Comment by self@awful.systems on Proton Mail goes AI, security-focused userbase goes ‘what on earth’

we appear to be the first to write up the outrage coherently too. much thanks to the illustrious @self

it’s an article about a poorly-designed feature that doesn’t accomplish any of its marketed goals and was hoisted upon Proton’s users in spite of their objections

this is an article about AI

The trouble is that Proton has announced and implemented Scribe in a manner that sends up huge red flags for their privacy-focused techie base.

Proton Mail’s privacy-focused users are worried about the Scribe announcement because they’ve never seen Proton be so vague and nonspecific about security and threat models.

Up to now, Proton has been serious about privacy

It’s not about AI. It’s about privacy and communication.

oh. perhaps you could explain this to the authors of the article?

fucking incredible, you managed to cherry pick some of the few sentences in the article that don’t use the words “AI” or “LLM”! good for you, you exhausting motherfucker

they really came out of the woodwork today, huh

I’m taking it as a positive sign that the Proton story’s gaining traction, as it should. this thing is a massive fucking security risk and a bad sign of things to come for Proton, and more people should be talking about it.

but between the dishonesty on Proton’s part about the survey and the types of accounts that’ve come out of the woodwork to unabashedly support this trainwreck of a feature (the pattern’s especially clear on mastodon), boy, there’s a lot of stank on this one

you can see they are actively monitoring the masto discourse and responding whenever they think their justification list has any merit https://hci.social/@protonprivacy@mastodon.social/with_replies

but they are already saying stuff out of sync with their promotional material so damage control does appear to be in action

e.g.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Just to be clear, Proton Scribe is:

only for business users, who have asked for it

https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/112814751983760603

but their site says

Who can use Proton Scribe? We are currently rolling out Scribe to eligible users. If you’re on a Proton Business plan, including Mail Essentials, Mail Professional, and Proton > Business Suite, you can try Proton Scribe for free for 14 days. If you’re on our Visionary plan, it’s included with your plan.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240719203115/https://proton.me/support/proton-scribe-writing-assistant

bit of a whoopsie walkback after caught pants down

totes normal. everyone has this all the time, amirite?!

fuck, the pure PR fluff they’re posting in response to “hey fucknuts, this thing breaks your fucking security model”. I’ve dropped other companies for doing this “uhh no it doesn’t, trust us” shit before. if they had proof this thing’s secure they would’ve posted it by now, but they don’t (because it isn’t, it’s broken by design) so instead they have to post this horseshit

“unencrypted text prompts”

can’t tell if this is because bond movies or marvel movies or fatf movies or heist movies or … but good god some people just have no fucking idea whatsoever

the model execution environment can quickly solve FHE in an afternoon, for a treat. after that it has to get back to piano practice tho!

their self reported system requirements to run the local LLM don’t sound like the average office dell spec (sorry for using screenshots)

and the “opt in” flow appears to make no effort to explain the critical privacy difference between local and server llms

https://proton.me/support/proton-scribe-writing-assistant#system-requirements

god, the pure fucking dark pattern of the option that leaks plaintext being the default, with a description that’s only its upsides, while the local option sounds quite a bit shit in comparison

also, I keep meaning to ask: does this “free for 14 days” trial auto-renew? cause that’s a real shitty dark pattern too if interacting with the feature starts your subscription. in fact, isn’t that illegal in some jurisdictions?

does this “free for 14 days” trial auto-renew?

It doesn’t sound like it, but the wording is a little strange in that it is $2.99 per user per month but does that mean that an admin has to tell each employee whether they can do the trial or not? It doesn’t seem manageable to have a free trial that is activated by the individual user but then the switch to paid subscription has to be handled (I assume) by the designated admin.

Also, if we’re talking about paid accounts they have the billing info already, so maybe they figure it’s better to provide it in this difficult to manage way so that the automatic rollover appears easier?

Now I’m talking out of my ass based on their promo material but it doesn’t change the fact that their standard response is “75% of the survey respondents said they want this” but they release it with this limp-ass “free trial” bullshit

Now I’m talking out of my ass based on their promo material but it doesn’t change the fact that their standard response is “75% of the survey respondents said they want this” but they release it with this limp-ass “free trial” bullshit

the exact same energy as the parking lot of a vacant mall filled with unbought or broken Cybertrucks and other supposedly luxury Tesla vehicles

Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here’s the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

Proton Mail goes AI, security-focused userbase goes ‘what on earth’(pivot-to-ai.com)

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