If there was no privacy in the world, this world would be more “secure”. But this world exists; it’s called North Korea. And the people who live there probably don’t feel very safe. As a democracy, you have to find the right balance. The balance is not total mass surveillance of everyone, because we know there are serious implications for democracy and freedom as a result. It’s not easy to find the right balance. But during the Bush years, with terrorism, I think they went to an extreme that was really a retreat from democracy. And that is something we must avoid.
But on the other hand, you read fairy tales about law enforcement catching really bad criminals, and in many of these stories, if that person had used a Tor browser, a ProtonMail account, and a VPN, etc., they might not have been caught. Do you ever worry about a future where all the bad guys get smart enough to use the best privacy tools, and it becomes all too easy to avoid the legal system entirely?
Well, encryption and privacy technologies are what I would call dual use. What are law enforcement agencies also concerned about these days? People’s information is stolen, sensitive communications are hacked, political campaign emails are stolen by state actors and distributed to change the political balance. To prevent all these potential evils, you need privacy, encryption and good security. So the same tools that people in law enforcement criticize are actually the same things that protect much of the Internet ecosystem and economy from a catastrophic outcome. If you were to weaken or disable all of these security tools and privacy tools, then you would open the floodgates to a huge amount of cybercrime and data breaches.
Proton has grown a lot over the years, but it’s still a rounding error compared to something like Google. We’ve talked about competition from a regulatory perspective, but on a practical level, how do you even try to compete with your massive competitors?
The current plan is to launch the Proton ecosystem. It’s one account that gives you access to four privacy services: Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive and Proton VPN. One subscription that gives you access to all these services. This is the first time anyone has taken a series of privacy services and combined them to form a consolidated ecosystem. This, of course, does not fit all of Big Tech’s offerings. But I think for the first time it provides a viable alternative that allows people to say, “If I really want to quit Google, I can now because I have enough components to live a large part of my daily life.” ” For the first time, you’re going to have a privacy option that’s not quite competitive with Google, but reasonably competitive, and that’s going to start breaking down the wall. I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but I think this is the future of privacy, and that’s why we’re doing it.
