to read my email because of the BOFH principle... it's not worth the sysadmin's time to read my email, because it's just not interesting.
"Manifestos, Fear, and 'Loser Thinking': Inside Proton's AI Reckoning" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50289692 67 comments
"Proton goes all in on using AI" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50296602 110 comments
"Proton to 'Re-Interview' Staff About AI to See Who Gets to Keep Their Job" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50251062 48 comments
The articles seem damning. However, CEOs jumping on board the AI bandwagon is not particularly rare. I don't see a CEO pushing AI as reason to change my email provider. If it manifests to be a problem, then sure I will switch. So far I haven't seen any repercussions.
https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/16278789555215-A...
> That distinction matters to us. Our long-term values include “Your data belongs to you” and “We are good stewards of your data”. The pattern we try to follow is: rather than continuously reworking our UI to follow every new trend, we give you the interfaces to use your data however it suits you. MCP continues that pattern. It’s there if you want it, and nothing changes if you don’t.
An MCP Server for Fastmail – National Email Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47870988 - April 2026 (14 comments)
I have had no problem getting a human for customer support in a timely manner.
(fastmail customer)
Keywords: bypass paywall
[1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/PROTON-Reviews-E13574.htm
It is an entirely different ballgame of idiocy to write something like
> that’s looser thinking
In response to one of his employees in a company wide slack chat. How stupid and unaware of yourself and your surroundings do you have to be?
Put aside that this may even be a legal case in itself, what does this say about his leadership in general?
I have not failed to notice that they’ve slowed focus on security oriented features and are now focused on a lot of things I don’t care about, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of the cultural problem there.
Without the security aspect, Proton is ridiculously overpriced. If they want to compete with GSuite or Zoho, they gotta come down.
I’m willing to pay premium for a niche security focused offering. I’m not willing to pay a premium for AI generated crapware.
I don't care about the AI use bur I'm very sad to learn they won't be "lovingly" crafting their products anymore. Less craftsmanship and attention to detail can't be good.
Thankfully, owning a domain makes switching providers easy.
Yeah, I'm a paying customer and have been asking for a desktop app for Proton Drive for years. Instead, they've focused their efforts on a crypto wallet and a chatbot. (Sure, we recently got a CLI app which _is_ better than nothing but come on.)
Another hurdle is I see no other good alternative. I used Fastmail for a while, but it was a bit laggy due to network requests across the Atlantic Ocean. Also it is under US jurisdiction. That company is no longer relevant to me.
I still think it is a valuable use of my time to make my voice heard to the company.
What good alternative can you recommend for me?
https://www.fastmail.com/blog/fastmail-offers-eu-data-region...
EDIT: Re-reading your comment, maybe you meant the fact that the servers were exclusively in the US (until very recently).
The only thing that unfortunately matters here is that Fastmail has a US incorporation.
Fastmail even writes as such:
> If what you need is a guarantee that your data remains only in the EU, we don’t have that, and we’d rather tell you directly than let you assume otherwise.
If they’re coming to market when there’s already a dominant player, they must have improved something, right? Not saying it’s logical.
I mean, I also appreciate the honesty of the CEO to say that security is not important anymore and if it is to you, this company is not a good fit anymore.
Letting people go for invented reasons isn't something that happens in civilized countries, by the way.
Hopefully we’ll see those talented engineers leaving to build an alternative to Proton products now that we know corporate leadership at Proton can’t be trusted.
The board should really oust the “loser thinking” CEO and CTO if they want to minimize the damage to their brand.
The company not providing even a written statement in response to 404 reporting speaks volumes. They don’t see themselves accountable to their customers.
I don’t care you are hosted in Zwitserland, your CEO makes me distrust the company dearly.
Have people completely lost their humanity? Is winning at whatever you’re doing that important we can’t be equally obligated to show each other decency?
Maybe they'll start unionising more, back in the days as long as they had a coffee and a chair they never complained...
Every discussion of Proton leadership shortcomings shows a market of users looking for a better run company.
And if it’s all AI developed moving forward, why not? There’s investors out there that would support Proton’s original engineers to fulfill Proton’s original mission, without the AI psychosis abandoning security as a top priority.
This is such a cop out response. They still need funding, and infrastructure, and to build up an entire customer base who presumably they would need to bribe with free service at a loss in order to attract anyone new. Who’s gonna fund that when there’s a known market ceiling for the service that’s already been captured? We’re not in ZIRP anymore
Shocking...
Note how he says that he wants to 'acknowledge' things. Not apologize. Not that he is wrong about the re-interviews. He says he didn't use nice enough language to soften the blow. Basically, in simple terms, he didn't Lisa it up as temporary refund adjustment.
edit: and the passive voice is a cherry on top
edit2: I gotta say -- all those CEOs are getting a little uppity for people who likely use copilot for summarizing emails.
that comment about "loser thinking" sounds like he's not the best at communication
These are people you do not give time, attention, or money.
Why would he throw all that away?
There was a moment a while back when 1Password made some decision (I think abandoning delphi?) that made me take a step back and ask if they were a security company or not. In moments like this, I wonder if Proton's pitch is security or not. Even if this is a true take, I think someone saying that they need to be cautious and pentest something before launch is a valid concern, for a security company. Not all companies are security companies, but Proton specifically advertises itself as being security and privacy conscious. It is a bad look for a security company to do something that indicates a lack of security prowess.
I think the writing on the wall for manually writing every line of code is obvious, but that does not obviate the need to secure things. However, pushing for speed at the expense of security, AI or not, is a bad look for a security company.
> “That’s bullshit and loser thinking. Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” Yen wrote in the channel at the end of August. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.” Yen added, “stop lovingly handcrafting all our code and use AI more.”
This is the leader behind Proton? I think I need to be more on social media and pay attention to this. This single sentence, if true, has now made me decide to never pay Proton again. That's it. Done. I had email services, VPN, and was considering storage too. Nope.
I am so sick an tired of AIBrained CEO's. All this does is validate how much these people do not need to exist. They just don't. Their thinking is useless. Their in-grouping and in-breeding of mentality is psychosis at large. And now that feel, once again, they can take their masks off, it's time to start looking them in the face and saying, "No."
Also iCloud paid accounts allow custom domains for email. The Apple mail product is way worse but it was amazingly simple to set up and I am happy I have my own domain.
Only problem (and a big one) is just fact it is US company
Now it's been made for me and I can plan my migration to FastMail :-).
This is already true for Proton. While they don't keep logs for ProtonVPN (as tested in court), they do for ProtonMail. Someone went to prison for trusting ProtonMail with their illegal activity.
Usually that would be fine if reporting lines were healthy, but in the AI age with top-down mandates they're not.
Compromising on pentesting and security reviews is not in line with their original mission. Their customer base (including employees) knows this.
Pretty much, I found some very helpful words and perspectives on this from Michael Sandel - Tyranny of Merit. The winners begin to think there success is their own doing, forgetting the luck, good fortune, and many people who helped them along the way. They grow arrogant and full of hubris, looking down on and belittling others.
The question is then, how do we get out of this mess? Sandel offers some interesting foundations, along with Acemoglu.
Links to brain food:
I'm not making the connection, or can see several interpretations
can you expand?
Some of the best moments of growth that I've experienced have happened during adversity, when something I said or did was laid bare for me from another perspective, with all of the problems with my approach pointed out. Those moments are intensely uncomfortable in that moment but so valuable for long-run growth (provided you have enough of a check on your own ego and developed enough insight to learn from such experiences).
My guess is that this trend to sycophancy will happen in every hierarchical organization where individuals at the top are able to reshape their social environment to avoid uncomfortable moments that they don't wish to have. I think it takes someone truly exceptional to avoid creating that kind of reality for themselves, and why it's oh-so-common to see hyperinflated egos from the most powerful individuals.
That said, I would read the hell out of a non-fictional expose covering specifically just the sycophants around some of our most notoriously unhinged powerful people, ones that showed exactly who are applauding these Emperors Nero who play their citharas while their world burns.
so cool has always been about the “iykyk” kinda value. once too many people know there’s nothing to know anymore.
Tech leaders have lost touch with people. And the top leaders — take your pick — have normalized shitty behavior.
I used to think Proton was good.
Not so, anymore.
I’m not supporting their products anymore. Cancelling my subscription
Grow the fuck up, all of you.
The problem is that being optimistic creates massive cognitive disconnects in engineering teams who are trained to think in terms of systemic failure modes. There isn't the same practice of systemic success modes (perhaps that's the role of product managers?)
Anyway, this type of CEO is pushing his brand of 'optimism' down the org chart and making anyone who feels different an outcast, hence his choice of words.
"Do whatever you can get away with, with prioritization on local optimization with eager evaluation"
So basically, be an asshole/sociopath. The tennets of objectivism.
It's a team not a family.
The idea that demanding performance from your employees is "losing your humanity" is insane.
But performance isn’t a single thing. If you prioritize features over pen testing, you’re optimizing one kind of performance and neglecting security, which is an another kind.
For a company whose whole selling point is security, it’s a bad trade-off.
Obviously you can be a total prick and demand performance and maybe get some people onboard but nobody thrives in those environments and unless you want to deal with turnover and mediocrity you foster good working environments with your teammates
Meanwhile, being a decent person carries very little benefit anymore. So it's probably not surprising that people no longer take the effort.
We live in a world where CEOs typically have gotten their position through nepotism, or fucking over many people to get to the top. It's just who they are.
apsurd•1h ago
AI times are weird. Validates that truism I heard: money (and power and influence and now AI) is an amplifier. It amplifies what you always were.
bombcar•52m ago
Vaushite•38m ago
Was this sentence authored under the influence of one or both?
stavros•24m ago
triceratops•15m ago
I counted 4 things you could be under the influence of, not two.
Avicebron•36m ago
morkalork•13m ago
233mhz•46m ago
addybojangles•45m ago