Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not?
"we aren't much better than Gmail from a privacy standpoint, but please still give us money"
Does every email provider but Gmail make the same misleading claim as ProtonMail? Fastmail for example?
Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
201–210 of 619 posts
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they order to collect someone's data, can't ProtonMail just say "we've been ordered to collect data for a user" on the front page?
It depends on jurisdiction. For example the UK has the infamous gag orders that are even harder to fight in court (successfully) than their US counterparts. Sure, ProtonMail and its current operators could opt to stop operating in such jurisdictions, but usually it's too late for that when you get the [secret] court order, because if you refuse the operators personally are quickly found in contempt of court (or whate…
Aren't they in Switzerland though? A UK gag order can only have teeth within the UK, right?
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tor is open source. Point to the vulnerability you are claiming, or stop spreading FUD.
https://nusenu.medium.com/tracking-one-year-of-malicious-tor...
Tor has known limitations. Pretending like all communication channels with limitations are equal is like saying X minus Y always equals five.
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
They claim this is not possible under Swiss law, fwiw. We’ve recently seen that it is possible under German law, with a competitor (Tutanota) building a server-side backdoor for one user.
...but we know it's possible under Swiss law, from this case, for them to be compelled to start logging specific account accesses, that they by default were not previously. How is that any different from them being compelled to disable or weaken clientside encryption? In both cases they're being compelled to make changes to their service. The camel's nose is clearly already under the tent. Everybody needs to start di…
> Everybody needs to start diffing javascript served by them.
It would be nice if there were something like Perspectives[0] or Binary Transparency / Sigstore[1] to raise the alarm when something like this happened, but the threat would also be avoided if ProtonMail was available as a SecureBookmark[2].
[0] https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/data-center/ssl-tls-certif...
[1] https://security.googleblog.com/2021/03/introducing-sigstore...
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#205I'm also a proton mail user. It sounds like you have privacy as long as you don't break any European law. That's certainly not the "Swiss bunker" style of service I was expecting
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#206Why is a "Climate activist" being arrested?
In this case it seems that they are a far left group that has decided to squat a restaurant for good old 'class struggle' reasons and vowed not to back down... It also seems that it is not any restaurant but one of the 'victims' of the 2015 terrorist attacks [1] Basically political extremists trying to disguise themselves as environmental activists. Not interesting people, to say the least. [1] https://www.tellerrepo…
Ah, they're sitting in a restaurant in protest. Clearly insane terrorists.
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#207Disclaimer: 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…
I once tried to create a Protonmail account over TOR and I believe they require a phone number from 'malicious' IPs so if you want anonymity Protonmail is not the service for you.
Yes, Protonmail requires a phone number to register over Tor!
Even though they claim no identity is required to register.
I confirmed this today when I created a fresh Protonmal account over Tor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28428092
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#208Disclaimer: 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.
That's a great point. This should be better publicized. Protonmail requires a phone number to register through Tor.
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
The terrible crime of squatting, according to some comments in that thread
Has your home in France been squatted? No? Or maybe you do not own a house in France? If so, on which basis do you ironically call squatting a "terrible crime"? Squatters in your house in France means that you you have zero rights on this place until a lengthy process gives it back to you, ruined. You are then expected to be grateful and can forget about any reimbursement from the poor people who stole your property.
[deleted]
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Protonmail should be pushing more of this messaging in their branding. "Don't trust us further than you can throw us. We're doing our best, and here's what we recommend, use Tor, etc."
This is just not realistic, though.
I gave an example in another post. Basically "Hey, we respect your needs. However, we have to tell you that you should treat us as a bit of an adversary. We will do what we can as a private company, but ultimately we can be compelled by the government, rogue employee, or if somehow we get hacked. This is the case for any company, they just don't tell you it. We do. As our customer, here's what we recommend you do: Use Tor, fund open source, vote, etc."