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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

#531

Post by marktucker »

ornornor wrote: post #484
newbie789 wrote: post #107

I’m aware that this is a very silly sounding question, but I’m very confused about what’s going on here. If the subject of this investigation had been using ProtonVPN to connect to ProtonMail, would this have (in a marginal way) protected their anonymity? If Proton Mail can be compelled to begin logging, surely the same must be said of Proton VPN right? It’s interesting how many “privacy focused” companies tout being…

As far as I know, Swiss laws regarding online privacy aren’t all that great. They’re even more regressive than other countries. Swiss quality doesn’t mean much in software, if anything most Swiss companies are very much behind in terms of best practices or modernity of software. Whenever I see “Swiss software quality”, I run the other way now that I know how the sauce is made. Even the government sucks at online secu…

I don't have any opinion about "made in Switzerland" for software (other than that it does make a good impression for my customers), but anecdotally (at least when shopping within Switzerland) I have noticed that the "made in Switzerland" stuff at the store is better quality. And sure it's more expensive, but all the crap products are expensive too.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#532

Post by Saptarishi »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #442
istingray wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do tell, how do you plan your clandestine operations?

3 days ago i did this very thing. when the oppressive govt banned internet, i had to talk to someone outside india and then i dictated them some text. reddit keeps ip logs for 100 days so i had a dormant account for over a year. i asked the guy to log in, type that message and post. that way the govt can demand from reddit that account ip but since the only ip available is from outside india, they cant do shit. i was…

You think nobody can tap phone records, when you called someone outside India?

Oppressive government?

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#534

Post by pixxel »

godelski wrote: post #359
falcolas wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Yes! I’ve never understood how people argue that they are somehow better than an ISP by default.

My ISP throttles connections (strangely including Zoom). My ISP mines my data and sells it to the highest bidder despite costs not coming down. My ISP determines what I can look at and can't (such as torrent sites). My ISP is participating in anti-competitive behavior and I need the internet but I don't have a meaningful way to tell them to fuck off. My VPN doesn't log. My VPN doesn't filter my traffic. My VPN reduce…

Well said.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#535

Post by raxxorrax »

istingray wrote: post #218
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…

The problem is that engaging in "potentially dangerous activities" includes such a wide range of people. Think about a journalist in Afghanistan, a whisteblower in the USA, or a human rights activist in China. They're all engaging in potentially dangerous activities. Are they "dumb" because they don't understand all the ins and outs of surveillance? How about some empathy for them as users? The proposed statement abo…

> Are they "dumb" because they don't understand all the ins and outs of surveillance?

US military personell and from other nations is posting on TikTok. At least those probably don't work in reconnaissance.

They aren't stupid and this isn't a technical problem, it is a legislative problem. Real security has been undermined since the early 2000 and before. Western powers just ape China or Russia at this point.

That the Swiss people gave authorities these surveillance capabilities is pretty stupid though. Alpine air must have been pretty thin that day.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#536

Post by atok1 »

throwawayswede wrote: post #115

This is seriously messed up. Purely because their marketing has been very aggressive to promote total and complete anonymity, directly sometimes and mostly indirectly. If it’s true that the French wording makes it seem like they don’t keep logs at all whatsoever, then I believe the person arrested has grounds to sue them, and I would hope they do. But even if not, I consider their marketing is a total and complete da…

Don't trust DDG.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#537

Post by yunohn »

raxxorrax wrote: post #522
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…

You can just not save the info. Not surprised that web developers have no concept of not saving everything anymore, but it is technically feasible. In many cases the IP wouldn't even reach your service and you only see it in the log of some load balancer or other proxy. How fleeting those logs are is a matter of choice. You can come up with an excuse, depending on the service it might be laborious to get an IP on a r…

> Not surprised that web developers have no concept of not saving everything anymore

Your contempt for web devs seems to correlate with your lack of understanding of how the web works. Responses like yours make me cringe, in how uninformed they are, despite trying to sound smart.

IP addresses can and will be exposed in any situation that a user connects to a service - it’s a fundamental property of the web. You cannot tell Government agencies, esp. when they have a 3-country-approved warrant, that “we don’t know how to”.

If you terminate a connection at the load balancer, they will make you monitor it. If that’s not owned by you, they will send the warrant onto your cloud provider or whoever.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#538

Post by ornornor »

marktucker wrote: post #531
ornornor wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, Swiss laws regarding online privacy aren’t all that great. They’re even more regressive than other countries. Swiss quality doesn’t mean much in software, if anything most Swiss companies are very much behind in terms of best practices or modernity of software. Whenever I see “Swiss software quality”, I run the other way now that I know how the sauce is made. Even the government sucks at online secu…

I don't have any opinion about "made in Switzerland" for software (other than that it does make a good impression for my customers), but anecdotally (at least when shopping within Switzerland) I have noticed that the "made in Switzerland" stuff at the store is better quality. And sure it's more expensive, but all the crap products are expensive too.

Yes, I’m taking about software, mostly. Switzerland is pretty good at machinery, or watches. But not software; it doesn’t necessarily carry over.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#539

Post by yunohn »

istingray wrote: post #211
tephra wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said it didn't matter. I think the data retention laws and for what crimes the police are able to get certain warrants in the EU and Switzerland can be better. But that is not a proton issue that is an issue with our current governments.

Ah I see. It's an issue for my use of Protonmail, in that I may cancel and move to another vendor who is more forthright. Here's what I would expect my future vendor to say about this: "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 someh…

> It's an issue for my use of Protonmail, in that I may cancel and move to another vendor who is more forthright

You’re telling us that you never considered that an incorporated company, bound by democratic laws, would be required to respond to criminal activity warrants?

What fantasy land do HNers on this thread live in?

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#540

Post by junon »

Jommi wrote: post #485
junon wrote: post #472

This is strike two. ProtonMail went under fire several months back about opting to use Google's reCaptcha for login in a time crunch, rather than setting up hCaptcha even if it took a little extra time. The tradeoff was cost vs. user privacy and they chose cost, which is NOT why a lot of us pay PM to begin with. This is unacceptable, but unfortunately there are no alternatives that hit all the check marks PM has in t…

Read the actual case details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28431834

Thanks. This is quite a different narrative than the Twitter thread and makes a bit more sense.

People likening this to exposing the hiding places of Jews to the Nazis is probably the saddest and most infuriating comparison I've seen in recent times.

Let's be rational here, folks.

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