[solatic]

> emails are still largely plaintext

But people's private digital communications have largely moved to platforms like WhatsApp and Messenger which enjoy end-to-end encryption. Email, at least between major providers, today enjoys TLS over the wire while being sent.

I'm sure there are various flaws and weaknesses and maybe even backdoors, but trying to make it sound like we lost the fight for encryption because emails are in plaintext is rather disingenuous.

[oez]

I'm not sure Facebook and a now Facebook owned platform are good examples for private communications. There was an article posted here a week or two ago detailing how Facebook sold access to the contents of users private messages to advertisers.

[spacebanana7]

It represents a step forward from the 90s for the vast majority of people. E2E in messenger and WhatsApp is still painful for LEO.

The article last week (assuming you're referring to this [1]) involved users consenting for Netflix to see their messages. A user from the 90s could have made the same mistake sharing plaintext emails.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39858850

[guappa]

> like WhatsApp and Messenger which enjoy end-to-end encryption

They aren't open source. For all we know they have backdoors.

[sidewndr46]

If you think Facebook is providing you private communications, you might want to rethink your operational security.