From 1d2ed9234c85ab4c0f4429134592957abf18c5b5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Conor Dooley Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2022 15:23:21 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Documentation: process: Document suitability of Proton Mail for kernel development Proton Mail automatically picks up PGP keys for those with kernel.org accounts (and other domains!) which provide WKD for their users & uses them to encrypt emails, including patches. Document the behaviour & Proton Mail's unsuitability for kernel development. Reviewed-by: Konstantin Ryabitsev Reviewed-by: Mark Brown Signed-off-by: Conor Dooley Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221231152320.1340874-1-conor@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet --- Documentation/process/email-clients.rst | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+) diff --git a/Documentation/process/email-clients.rst b/Documentation/process/email-clients.rst index fc2c46f3f82d..471e1f93fa09 100644 --- a/Documentation/process/email-clients.rst +++ b/Documentation/process/email-clients.rst @@ -350,3 +350,23 @@ although tab2space problem can be solved with external editor. Another problem is that Gmail will base64-encode any message that has a non-ASCII character. That includes things like European names. + +Proton Mail +*********** + +Proton Mail has a "feature" where it looks up keys using Web Key Directory +(WKD) and encrypts mail to any recipients for which it finds a key. +Kernel.org publishes the WKD for all developers who have kernel.org accounts. +As a result, emails sent using Proton Mail to kernel.org addresses will be +encrypted. +Unfortunately, Proton Mail does not provide a mechanism to disable the +automatic encryption, viewing it as a privacy feature. +The automatic encryption feature is also enabled for mail sent via the Proton +Mail Bridge, so this affects all outgoing messages, including patches sent with +``git send-email``. +Encrypted mail adds unnecessary friction, as other developers may not have mail +clients, or tooling, configured for use with encrypted mail and some mail +clients may encrypt responses to encrypted mail for all recipients, including +the mailing lists. +Unless a way to disable this "feature" is introduced, Proton Mail is unsuited +to kernel development.