[Cryptography] Quantum computers and the Government

[Henry Baker]

-----Original Message-----
From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill at hallambaker.com>
Sent: Sep 8, 2021 2:35 PM
To: Henry Baker <hbaker1 at pipeline.com>
Cc: Cryptography Mailing List <cryptography at metzdowd.com>, Tom Mitchell <mitch at niftyegg.com>, <gary at executabl.es>
Subject: Re: [Cryptography] Quantum computers and the Government

On Wed, Sep 8, 2021 at 2:19 PM Henry Baker <hbaker1 at pipeline.com> wrote:

ProtonMail logged IP address of French activist after order by Swiss authorities

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-address-of-french-activist-after-order-by-swiss-authorities/

What are the chances that the Swiss govt has done the same thing to Signal?
That is sure to happen sooner or later and only an idiot (or someone with no principles) designs a system so that they go to jail or break their principles.

The achilles heel of Signal and Proton mail are that they are single service provider and thus there is an inevitable point of control. The authorities could even tell the service provider to push out an app with a hole in it because the service provider is also the software provider.

I completed the implementation of the Mesh functionality last week, just taking a week off before finishing the documentation pass and making the demo video.

One of the key features of the Mesh is that while it requires a service to function, everyone chooses their own service and can change their mind about their service provider at any time. Having been involved in the management of the two control points of the legacy Internet, I have looked for a way to reduce the control capability to the absolute bare minimum without losing functionality.


Since Jan, 2017, ProtonMail has recommended using their Tor 'hidden service' via the Tor Browser:

https://protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7ozyd.onion/

https://protonmail.com/tor

https://protonmail.com/blog/protonmail-tor-censorship/

I presume that that ProtonMail also support SMTP and IMAP over a Tor hidden service, but I haven't been able to verify this.