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

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#541

Post by yunohn » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

istingray wrote: post #168

Aachen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that lukewarm? Sounds like first class support if they have a dedicated onion address and not just let you connect to the regular clearnet. Or is that address only in that old blog post and not mentioned in places you'd usually look? It's a bit unclear to me.

It's lukewarm because what less could you do besides not support Tor? Tor is mentioned on their homepage in the bottom menu under "Onion Site". However, this menu link redirects to their Tor placeholder page, rather than directly to the Tor service: https://protonmail.com/tor There's one blog post from 2017 that still promotes their old v2 onion address: https://protonmail.com/blog/tor-encrypted-email/ Protonmail's T…

> It's lukewarm because what less could you do besides not support Tor?

Alright then, what more do you want them to do? Spend millions in court fighting every warrant issued for their users and go bankrupt defending criminal activity?

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#542

Post by lobocinza » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 1:33 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #430

istingray wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

* Think about a journalist in Afghanistan, a whistleblower in the USA, or a human rights activist in China* The former's safe because no one's going to deliver IPs to Afghanistan and the latter are doomed, because the US and China are following a policy of total surveillance. That ship has sailed decades ago.

I wouldn't be surprised if they or anyone else in the future deliver users IPs to the Taliban government specially with they get recognition from more nations.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#543

Post by cinquemb » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #427

It always amazes me that there is this hardcore of people on hn who are so anti ProtonMail. If you use gmail, It is my understanding that google ai will routinely read all your messages and add anything interesting to your profile so they can target you for ads. Law enforcement also has open access to everything in your mailbox all of the time. ProtonMail don't read your email but will supply metadata to authorities…

I don't disagree, but this is always the risk for platforms that try to sell privacy in a bottle.

Hard to incorporate what threat vectors their users should be mindful of and recommend steps to mitigate in their marketing without scaring people off who want to do nothing but outsource their privacy™ to someone else and not think twice about it, even if some of those people are hn users…

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#544

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

samhw wrote: post #510

TomSwirly wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I simply closed my (free) account. Their page is full of what are now obviously lies. They admit that in the cases of "extreme crimes" they might be forced to give up information. _By no stretch of the imagination are these peaceful political protests "extreme crimes"._ I specifically advocate for the sorts of people that Protonmail ratted out and had arrested - climate change activists.

FWIW, what they were accused of was squatting, not protesting climate change. I still think that's a ludicrous abuse of police powers, but it's worth being accurate.

[deleted]

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#545

Post by raxxorrax » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #537

raxxorrax wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 canno…

I have no contempt for web devs beyond those that implement invasive tracking against their users.

I could setup a service that masks any clients IP address towards my service with no problem. If a client connects through TOR or similar network I would not be the wiser either. So apart from just not logging connection attempts, there are other tricks.

Of course that doesn't work if law enforcement is knocking on your door and forcing you to do that. But there are still mechanisms that would allow IPs to be hidden. The state cannot know the intricacies of the mechanisms your service employs. protonmail.com could point to a server in Timbuktu that makes any request in delegation for a client to hide IPs.

This privacy arms race is pure idiocy though and the problem is legislation and lacking control and supervision of police forces within European countries that decided they should be so afraid to call one emergency legislation after another for more than two decades.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#546

Post by YLYvYkHeB2NRNT » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

YLYvYkHeB2NRNT wrote: post #238

ivan_gammel wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A customer that specifically chooses Proton for privacy, must read and agree to privacy policy, which explicitly states, that Proton may in fact keep temporary IP logs and that user may opt in for login IP logs. Requests from authorities may ask for this kind of information and Proton will have to provide it. The „opt-in“ part for login logs is particularly interesting, because in fact Proton recommends this as a sec…

Anyone that uses ANY electronic device to plan and arrange clandestine opetations - IS AN IDIOT.

> . I know that when an individual uses an electronic device to communicate withothers in order to commit a crime, the individual’s electronic device will generallyserve both as an instrumentality for committing the crime, and also as a storagemedium for evidence of the crime. The electronic devices are an instrumentalityof the crime because it is used as a means of committing the criminal offense.The electronic devices are also likely to be a storage medium for evidence ofcrime. From my training and experience, I believe that an electronic device usedto commit a crime of this type may contain: data that is evidence of how theelectronic device was used; data that was sent or received; and other records thatindicate the nature of the offense.

Right from a recent court filing, search warrant.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#547

Post by zaarn » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #174

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…

I wonder how many TOR nodes are run by the NSA?

Tor Nodes are more the interest of the DoD, since they started the project and have interest in continuing it.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#548

Post by yunohn » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #545

yunohn wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 canno…

I have no contempt for web devs beyond those that implement invasive tracking against their users. I could setup a service that masks any clients IP address towards my service with no problem. If a client connects through TOR or similar network I would not be the wiser either. So apart from just not logging connection attempts, there are other tricks. Of course that doesn't work if law enforcement is knocking on your…

You are mixing around client and server side ideas, so I’m still convinced that you don’t know how web services work.

You also don’t seem to understand the gravity of an international criminal warrant, and counter with ideas of “paying a provider in Timbuktu to mask IPs”.

I don’t like feeding trolls, so I’ll stop replying now.

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#549

Post by ArnoVW » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

TomSwirly wrote: post #491

istingray wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the Protonmail customers out there, what did you do about this? For starters, I emailed Protonmail support. Here's mine: Hi, Your homepage reads "By default, we do not keep any IP logs..." This language is soft and misleading. Maybe in 2018 when I first began using ProtonMail it was good enough. But in 2021 it's not. I expect better from ProtonMail. Replace immediately with something clearer. "By default we don't…

I simply closed my (free) account. Their page is full of what are now obviously lies. They admit that in the cases of "extreme crimes" they might be forced to give up information. _By no stretch of the imagination are these peaceful political protests "extreme crimes"._ I specifically advocate for the sorts of people that Protonmail ratted out and had arrested - climate change activists.

From what I gathered from a (French) blog posting by a squatting collective, posted elsewhere in this thread, the arrests are in relation to an eviction.

The eviction was legally sanctioned, and violence was used on the officers. Several officers had to stop work for a few days, one officer for two weeks.

I myself am a middle-aged "have" , but I do worry about climate and I do empathize with those that "have not".

However, violence during an eviction is not peaceful. People were hurt, and a legal response was due. Seems to me that arresting someone after the fact, and dealing with the matter in a court of law is the peaceful thing to do?

Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address

#550

Post by zaarn » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #503

aero-glide2 wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is inaccurate, no one can't fetch the the body of emails.

Unless you use end-to-end encryption (like PGP) then that's not true.

PM mails are encrypted with PGP at rest, as is metadata. The police can request to log incoming and outgoing mail metadata if available but not retroactively.