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Digital security nightmare: When your provider locks you out [1]

['Séamus Bellamy']

Date: 2025-09-15

Most of us have an absurd number of things we subscribe to. Online storage, streaming video, streaming music, online storage solutions, online multiplayer games, you name it. It's easy to lose track of them all. It's easy to overlook what you pay out on stuff you don't own but use regularly. Sometimes, folks stop using a service and, because you subscribe to so many services, they overlook the small monthly charge that keeps that subscription humming along. A while ago, I purged a ton of my subscriptions. I decided to opt out. I no longer pay to stream video. I have never streamed music, but I played a few MMOs that had to go. I believe that digital privacy is essential to maintaining a sense of serenity in my day-to-day life. So I used to subscribe to a separate VPN, secure cloud storage, encrypted email, and password vault services. This was fine. What wasn't fine was the way that the invoices would all creep up on me around the same time every year. Each August, my bank account would dip into the red, teetering on the edge of overdraft as all my renewals mugged me at the same time. I hated it. So, I thought I'd do something clever.

I've talked a few times about how much I dig Proton. I used their email well before Mr. Robot made it cool. But I was reluctant to adopt any of their other services as they rolled out. I get fixed in my ways. Outside of travel, change often makes me nervous. However, when I began culling subscriptions, it made sense to me to start utilizing what the company had to offer. In addition to email, they also offer a ton of other services: a great VPN, encrypted online storage, an authenticator app, a secure calendar, and a password manager. Looking to save a few bucks, I moved over to using nothing but Proton's products. It made me feel like a responsible adult.

Right up to last night, when I found that every one of Proton's services had locked me out. This is the second time in a year that Proton has said nope to my gaining access to my information.

Apparently, my session had expired—something I've never seen happen in over a decade of using Protonmail. I wanted to log into my email, but unfortunately, I couldn't as I'd been locked out of my password manager. I would have asked to reset my password… but I was locked out of my email. I checked my phone. Same deal. None of the company's other services were available to me. Which is sad, since I'd also left a backup of my passwords in my encryption Proton online storage. I was only able to write this post because WordPress kept me logged in. I've reached out to Proton to see what can be done. But right now, my online life is frozen in place.

It's clear that I've made a mistake by trusting a single company to be my security everything. I've signed up for 1Password again. Google Authenticator is back on my phone. But given that I won't be able to do a damn thing with either of them until I have access to my Proton account again (if that's even possible), downloading this software feels like a meaningless gesture. For a fella that makes his living online, life kinda sucks right now.

[END]
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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/09/15/digital-security-nightmare-when-your-provider-locks-you-out.html

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