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Proton Mail Auctioning Rare 'X' Username for Charity, Current Bid as of Posting is $50,000,000USD [Update: $15,000USD]

2023 Proton Fundraiser Auction: X on eBid Europe | 220298374

https://www.ebid.net/eu/for-sale/2023-proton-fundraiser-auction-x-220298374.htm

2023 Proton Fundraiser Auction: X Listing in the Other,Whatever's Left Category on eBid Europe | 220298374

2023 Proton Fundraiser Auction: X on eBid Europe | 220298374

Looking through the history looks a bit suspicious. Even if the questionable bids were removed, it’s still likely to be 100k+ for the username!

Edit: Closer to $15k right now lol.

47 comments

0oWow

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Look at that. An email address that will be instantly added to every spammers list. And they know the owner has money too.

SayJess

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Yikes! I hadn’t thought about that!

moody

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And they know the owner has money too.

Not after spending 50 mil on it

bobs_monkey

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Anyone willing to spend $50m on an email address probably has more money than sense.

moody

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Until they spend 50 mil on an email address, then they have an equal amount of both.

DreadPotato

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If that person has a networth of...say, roughly 230 billions...that 50mil isn't even a noticeable change.

gregorum

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if you’re wondering who this charity is supporting like I was, they, apparently, haven’t decided yet. but here’s their short list of nominees:

Privacy International
EPIC
Human Rights Foundation
Access Now
Fight for the Future
Tor Project
Women Who Code
Ranking Digital Rights
Qubes OS
GrapheneOS

source

drislands

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Qubes! Holy hell, that's a blast from my past. I didn't contribute or anything, to be clear, but I did use it and enjoy it while I did. It's a really interesting way to handle security.

mosiacmango

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Its an active project. Likely lots of improvements if you haven't used it for a while.

library_napper

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Past? Still my daily driver and I couldn't imagine anything else.

drislands

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Hell yeah, I'm glad it's worked for you! I capitulated because I wanted to do VR gaming and I couldn't figure out a way to make that work.

library_napper

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Ah, yes. Gaming is something Qubes is not good for lol

Supermariofan67

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Women Who Code might not be a good choice... https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5v53w/girls-who-code-team-up-with-tomahawk-missile-maker-raytheon

But I'm definitely excited to see Tor and Fight for the Future on the list!

hedgehog

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Women Who Code and Girls Who Code are different nonprofit organizations.

They’re run by different people and have distinct goals (WWCode: supporting and empowering women who are in the tech industry; GWC is focused on getting more women into tech by providing opportunities to learn programming to girls).

Supermariofan67

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Oh okay, my mistake. Thanks for pointing that out

Kusimulkku

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Girlbossing a thirld world school with a tomahawk

Corkyskog

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How is that bad? The girls get a foot into Raytheon that they probably wouldn't anyway, because the industry is sexist. And Raytheon gets to pad their diversity numbers and still have high quality employees.

sheogorath

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I don't want the money I donated to be used for the benefit of the MIC.

spacecowboy

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We shouldn’t be glorifying weapons manufacturers. They make things to kill people.

Corkyskog

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It's like the hangman problem, but with skill involved... yes they make things that kill people. That's the entire point. Where else do people think their freedom comes from, other than others having to dream up death and destruction. I think broadening their workforce might lead to less damaging ideas, that's the hope usually with these initiatives.

spacecowboy

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Yeah you can miss me with that freedom shit.

TheAnonymouseJoker

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sugar_in_your_tea

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I love at least half of those, haven't heard of the rest. Hopefully they donate to a few of them.

treadful

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It's up to $100m. No shot those bids are legit.

EDIT: Looks like they cleaned up the fraudulent bids. Down to $15k which seems much more... possible.

PrinceWith999Enemies

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You can just immediately resell it to Elon for $44B.

theUnlikely

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I feel like he's the one bidding.

tsonfeir

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I think at this point it’s safe to say he’d pay double.

Aradia

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I doubt he has more money for stuff like this.

Potatos_are_not_friends

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Maybe we can have a fundraiser for ol Musky to buy x.

Aradia

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I would prefer to get it for x.org before anything about Musk, he sucks, and I don't want to know anything more about him.

SayJess

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Could be the guy that has been the early adopter of everything, but was not fast enough for ProtonMail. CompuServe, AOL, Xanga—first to ‘x’. Now that he has made his $100,000,350, he can finally afford to get x@pm.me. Or it’s fake. It’s probably fake, but I choose to believe.

PrinceWith999Enemies

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From their q&a:

gitspamdum is a bot, I just created a fake account and bid for 999 trillions, no verification were requested in the whole process and 1 nanosecond later gitspamdum bid after me, I tried this twice, my only purpose was to expose the absurdity of the whole thing, if Proton really take this thing seriously please just cancel all auctions and place them in a serious website

Crow

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Personal email domains > generic email domains.

USSEthernet

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I know right. I can go into Proton now and create an x@mydomain.com alias if I want...for free

victron

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Jesus, I received the mail just this morning, and I thought "who would bid for that? Lol". I'm actually impressed.

Poppa_Mo

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Elon is bidding on it against his own alt accounts. There's no way anyone else gets it.

jojo

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Even if I had enough money to buy this email, I wouldn't. Too many people would try to hack, steal, or buy the account from me. It would be a cool email tho.