this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

What we're begging for: A Linux client for Proton Drive

What we get: A fucking Bitcoin wallet

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I want to be able to print my calendar!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Im about to get my pitchforks out over it man.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Funny how the free plan is not receiving any of the recently announced trash, making it more attractive than the paid options.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

what? why?? there are so many open source options already???

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This and the new LLM "feature" in ProtonMail suggests that someone higher up has had a sniff of the techbro kool-aid.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah. Part of what I get for paying is the Bridge app so I can use Thunderbird instead of the website. I don’t want or need the LLM thing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I pay for it because I thought it was a trustworthy service that had earnt my money. Instead, if they continue with stuff like this then I'll go back to not trusting subscription services again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Are there any that are cloud-hosted, secure, and private? My experience is limited, but I've never found an easy way in. I can't imagine anyone who's not tech-savvy getting started without walking through a minefield of scams.

Every now and then I look at options for how I might actually use crypto, and everything looks either outrageously scammy or way too much trouble. Pretty much every exchange I've looked at holds the keys to your account, and several have gone under or outright stolen their users' funds.

The question is, when Proton embraces bitcoin, should it make me trust bitcoin more, or trust Proton less? I don't know. I'm still skeptical. Their blog post is interesting, but also doesn't answer a lot of questions. https://proton.me/blog/proton-wallet-launch

I mean, look at this:

Buy Bitcoin securely in 150+ countries

If you are new to Bitcoin, Proton Wallet also has integrations that make it easy to buy Bitcoin in 150+ countries, and we have also put together a comprehensive Bitcoin guide for newcomers.

That "comprehensive" guide spends three paragraphs talking about the "Blocksize War", and makes absolutely no mention of how a user can actually buy bitcoin using Proton Wallet. WTF, Proton? Who is your target audience here exactly?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

cloud-hosted, secure, and private

Until homeomorphic encryption becomes a thing, cloud can't be secure or private.

every exchange I've looked at holds the keys to your account

Exchanges, are not wallets. You're supposed to move the coins out of the exchange for safekeeping. If you can't, then it's not a crypto exchange, it's an ETF peddler.

how a user can actually buy bitcoin using Proton Wallet.

Wallets, are not exchanges. They can link to exchanges, like Metamask does, but their core function is to hold your keys.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Until homeomorphic encryption becomes a thing, cloud can't be secure or private.

Why do you need homeomorphic encryption? Isn't client-side encryption good enough for most use cases?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yes. Homomorphic encryption is for data processing, not data storage.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I am aware. What processing is only possible in the cloud, and not locally?

Edit: My apologies, I didn't realize you weren't the same person I originally replied to. Please disregard!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I like Proton and I guess this kind of makes sense for them, sort of, but its weird.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It seems everyone here think an organization can't have multiple teams working in more than one thing at the same time

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

That assumes dev resources are limitless. And for a company the size of proton that’s certainly not true.

They can only have X amount of devs. So how they allocate them says a lot.

Also given that most complaints I’ve seen at the top are about specific missing features for ages, I think it’s safe they’re putting their eggs into too many baskets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Ah, timely as ever, really riding that crypto hype

At least they're not launching their own token ~~yet~~

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Enshittification hitting hard

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I’m upvoting because this is good relevant information, but man I wanted to downvote. How awful.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Smart move for any liberated, international organization. Esp as inflation continues to impoverish people. Move into the future.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Bitcoin's value is significantly more volatile than the US Dollar.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Not to mention the obscene fees with using it. Crypto is rife with issues.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Volatile means that in the short term, some may win, and some may lose.

The multi-year trend though, still beats inflation hands down.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

What if I want to buy a cheese sandwich today with BTC?

A cheese sandwich can remain the same fixed price in dollars for years, with only the relatively slow change in actual value due to inflation.

I've seen BTC swing 10% in 24 hours. Does the cheese-sandwich-maker have to look up the rate this instant and calculate a spot price for me?

Will they have more or less dollars at the end of the day, when they need to pay their bills and buy more cheese from their suppliers?

"Just buy cheese from someone who takes BTC", doesn't help, it just kicks the can further down the road.

"Just add a bit of a buffer in the price to take fluctuations into account", means that I go buy a cheese sandwich with dollars from next door because it's 50 cents cheaper for the same thing.

As an investment vehicle, BTC is doing hot laps of the track, but until its volatility issues are sorted and it becomes "boring", it's not going anywhere as an actual currency.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If you want to beat inflation, dump the money in a high-yield savings account, or a 401k, or a stock index, or any of the other options that have something resembling banking protection/regulation. There are so many better options than a speculative investment that you lose entirely with a social engineering attack or a SIM swap.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Lower risk, lower reward. Keep in mind that 401k is not 100% guaranteed either.

lose entirely with a social engineering attack or a SIM swap.

SIM swap? You mean like SMS 2FA? (don't use SMS 2FA, BTW).

Anyway, if your risk scenario includes a "wallet inspector", you definitely shouldn't buy Bitcoin, or carry money around.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Nobody is going to SIM swap you unless you have a shitload of crypto and let everyone know about it. It's not an easy attack, so it would have to be targeted. Pretty easy to not be a target (not having millions of dollars of crypto on a wallet helps).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I want to have a shitload of crypto and let everyone know about it... where do I post my receiving address...? 😅

Anyway, my point was more about not using a SIM as a security mechanism, ever. It wasn't designed as one, and still isn't.

As for being a target... something like 2 years ago, I had a chance to get a glimpse at a C&C panel for some malware. It didn't bother checking your balance, just vacuumed all and every password from every app on an infected phone, along with all sorts of data about the phone, SIM, SIM2, etc. Cloning a SIM is so easy, they'll do it just to get your $50 worth of NFTs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I… can’t tell if this is sarcasm?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I don't think it is.