Quote:
Originally Posted by dantheman
If i use a Protonmail account to send emails to people who only use Gmail or Outlook (whose services keep tabs on the data they receive), why bother using this secure email service? Only to send to someone who already has a Proton account?
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Because if YOU don't start the process of transitioning over to a more private/secure email workflow, who will? It takes time to make an impact on your circle of associates, but it can happen. Case in point just about my own family -- 100% of them were using GMail and Outlook (and some even Yahoo) and step 1 was simple and slow, but very worth it: many years ago I got them to start to understand if you are not paying for the product, you ARE the product. And also a variety of other privacy issues. So over time, I got about 1/2 of them to switch to paid services like FastMail. And in fact almost *ALL* the of the family members that I actually have frequent email contact with are using paid services now. So for me, I'm currently at about 90% of my family-related email never touches Google, etc... That took a while, but is a pretty good result from the effort. I even got my parents, who are not exactly technically savvy, to switch. So that's step 1.
Then, step 2 is that after they are acclimated with actually paying for email services, then the next step is educating them about encryption and other security matters, and what their options are. That includes social media issues, texting, file sharing/syncing, more private means of communications, etc. For those that care and ask me for more info in my family/circle, I give them a quick "risk assessment" discussion and they can make better decisions for their own unique situations and preferences. It empowers them to make their own choices with more info at hand. So right now the transition for some of them will be to something like Signal for messaging and Tutanota or ProtonMail or one of several other providers that provide encrypted email. It will take time of course.
All of them understand, as I have explained to them, that email is inherently insecure due to many factors. BUT the simple equation of explaining levels of privacy such as ProtonMail > FastMail > GMail helps. And they also understand that with more privacy (and in some regards security too) comes more inconvenience. So the "convenience" equation would be reversed from the privacy equation: GMail > FastMail > ProtonMail. That's grossly simplifying things, of course.
And some just don't care or won't bother, so the discussion doesn't go far. That's fine, that's their choice. I just don't share certain kinds of email with them, definitely nothing sensitive. I've still got a couple of family members holding out with irresponsible online patterns that post way too personal photos and personal info into free cloud services. They just don't care or don't bother to take the time to understand the ramifications and risk factors. Ironically and sadly, they are also the ones who have had identity theft issues or had their accounts hacked. But they still don't care and keep to the same patterns unfortunately.
But with the others, all that effort pays off. And that's just with family. I've personally migrated some friends and clients off of free services too. So while I don't have 100% of my primary contacts that are using more secure services, or at least NOT the free services, each year the number grows who have moved to better patterns, and that means fewer and fewer email exchanges get sucked into the giant processing machines of Microsoft, Google, for example.
The main point I'm trying to make is really just to pose the questions: at what point do you want to get started? Do you feel like you have to wait until more people in your circle are doing it? At what point are there *enough* people that you feel ready to make the leap yourself? Why not be the person in your circle that begins the process of educating your friends/family/colleagues?
So in my mind it's worth the effort to switch to a service like ProtonMail, Tutanota, Mailfence, Startmail, Posteo, Mailbox.org, etc.... YMMV of course. And there's really nothing major lost -- except for the convenience of some of the fancy features that you are used to... all the more secure providers have feature limitations in one way or another compared to the highly-polished GMail, for example... that's a small price to pay IMO, but you may feel differently.
BTW almost all of the good encrypted email services have a feature that allows you to send an encrypted email to an external non-encrypted email user by using a shared password/passphrase. So even just by sending an encrypted email from ProtonMail or Tutanota to someone at GMail with the shared password method, you'll be able to start the larger discussion of encryption and privacy in general, and you'll raise awareness with them about some of the issues. It may not result in an ideal exchange since they can (and sometimes do) just copy and paste the secure email contents into an insecure cloud service, but at least it starts the conversation.
Again, it will take a while, but eventually some people in your circle will catch on and you'll start to regain some ground in reclaiming some of your privacy.
And who knows where this will lead you? You might surprise yourself and learn about all sorts of fascinating other security and privacy issues that might change the way you use computers, devices, social media, communications in general. No one throws the switch and they are instantly better off by switching to a service like ProtonMail or Tutanota, but it's more like a gradual process of learning what is going on with your personal data, becoming more aware, and reclaiming a bit of your digital life, one bit at a time.