This was it for me, cancelled my account. Fuck this Andy moron

For a critical blog, the first few paragraphs sound a lot like they're shilling for Proton.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be impressed by the author's witty wording, but "the cool trick they do" is - full encryption.

Moving on.

But that’s misleading. The actual large language model is not open. The code for Proton’s bit of Lumo is not open source. The only open source bit that Proton’s made available is just some of Proton’s controls for the LLM. [GitHub]

In the single most damning thing I can say about Proton in 2025, the Proton GitHub repository has a “cursorrules” file. They’re vibe-coding their public systems. Much secure!

oof.

Over the years I've heard many people claim that proton's servers being in Switzerland is more secure than other EU countries - well there's also this now:

Proton is moving its servers out of Switzerland to another country in the EU they haven’t specified. The Lumo announcement is the first that Proton’s mentioned this.

No company is safe from enshittification - always look for, and base your choices on, the legally binding stuff, before you commit. Be wary of weasel wording. And always, always be ready to move* on when the enshittification starts despite your caution.

* regarding email, there's redirection services a.k.a. eternal email addresses - in some cases run by venerable non-profits.

How much longer until the AI bubbles pops? I'm tired of this.

My friend, I think the confusion stems from you thinking you have deep technical understanding on this, when everything you say demonstrates that you don't.

First off, you don't even know the terminology. A local LLM is one YOU run on YOUR machine.

Lumo apparently runs on Proton servers - where their email and docs all are as well. So I'm not sure what "Their AI is not local!" even means other than you don't know what LLMs do or what they actually are. Do you expect a 32B LLM that would use about a 32GB video card to all get downloaded and ran in a browser? Buddy....just...no.

Look, Proton can at any time MITM attack your email, or if you use them as a VPN, MITM VPN traffic if it feels like. Any VPN or secure email provider can actually do that. Mullvad can, Nord, take your pick. That's just a fact. Google's business model is to MITM attack your life, so we have the counterfactual already. So your threat model needs to include how much do you trust the entity handling your data not to do that, intentionally or letting others through negligence.

There is no such thing as e2ee LLMs. That's not how any of this works. Doing e2ee for the chats to get what you type into the LLM context window, letting the LLM process tokens the only way they can, getting you back your response, and getting it to not keep logs or data, is about as good as it gets for not having a local LLM - which, remember, means on YOUR machine. If that's unacceptable for you, then don't use it. But don't brandish your ignorance like you're some expert, and that everyone on earth needs to adhere to whatever "standards" you think up that seem ill-informed.

Also, clearly you aren't using Proton anyway because if you need to search the text of your emails, you have to process that locally, and you have to click through 2 separate warnings that tell you in all bold text "This breaks the e2ee! Are you REALLY sure you want to do this?" So your complaint about warnings is just a flag saying you don't actually know and are just guessing.

A local LLM is one YOU run on YOUR machine.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. You seem to be confused by basic English.

Look, Proton can at any time MITM attack your email

They are not supposed to be able to and well designed e2ee services can't be. That's the whole point of e2ee.

There is no such thing as e2ee LLMs. That's not how any of this works.

I know. When did I say there is?

So then you object to the premise any LLM setup that isn't local can ever be "secure" and can't seem to articulate that.

What exactly is dishonest here? The language on their site is factually accurate, I've had to read it 7 times today because of you all. You just object to the premise of non-local LLMs and are, IMO, disingenuously making that a "brand issue" because....why? It sounds like a very emotional argument as it's not backed by any technical discussion beyond "local only secure, nothing else."

Beyond the fact that

They are not supposed to be able to and well designed e2ee services can’t be.

So then you trust that their system is well-designed already? What is this cognitive dissonance that they can secure the relatively insecure format of email, but can't figure out TLS and flushing logs for an LLM on their own servers? If anything, it's not even a complicated setup. TLS to the context window, don't keep logs, flush the data. How do you think no-log VPNs work? This isn't exactly all that far off from that.

How much longer until the AI bubbles pops? I'm tired of this.

What exactly is dishonest here? The language on their site is factually accurate, I've had to read it 7 times today because of you all.

I object to how it is written. Yes, technically it is not wrong. But it intentionally uses confusing language and rare technical terminology to imply it is as secure as e2ee. They compare it to proton mail and drive that are supposedly e2ee.

How much longer until the AI bubbles pops? I'm tired of this.

What exactly is dishonest here? The language on their site is factually accurate, I've had to read it 7 times today because of you all.

I object to how it is written. Yes, technically it is not wrong. But it intentionally uses confusing language and rare technical terminology to imply it is as secure as e2ee. They compare it to proton mail and drive that are supposedly e2ee.

Both your take, and the author, seem to not understand how LLMs work. At all.

At some point, yes, an LLM model has to process clear text tokens. There's no getting around that. Anyone who creates an LLM that can process 30 billion parameters while encrypted will become an overnight billionaire from military contracts alone. If you want absolute privacy, process locally. Lumo has limitations, but goes farther than duck.ai at respecting privacy. Your threat model and equipment mean YOU make a decision for YOUR needs. This is an option. This is not trying to be one size fits all. You don't HAVE to use it. It's not being forced down your throat like Gemini or CoPilot.

And their LLM. - it's Mistral, OpenHands and OLMO, all open source. It's in their documentation. So this article is straight up lies about that. Like.... Did Google write this article? It's simply propaganda.

Also, Proton does have some circumstances where it lets you decrypt your own email locally. Otherwise it's basically impossible to search your email for text in the email body. They already had that as an option, and if users want AI assistants, that's obviously their bridge. But it's not a default setup. It's an option you have to set up. It's not for everyone. Some users want that. It's not forced on everyone. Chill TF out.

It is e2ee -- with the LLM context window!

When you email someone outside Proton servers, doesn't the same thing happen anyway? But the LLM is on Proton servers, so what's the actual vulnerability?

They compare it to proton mail and drive that are supposedly e2ee.

Only drive is. Email is not always e2ee, it uses zero-access encryption which I believe is the same exact mechanism used by this chatbot, so the comparison is quite fair tbh.

It's when the coffers of Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and investment banks dry up. All of them are losing billions every month but it's all driven by fewer than 10 companies. Nvidia is lapping up the money of course, but once the AI companies stop buying GPUs on crazy numbers it's going to be a rocky ride down.

I'm just saying Andy sucking up to Trump is a red flag. I'm cancelling in 2026 🫠

What are you considering as alternatives?

A local LLM is one YOU run on YOUR machine.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. You seem to be confused by basic English.

Look, Proton can at any time MITM attack your email

They are not supposed to be able to and well designed e2ee services can't be. That's the whole point of e2ee.

There is no such thing as e2ee LLMs. That's not how any of this works.

I know. When did I say there is?

They are not supposed to be able to and well designed e2ee services can’t be. That’s the whole point of e2ee.

You're using their client. You get a fresh copy every time it changes. Of course you are vulnerable to a MITM attack, if they chose to attempt one.