Proton VPN/mail. It’s often recommended as being safe, but I’m not so sure.
It has servers in Israel. Ties to Israel are never a good thing. Palantir, Epstein, etc are tied to Israel, and Israel also is known for its surveillance. It is also true that it’s completely legal there for them to access and monitor any and all information that passes through VPNs or networks there.
I’m looking for a safe alternative that’s privacy-conscious and isn’t linked to Israel. Both mail and vpn (it’s fine if they’re separate). Please let me know if you guys know.
Having servers in Israel means you are materially tied to them now? Making this jump to liken it to Epstein or Palantir is kinda wild imo
Doing any business with or in Israel is being materially tied to Israel.
Remember me of a guy who said that being paid by the CIA doesnt mean youre actually working for the CIA.
They don’t need to be materially linked; they are digitally linked. Israel allows it’s communication and intelligence agencies complete legal access to any communications through VPNs that operate in it’s area.
I don’t want that surveillance.
Having exit nodes for their VPN is not the same as collaborating with the government. There is no evidence that the Israeli government has access to any of their information, their servers are hosted in Switzerland.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t running a VPN to a region require you to have a server in that region?
I wouldn’t assume they aren’t able to grab it all. Both the US and all 5 eye countries, and Israel, should be avoided if possible, to have nothing passing through their servers. Not that other countries won’t also grab it as they can, but Israel by extension of the US has things compromised on a base level.
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Do you have information on proton’s Israel links? I know they used radware several years ago but no longer do.
If you open the app Israel is literally listed as a server. It’s not hard to find.
That’s it? they’ve got some metal hosted in the country somewhere? I was expecting more.
Looking through the thread it seems you’re very keen on the end of the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and privacy which is good but going after proton won’t help on either front here.
If you want to help stop the murder look into the BDS and the organisations they’re currently running boyoctts against and focus your efforts on those as those organisations are the ones propping up the Israeli state and allowing/assisting it to commit it’s crimes. community action against targets that matter will have a far more meaningful effects than going after a handful of servers. To this end also look up Palestinian organisations where you live to work with. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the UK is good example.
And on the privacy side I feel you seem to miss the point of how VPNs work. If you avoid ever setting your exit point to Israel then Israel will never see your traffic and be able to surveil it. Unless you have some evidence that Proton’s network has been compromised I can’t see any technical reason to avoid using Proton or any other provider running endpoints in Israel.
The focus on this post was primarily the surveillance and lack of privacy Israel is known for, though genocide is obviously not a good look either. Relating themselves to Israel in anyway does lower the company’s reputation and the trust it inspires.
I am admittedly not tech-savvy so I’m not really able to understand the fine print myself, though if they conducted their operations within israel that’d definitely be alarming from a surveillance pov. I’m not sure it would register as merely “some metal” to me, if that were the case.
However I know they’re in Switzerland and I don’t have any idea how “exit Nodes” and the sort function.
I’m a big fan of mullvad
Mulvad is the first group that really gets me. Good because they care about the idea, cheap because they aren’t trying to choke me for money, and they take cash.
but doesnt mullvad have an exit node in Isreal too? Wouldnt that just be the same boat this person (OP) put proton in for?
I think mullvad has a server in Israel too
I don’t think having a server somewhere is necessarily a bad thing. If you choose to use that server it’s up to you.
Your ties to Israel claim is more than just a little specious.
Mullvad, widely considered the gold standard for privacy, allows the user to select a server in Israel.
Aside from that nugget, consider not worrying too much about perfect email secrecy. Email isnt private, was never intended to be and has many, many vectors of attack which are so well documented and in such common use that ISPs have attacked email simply to promote end users running their service instead of the competition.
Mullvad doing something — even if it’s reknown — doesn’t automatically make it’s actions good.
Israel conducts surveillance of any VPN communications of any that exist in the region. This is fully legal there. This is a threat to privacy. You’d need to let me know how that isn’t the case, not that X or Y company also hosts a server in the region.
Re: mail, not looking for perfect, just better than Gmail, ideally FOSS.
I apologize for not being clearer. Even in my relative youth and ignorance I make broad assumptions about others understanding of the recent histoy of VPNs and omit stuff I think is simply known because naturally everyone who would post on the privacy board has been keeping up with privacy and security news for the last decade.
I made another reply that explains in detail why and how mullvad can be trusted in this situation. Hopefully it’s a little less scattered, but I can clarify anything that seems wrong or weird.
The point I was trying to make about mail was that you’re better off treating it as a postcard that anyone can read than seeking a privacy respecting service. That simple change will improve your posture because you will no longer be communicating private matters in a medium that isn’t private.
I’ve only recently started looking into privacy so much of it goes over my head.
I don’t use mails for communication, but I’d just like to limit the amount of information/tracking that corporate overlords can collect of me if I can help it (subscriptions mostly and the demographic information they imply, I suppose).
In that case just using any email service that doesn’t do ad tracking is probably fine. Make sure to keep your email deleted up and save anything you need to know or might need later on down the line.
Try to pick a service that’s a big name, lots of recipients servers and clients will enforce very strict uhh dkim or whatever and that means small timers get bounced.
You have the ability to whip up this BS about proton, but a web search for “private email provider” was too much?
Why is it BS?
I did my research, I wanted community feedback for things I may have missed.
Complete bullshit by a trolling OP. Israel is cancer, but OP is doing an obvious smear on Proton to try to agitate leftists. Case in point: Mullvad and most other VPNs have exit nodes in Israel.
It is a dumbfuck corporate decision that has absolutely no more bearing on your VPN’s privacy than routing through the US or Australia. You are truly completely confused.
Also “its” doesn’t have an apostrophe when used as a possessive, you fucking idiot.
Just because mullvad and most other VPNs do something, doesn’t mean it’s good.
Israel is known for a level of surveillance that most other countries aren’t.
The rest of what you’ve said is just ad hominem I’m not interested in.
The idea that you’re not interested in being called out is not unusual.
You have a bone to pick with Proton. It is evident as you’ve singled them out without mentioning this is industry standard. You have a problem with the VPN industry that you are solely blaming Proton for in your post title.
You are a weird little agitator and deserve many more ad hominems. Get wrecked.
I responded to the aspects of your argument that weren’t personal attacks. Personal attacks, yes, I am not interested in.
‘‘Industry standard’’ doesn’t mean anything. Government surveillance and everything this sub stands against is ‘‘industry standard’’. Just because everyone’s doing it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
I ‘‘singled out’’ Proton because it was the VPN I used the most prior. I’m not sure why that’s a problem.
Are you able to discuss things based on criticisms of logical reasoning and evidence, or are you going to continue to respond with personal attacks? I am open to critique.
Proton is garbage though. They immediately disabled my account after I set it up, as I’m on some blacklist by some brazillian firm, they didn’t tell me that part, they said suspicious activity. I do nothing illegal, or spammy either, I read the news and use some social media.
Anyway they gave me no way to appeal. The other main one that doesn’t require a phone number or existing email let me appeal and approved it.
Now why am I on some shady blacklist that tech companies use to discriminate against people for? I can only speculate, but I suspect it’s an Israel thing.
There are plenty of problems with Proton, but since they have a VPN service it means they probably have an exit node in Israhell. I’m pretty sure any VPN that masks traffic as coming from Israhell will do the same. I’m not saying that it’s not worth looking for one that doesn’t do business in Israhell, it just might be hard to find. If you ever need to exit through that node, just make sure your encryption is maxed, with quantum encryption preferably, and avoid doing anything sensitive over that node.
I would posit that it is actually important to have VPN exit nodes in Israel. The Israelis often try to hide their open evil by posting in Hebrew, adding a hoop to find out they’re as monstrous as they are. It’s quite possible in the future Hebrew sources will have two versions of everything – a real internal version talking about being the master race and exterminating all other races, and a sanitized version for foreign IPs. Access to Israeli IPs are the best way to out that when it happens.
aka: the american strategy
Mullvad or ivpn for vpn, tutanota or posteo for mail.
Also stop looking at advertisements for privacy tools and services.
Mullvad has Israeli servers.
Thanks for the other reccs though!
Ties to Israel are never a good thing.
I think we’re on the same page but you might be exaggerating a bit here. Everything is connected in this world.
Let’s be more specific.
Anything that gives money, power, or influence to Israel is never a good thing. They need to be boycotted at all levels.
Then why boycott anything. Why use privacy-conscious alternatives. Everything is connected, afterall.
You can at least try to minimize the information that they squeeze out of you. It’s either that you can give least amount of information such as just device you use, or whether you use Google or not, etc. or you could let them know every single detail in your life, everything you do, everywhere you go, even everything you think. That’s what this community is about. It’s not about being an alien to the world but minimizing the invasion of our privacy as much as is possible.
And many people do actually boycott everything, they quit all electronic devices and live the old school way, away from highly urbanized or metropolitan areas. If that’s what you want, be a hermit like them.
Yeah that is what I meant, I’m guessing you meant to reply to the other guy, not me?
Do you use a CPU?
I hate to break it to you buddy…
Unideal? Yes
Does that mean I stop trying altogether to minimize surveillance? No.
