we appear to be the first to write up the outrage coherently too. much thanks to the illustrious @self
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
I highlighted another nice dig by weizenbaum this afternoon which your “broken by design” reminded me of:
“These gigantic computer systems have usually been put together (one cannot always use the word designed) by teams of programmers, whose work is often spread over many years. By the time these systems come into use, most of the original programmers have left or turned their attention to other pursuits. It is precisely when such systems begin to be used that their inner workings can no longer be understood by any single person or by a small team of individuals.”