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Russia blocks ProtonMail

reuters.com

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Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#61

Post by mapcars »

dmos62 wrote: post #54
StrLght wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much, but that isn’t the idea behind this block. Someone used ProtonMail to send a lot of different bomb threats to the police. Because of this block police now have some legal ground to ignore those threats.

Knowing how often Kremlin retreats to shaping public perception through theatrics, it's easy to think of the bomb threats as an inside job.

There is some information that the threats were sent by a guy who lost ton of money on recently crashed biggest Russian bitcoin exchange.

Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#62

Post by takeda »

abyssin wrote: post #53
fraktl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would. It's not Protonmail who's to be blamed for the potential attack and deaths. There are series of events that lead to people deciding to be terrorists. I'd focus on those reasons rather than hotfixing stuff by exposing 99.9% of other Protonmail users. I would never opt in to affect 99.9% of users because of 0.01% of users. We are all educated enough through events in recent history that clearly tell us how sim…

It seems you are writing two contradictory arguments. On the one hand you say hotfixing is no solution for terrorism. On the other hand you say blocking Protonmail is fine. Is there some irony that I missed here?

I don't see contradiction there. He is against proton mail disclosing information of its users, and if Russia decides to block access to their service in revenge, so be it.

Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#63

Post by kragen »

xiphias2 wrote: post #55
bnt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if those bomb threats proved right and people get killed? Would you still praise Proton for not working with Law enforcement?

I never understood why police even accepts anonymous bomb tips. They should respond by requiring the person giving the tip to identify himself.

The police want to avoid this scenario:

IDIOT ANCHORPERSON COVERED IN MAKEUP: Breaking News: We've just learned that the bombing that killed 152 people in the Podunk Shopping Mall today was known in advance to the police, but they did nothing to inform the public! Now to our reporter on the scene.

LOSER IN A SUIT: Hi, this is Rob Harasser, coming to you live from the Podunk Police Headquarters. This is Detective A. Buser Skeptic. Detective Skeptic, I understand you got a call this morning before the bombing?

WIFE-BEATER IN A MUSTACHE: Yeah, someone called me this morning. It was hard to hear them, but they said a lot of people would die in the mall today. I asked who was calling and they hung up.

LOSER: Did they say they were going to bomb it?

WIFE-BEATER: Yeah, they did say something about "a bomb", but I couldn't hear them clearly.

LOSER: Did you trace the line?

WIFE-BEATER: I did. You know, people think that if they hang up fast enough, we can't trace calls, but that's not true anymore. Even though they called the non-emergency number, I knew where they were calling from in ten minutes. It was a payphone outside the mall. Did you know there are still payphones outside the mall?

LOSER: Why didn't you warn people?

WIFE-BEATER (looking sad): I thought it was some kid playing a joke.

PANCAKE-THICK MAKEUP FACE: Well, there you have it, folks. The police knew, and they didn't tell us.

Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#64

Post by dyadic »

xiphias2 wrote: post #55
bnt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if those bomb threats proved right and people get killed? Would you still praise Proton for not working with Law enforcement?

I never understood why police even accepts anonymous bomb tips. They should respond by requiring the person giving the tip to identify himself.

Sometimes tips are given by the same people that place the bomb, with a desire to reduce casualties.

I don't know anything about the situation in Russia, but that definitely happened in Northern Ireland.

Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#65

Post by takeda »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #49
cblades wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope so. When the phone system was manually-operated switch boards, should the phone companies have been responsible for listening to every call and reporting suspicious activity to the police?

That's not the same scenario. Your scenario involves listening to everyone. The GP's scenario involves listening to a specific person with probable cause.

Which translates to listening to everyone. Once they expose data of one user they will get requests for others.

Patriot act which supposed to protect population from terrorists not only failed to accomplish it, it was used in war on drugs.

Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#66

Post by pdimitar »

Well, that in my eyes is a very solid advertising in favour of ProtonMail.

And it's not like Russians, Chinese and generally people in countries whose governments are in the habit of censoring the internet aren't used to using Tor and/or VPNs to dodge censorship.

Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#67

Post by morj239 »

this_user wrote: post #51
techntoke wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, most people that use ProtonMail "heard" it was safe but aren't using VPNs daily and would probably struggle to find out how to incorporate it into their daily routine correctly with split tunneling. The smart people host their own email, not rely on someone else.

Unless you are literally operating your own servers in a location that you physically control, you are still relying on someone else.

And even in this case you can't rely on your domain registry not to change your DNS without your consent. And there's not really a big chance you own a dedicated IP address.

Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#68

Post by roywiggins »

dyadic wrote: post #64
xiphias2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why police even accepts anonymous bomb tips. They should respond by requiring the person giving the tip to identify himself.

Sometimes tips are given by the same people that place the bomb, with a desire to reduce casualties. I don't know anything about the situation in Russia, but that definitely happened in Northern Ireland.

As I recall, there was at least sometimes a system of passwords so the police could verify the caller was who they said they were, and they'd take the threat seriously.

Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#69

Post by x12kk1w »

pdimitar wrote: post #66

Well, that in my eyes is a very solid advertising in favour of ProtonMail. And it's not like Russians, Chinese and generally people in countries whose governments are in the habit of censoring the internet aren't used to using Tor and/or VPNs to dodge censorship.

> Well, that in my eyes is a very solid advertising in favour of ProtonMail.

If you live in Russia, yes. Protonmails's headquarters were in SF and some of their infra in Lithuania last time I looked.

Remember Crypto AG...

Re: Russia blocks ProtonMail

#70

Post by hysan »

mayniac wrote: post #4

Generally speaking, the type of person who uses ProtonMail is also the type of person who will trivially bypass this block.

When I heard news of bans like this, my thought is that their goal is two-fold:

1. Inconvenience current users 2. Prevent new users so the service doesn’t gain traction

With the second reason being their true motive.

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