Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address • Hacker News Board

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#411

Post by Bigpet » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:12 AM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #298

ivan_gammel wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What kind of "climate activist" draws this much heat?

Seems like it was not strictly climate related in this case.

https://paris-luttes.info/communique-sur-l-affaire-de-la-145...

Looks like your run of the mill radical left occupation of housing (the stuff you see in big European cities like Berlin and Paris where they have that tradition).

Their bouts with law enforcement trying to evict them could be the reason for the arrests. If the google translate is not completely misleading then they refused to give their names or fingerprints when initially arrested.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#412

Post by vntok » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:12 AM UTC

dbsmith83 wrote: post #379

vntok wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the last point "that supposedly you cannot be served targeted ads because they cannot read the contents of your email"? Gmail Pro (paid G Suite) has never done that, and Gmail Perso (Free) hasn't done that since 2017.

Maybe they don't serve targeted ads, but they still read your gmail

Protonmail will scan all messages sent from non-protonmail addresses (content and attachments) for viruses. So they do read your gmail as well.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#413

Post by mihaaly » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

kazen44 wrote: post #154

for those who are curious, this seems to be the reply from protonmail on reddit[0] >Hi everyone, Proton team here. We are also deeply concerned about this case. In the interest of transparency, here's some more context. In this case, Proton received a legally binding order from the Swiss Federal Department of Justice which we are obligated to comply with. Details about how we handle Swiss law enforcement requests can…

To me it also seems they are increasingly helpless aginst abusing criminal proceedings initiated by foreign countries on false claims.

For a user the result is the same.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#414

Post by yunohn » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:21 AM UTC

I’m a web developer, and I assume a lot of HNers are too. So I’m really confused by the lack of understanding around IP addresses in the comments here.

Everyone realizes that, by default, literally just connecting to another service over the web, will expose your IP address?

It’s trivial to monitor and report your IP to the authorities, as soon as you login to ProtonMail, despite lack of “logging”.

Logs only matter for historical data. This legal request is impossible to /not comply/ with.

Does anyone here have a feasible way to solve this? Or is it just a bunch of ProtonMail hating FUD?

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#415

Post by enriquto » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:21 AM UTC

RealStickman_ wrote: post #374

Bellamy wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All they could? Maybe not having the IP address in the first place like they advertise was that was needed.

From what I understood, they don't log ip addresses by default, but can be compelled to legally. They can only provide ip addresses for subsequent logins.

So, they changed their server software to surveil a particular user? It seems even worse than logging all IPs systematically.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#416

Post by enriquto » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:25 AM UTC

It seems that they were compelled by Swiss authorities to start logging a particular user (i.e., logging their IPs which were not logged by default). ProtonMail seems like a very bad actor in that case. Even if they must have to obey that order, they could have prevented the user explicitly before doing so.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#417

Post by dvdkon » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:29 AM UTC

lavabiopsy wrote: post #390

blululu wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

End to end encryption is a privacy feature by itself. The example of using an email service to send a mass email to a dislist is irrelevant to the possibility that it would also be able to preserve privacy in other communications. You could send an email directly to the local police chief if you wanted but that does not preclude wanting privacy elsewhere.

I think you are confusing privacy with security, which is a common mistake, not your fault -- end-to-end encryption is what secures the messages, by itself it does not ensure that the messages get to the right place or that the encryption keys are belonging to the right people. It needs to be used in combination with other methods and techniques. Explicit features that are in the domain of "privacy" would be ensuring…

I think you're using a definition of end-to-end encryption that's too narrow, same with privacy. E2E schemes try to ensure that your messages can only be read by their intended recipient. That's undeniably a privacy feature, since having private messages read by a third party (without consent) would be a privacy violation.

Security and privacy are intertwined, imagine your server getting hacked (security problem) leading to your private documents being exposed on the internet (privacy violation).

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#418

Post by cookiengineer » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:31 AM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #414

I’m a web developer, and I assume a lot of HNers are too. So I’m really confused by the lack of understanding around IP addresses in the comments here. Everyone realizes that, by default, literally just connecting to another service over the web, will expose your IP address? It’s trivial to monitor and report your IP to the authorities, as soon as you login to ProtonMail, despite lack of “logging”. Logs only matter f…

> Does anyone here have a feasible way to solve this?

Current solutions like TOR, I2P, VPNs and/or mobile proxy services are just a matter of time and legality until they come obsolete due to their publicly known nature.

I am convinced that the only way to solve this is by simply not downloading the website from its origin. The origin tracks you, so don't talk to them. Talk to your peers and receive a ledged copy of it instead.

The only problem is that this contradicts all that came after Web 2.0, because every website _wants_ unique identities for every person visiting them; including ETag-based tracking mechanisms of CDNs.

I think it's not possible with supporting Web Browser APIs the same way in JavaScript (as of now, due to fetch and XHR and how WebSockets are abused for HDCP/DRM to prevent caching), but I think that a static website delivering network with a trustless cryptography based peer-to-peer end-to-end encrypted statistically-correct cache is certainly feasible. I believe that because that's exactly what I'm building for the last two years [1].

[1] https://github.com/tholian-network/stealth

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#419

Post by Toutouxc » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:31 AM UTC

sweetbitter wrote: post #221

cortesoft wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://nusenu.medium.com/tracking-one-year-of-malicious-tor...

This wouldn't even have resulted in the catching of the person in question, due to the use of an Onion Service, your link referring to the guy downgrading HTTPS on bitcoin exchanges. Hacker News users have surprisingly little comprehension of just what Tor is, so much so that I made an account here just now. Lurkers, please read: Tor is a powerful tool for increasing the privacy of its users, though it is worth notin…

I vouched for this, because I don't understand why this was dead and I would like to hear some other opinions.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#420

Post by wiz21c » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

I'm surprised nobody questions the "why" did the police did that. A climate activist doesn't sound like someone who requires strong police investigation. And, for that matter, not that strong since the police didn't read the content of the emails but merely used one IP address.

But here, it's not climate activist. It's people illegally occupying private properties, iow squatting. They do it for political reasons, fine, but it's illegal nonetheless.

Also, I'm a bit surprised that these are climate activist at work here since gentrification (the process they fight against by squatting) is not really a climate issue but more a problem (as I read it) of capitalism.

(now I understand the whole issue down here revolves around disclosure of expected-to-be-protected information, but well, there's a big picture too...)