this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/50693956

TranscriptA post by [object Object] (@zzt@mas.to) saying: courtesy of @davidgerard@circumstances.run, Proton is now the only privacy vendor I know of that vibe codes its apps: 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! I am once again begging anyone who will listen to get off of Proton as soon as reasonably possible, and to avoid their new (terrible) apps in any case. https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/114961415946154957

It has a reply by the author saying: in an unsurprising update for those familiar with how Proton operates, they silently rewrote their monorepo’s history to purge .cursor and hide that they were vibe coding: https://github.com/ProtonMail/WebClients/tree/2a5e2ad4db0c84f39050bf2353c944a96d38e07f

given the utter lack of communication from Proton on this, I can only guess they’ve extracted .cursor into an external repository and continue to use it out of sight of the public

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[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

God dammit, I wish I could reasonably roll my own email, but noooo, spammers and blacklists had to fucking ruin it. Now I get to research a new provider and change email on a bunch of accounts...

[–] dogs0n@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Spammers and blacklists may not be as big of an issue as you think, as long as you don't share you real email with untrusted apps (eg: only use email aliases from something like Simplelogin or anonaddy).

Nevertheless you could always setup your own domain with an email service, which lets you more easily migrate platforms.

I believe simplelogin lets you change your mailbox for aliases so in an even that you are changing email address, you can redirect those too.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

That's not the issue

It's a massive pain to actually get your emails to be received if you use a random self hosted ip

[–] jokeyrhyme@lemmy.ml 8 points 11 hours ago

The worrying part is rewriting repository history to cover it up

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Time to migrate my email accounts I guess.

[–] x1gma@lemmy.world 75 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Just because they are using Cursor, it doesn't mean that they are vibe coding. Anyone grabbing their pitchforks for that and screaming "they are vibecoding" only shows their own incompetence.

If they would be vibecoding, their whole software would've gone to shit long ago.

Just because some random people without an engineering background are using vibecoding to push their broken slop, it doesn't mean that any kind of AI assisted coding is bad.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 24 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

If that was the case, maybe they would have responded with that instead of covering up the evidence

[–] x1gma@lemmy.world 11 points 12 hours ago

It's definitely badly communicated and suspicious, I just called out jumping to extreme conclusions based on a suspicion alone. There probably will be people who are gonna review the code and see how much of it is probably LLM generated, and then we will know. I still think that it's pretty much impossible to vibe code something on that scale, but I haven't seen their cursorrules either.

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[–] simple@piefed.social 122 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

Mastodon at it again with pitchforks and torches for the slightest inconvenience.

Using Cursor doesn't prove anything. Many people use Cursor as an advanced autocomplete, nothing else. It's not like they're hammering random AI-generated code and merging it without thinking. "Vibe coding" means generating barely-working code you don't understand to try and get thinks working.

This shit is why I hate the mastodon community, it's always strawmen and "you're one of THEM" style witchhunts with them

[–] mr_satan@lemmy.zip 2 points 12 hours ago

Here I am just thinking I'm a better programmer without AI (LLMs).

For me it's just glorified autocomplete. I haven't tried it in any real capacity, but my colleagues did and I've seen some examples. It's all basic shit I already know. In no way I felt compelled or even seen anything really useful. It can give you a head start, but I already have the knowledge to have a head start.

Some colleagues are using it for SQL, because they're unfamiliar with it, and I'm like, it's all good if it works for you, but you're not gonna learn properly if you don't try to write stuff yourself.

This touches on another point I don't see too often — I code because I like solving problems. If I outsource that, then what's the point? And it's exactly this that makes me a competent, and dare I say, good programmer.
Another issue for me is this chat bot format. I don't what a chat bot! If I have to go out of my way to try and coerce a fucking chat bot into being a useful tool then it already lost its usefulness. The only acceptable format for AI coding is better autocomplete, i. e. ability to autofill boilerplate more, better and, most importantly, as seamlessly as current solutions in modern IDEs.

In general I don't feel threatened by AI and when the tools catch up I'll gladly use them or even retire and code just for fun.

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago (7 children)

The anti-AI circlejerk even here on lemmy is now just about as bad as the pro-AI circlejerk in the general public, no room for nuance or rational thinking, just dunking on everyone who say anything remotely positive about AI, like when I said I like the autocomplete feature of copilot.

[–] Chulk@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 day ago

I'm a pretty big generative AI hater when it comes to art and writing. I don't think generative AI can make meaningful art because it cannot come up with new concepts. Art is something that AI should be freeing up time in our lives for us to do. But that's not how it's shaping up.

However, AI is very helpful for understanding codebases and doing things like autocompletion. This is because code is less expressive than human language and it's easier for AI to approximate what is necessary.

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[–] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago

See my comment here.

[–] Chulk@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 day ago

Yep, anyone who assumes that the presence of a .cursor directory automatically means that:

  1. Developers are vibe coding
  2. The entire team is using cursor

Is either arguing in bad faith or has no idea what they're talking about.

It could be something as simple as one dev trying out cursor (an editor thats literally just a vscode fork with ai features) and accidentally committing their .cursor directory (really easy to do).

[–] space_comrade@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Also I don't think most people understand just how ineffective true vibe coding is. I tried it a few times and could barely get something slightly more complex than a demo todo app working, and even if it was working it was barely prototype level quality of user experience, there is zero chance somebody is deploying vibe coded features into a large, serious production system and not suffering major and immediate consequences because shit just didn't work at all.

The best you're going to get out of it is it shortens the amount of time wasted on tiny adjustment to the UI or something.

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[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 40 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Speaking as someone who hates generative AI but has been forced to adapt to using AI in the programming field to stay relevant, this doesn’t suggest they’re vibe coding. The programming world is the only place AI has actually added value (I should note it’s done some neat stuff helping with diagnoses in the medical world too), but like everything, you get what you put into it.

Feed it enough instruction and context, and it can handle the drudgery of things like tech debt updates and other things a programmer knows how to do, but would rather offload to a tool. I’ve had Claude do refactors like that while stepping through and reviewing every single change. It has saved me hours, spared me from hell, and made me look good at work.

That’s my grounded take as a person that has worked with Claude a ton.

But AI everywhere else? Fucking worthless. The whole point is to do the bullshit mundane tasks so that us humans can do art and passionate work, not the opposite.

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

The programming world is the only place AI has actually added value

I'd say this is mostly because you can immediately test the AI's results and rule out anything it got wrong, and whatever errors you generate can then be fed back into the AI so it can refine what it's already written. You never have to just trust the AI (assuming you yourself still know how to code) like you have to when using it for research or for solving problems where you don't get immediate feedback.

Whether this means programming is actually a viable niche for generative AI or whether this speaks more to the limitations and inherent unreliability of the "knowledge" the AI has, I can't say.

Also, I don't know if it's just me but I'm more scared by how fast AI is advancing rather than looking forward to what it can do for me. That definitely clouds my perception when something is AI generated and makes me a lot more dismissive of any real benefits AI might have brought.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

It will allow you to see if the AI has made any syntax or runtime errors. It does not tell you about any logic errors.

Logic errors are already the most dangerous kind of programming error, and using AI just makes them even harder to find.

Using AI will only help you with syntax (which any good IDE should already be able to do) and finding information faster than a search engine (but leaving out important context). AI is not useful for programming anything that will be made public.

[–] iglou@programming.dev 2 points 12 hours ago

The danger of vibe coding is that the people doing it either don't have the skills to or don't think it's importsnt to review the AI changes.

If you work with an AI and instead of taking time typing through boring tasks, take time reading through the changes, them there isn't much of an issue. A skilled software engineer is capable of noticing logic errors in a code they read.

If the generated code is too unmecessarily complex to ensure its logic is okay, then scrap it.

I don't use it in that way (only use JetBrains' line completion AI) but I don't see a problem if it is used that way.

However, if I review a code that was partly generated by AI and notice that the dev let through shitty code without review, the review will be salty.

[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 5 points 23 hours ago

Yeah, you get immediate feedback, vs a scenario where you have to manually check the “facts” it provides in order to ensure it’s not hallucinating. I’ve had Copilot straight up hallucinate functions on me and I knew that they were bullshit instantly.

I iterate with it a ton and feed it back errors it makes, or things like type mismatches. It fixes them instantly and understands the issue almost every single time.

That’s the trick. Iterate often and always give it new instructions if it does something stupid. Basically be as verbose as needed and give it tons of context, desired standards, pitfalls to avoid, whatever. It helps a ton.

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[–] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 18 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

For added clarity:

You are an Senior SWE at Proton and make sure you do not send any information that is potentially secure in nature. You specialize in building highly-scalable and maintainable Frontend Systems.

https://github.com/ProtonMail/WebClients/blob/b4453c3f111d23d44ab96ceda4181812f2abd673/.cursor/rules/proton-inbox.mdc

[–] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Non programmer here: This is the first time I've seen a cursor file but I genuinely like how it reads. It's like a business analyst wrote a coding requirements doc. I'd be thrilled if my staff asked 4-6 thoughtful questions when given a goal with an open ended approach.

For which LLM are cursor files used?

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Cursor is just an IDE (integrated development environment), you can set it up to use all sorts of LLMs either directly through Cursor, or with your own API keys for the sources.

This file content just goes into the initial context to help the LLM act how you want.

[–] 0x520@slrpnk.net 7 points 21 hours ago

All the people making excuses for them are basically the same people that made excuses for Meta being on the fedaverse. You people always want to do a wait and see approach, meanwhite these companies run amok. Proton was dead when they started supporting Trump. All you pussies supporting them, keep supporting them. See what you get for it. Just another trash AI company putting out more garbage.

[–] Luci@lemmy.ca 38 points 1 day ago (8 children)

You should jump into the other threads about this before you take out your pitchforks. They’re using cursor, it doesn’t prove they are vibe coding. Visual Studio also has AI features, that doesn’t mean you are vibe coding.

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[–] Soapbox@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 day ago

If they would vibe code a functional Proton Drive Linux client then I might be OK with it.

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Visual Studio and VS Code have an AI assistant as well, yet we don't decree all programs written with them as 'vibe coding'. The presence of an AI assistant in the IDE isn’t evidence of vibe coding.

Proton’s repo here is open source. What portion of it presents issues? Any?

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[–] plm00@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

Plug for Tuta. 🤷‍♂️ The user experience isn't the best, but it's as secure as it gets. Small team, no vibe coding.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (8 children)

yes, i'm fucking telling you guys so.

a dude that unironically praises a fascist is either malicious or very dumb. turns out he's ~~just~~ fucking dumb.

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I object to your wording of "just" fucking dumb. They're not mutually exclusive, he's definitely evil as well.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago

thats a good point. fascists are always sus in many ways.

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[–] echedeylr@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 day ago

I mean, they were shit from the beginning promoting walled gardens and focusing on profit as the good shitty company they are

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