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Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

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Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#131

Post by kazen44 »

hh3k0 wrote: post #85
COGlory wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but I'd imagine that semantically, "by default" negates that since this is clearly not a default situation.

Stop trying to defend indefensible behavior by getting hung up on semantics. I, for one, will not renew my ProtonMail account if that's their status quo.

what other status quo do you expect from them? Having to provide IP logs after a warrant has been issued is the law in switserland (and most if not all of the EU).

Sure, the law would (hopefully) be changed, but at the moment, this is the best they can legally do?

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#132

Post by bickeringyokel »

londons_explore wrote: post #117

Cryptographers and developers need to step up their game... There needs to be a messaging service where as well as the messages being encrypted, the graph of who is talking to who and when must be encrypted. I'm imagining a system where your device forwards hundreds of messages for other people , hiding your own message flow. I perhaps send a few hundred messages per day, and even multiplying that by 1000, and the ty…

Interesting idea, but is that not a liability to yourself if nefarious or illegal messages are passing through your device?

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#133

Post by kazen44 »

nicce wrote: post #103
mikl wrote: post #30

I guess there isn’t much Protonmail can do if the prosecutor shows up with an ~Interpol~ Europol warrant. I wonder what this “activist” did to earn himself Europol attention. At least before the world went insane, that would only happen for serious crimes.

If you don’t collect data, you can’t give it even if you wanted?

expect you are legally required to actually gather this data if a warrant is issued.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#135

Post by akimball »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #128
istingray wrote: post #77

Disclaimer: Paying Protonmail customer Their homepage says "By default, we do not keep any IP logs" In 2021, any soft language like this should be a red flag for anyone who is against surveillance. Maybe in 2018 it was good enough. But in 2021 it's not. Come on, Protonmail, you're supposed to be leading the way -- don't make me figure it out myself. Replace immediately with "By default we don't log IP, but may be req…

TBH in 2021 people engaging in potentially dangerous activities should be literate enough to understand, that no business will guarantee them full security and decline all requests from authorities to disclose their identity. The wording you suggest is equivalent of „do not dry your cat in microwave“ instruction - a legal protection from dumb customers, that does not contribute meaningfully to safety. For the non-Swi…

It’s not protection FROM your customers. It is protection FOR your customers. Most customers are not technically astute

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#136

Post by sneak »

pphysch wrote: post #58
istingray wrote: post #26

Protonmail customer here. Sigh. This is why I keep my own domain and can point it wherever I need. Dear Protonmail, email is fucking cheap and easy, I pay you $58 a year to solve stupid shit like this. Vendors really need to figure out how to thread the needle of "No don't trust us" but still encourage customers to buy. Protonmail failed here. Apple's still very much in the "trust no one but us!" vibe, and it's just…

Tor is a State Dept/DARPA project, so at best a sidegrade from Proton if your concern is being surveilled by Western governments.

Tor is open source. Point to the vulnerability you are claiming, or stop spreading FUD.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#137

Post by chrononaut »

u_r_dumb wrote: post #10
dogma1138 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never advertised that they don’t keep logs they just said they aren’t permanent, in fact you can view your own connection logs if you enable it in which case they are maintained forever. https://protonmail.com/privacy-policy They also provide a report of all warrants received https://protonmail.com/blog/transparency-report/

Literally on their front page: > No personal information is required to create your secure email account. By default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account. Your privacy comes first.

> No personal information is required to create your secure email account.

Except your phone number? That's highly personal. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28428092

(I recall encountering this too when creating an account a few months ago.)

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#138

Post by chrononaut »

istingray wrote: post #93

Disclaimer: Paying Protonmail customer I wanted to test how Protonmail is doing for new users I created an account from scratch just now over Tor. 1. Am asked to verify new account by entering a cell phone (edit: this is horrible. They lie and say account creation is anonymous, as pointed out by the poster below) 2. Upon login, "Basic" logs are selected which do not display IP. You can enable "Advanced" logs to log I…

> 1. Am asked to verify new account by entering a cell phone (bogus)

Interestingly the sentence on their front page, right before the most commonly quoted snippet in this thread, is:

> No personal information is required to create your secure email account.

A phone number is quite a personal, unique identifier.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#139

Post by glitcher »

keewee7 wrote: post #28
gigel82 wrote: post #18

So with FastMail under Australian privacy-bashing laws and now this, what are our options for secure, private e-mail?

If you're doing subversive activities against a Western country you should probably use some Russian or Chinese state-owned service.

Part of the issue is that the bar for subversive activities in the eyes of western law enforcement seems to be getting lower and lower. I don't know the specifics of this case, but it seems many authorities are also not shy about using these methods to identify and track peaceful protesters as well.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#140

Post by kazen44 »

drexlspivey wrote: post #13
ramesh31 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who ever says "we don't log" is definitely logging, and that statement alone should tell you that they are untrustworthy. No one is stupid enough to take on that kind of liability. The same applies for VPNs. If you need trust, theres no way around rolling your own service.

Logging is the liability not the other way around. You can’t be forced to hand over something you don’t have

expect you need to have the infrastructure in place to gather data for police investigations in many countries. If you don't have this infrastructure in place, you are breaking the law as a company which could have enourmous consequences.

This does not mean you need to log everything all the time. (usually that is actually quite illegal too) but you need to have infrastructure in place to allow for police investigations.

I don't get how people don't understand this. companies need to operate according to the law of the land, this being one of them.

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