ProtonMail deletes 'we don't log your IP' from website after activist arrested

Post by luckylion » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #148

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of "we'll never log your IPs" is something that no company can hold. - Local law enforcement can force the to do so. - Locals laws can change. - Guys with guns might barge in and demand it. Mostly, you can understand that they don't _intend_ to log IPs, and aren't in the business of collecting and redistributing data. But that doesn't mean you can count on absolute and unconditional secrecy.

Indymedia UK didn't log the IPs of website visitors. They used an Apache module that stripped IPs from Apache log messages. I know this, because I had root on the server. Indymedia was widely infiltrated, I think; certainly there were some infiltrators, and they often trolled that Indymedia loggeed IP addresses. There was a tool we could use to capture addresses; they were captured to memory only, and the tool could…

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

teekert wrote: post #40

dsign wrote: post #22

The ProtonMail guys always said that unless they were 20 miles from the littoral, in the sea side, they had to abide by national laws. So it was bound to happen. What makes me sad is how flimsy their entire premise (not necessarily "promise") turned out to be: all it took was some minor rascal in France to hug the wrong tree (so to speak), and ProtonMail is in the open saying they can't even protect the IP address of…

Or you protect your own IP, I wonder if ProtonVPN could have done that? Would have been a nice test of those claims as well. All in all, I still trust ProtonMail, they are handling this quite well and transparently. Their original messaging was probably a compromise between getting the message out there and leaving some room for things like this. Arguably that was a mistake, or maybe with the whole truth in bold on t…

Post by ur-whale » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

yaris wrote: post #122

ur-whale wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The expectation that Proton would be able to disobey the legal requests of their local authorities with impunity is unrealistic. Untrue. There are many way to resist authority without being seen as blatantly disobeying the law. In this particular case, they could have gone with the standard: "can't technically do it, we don't have the infrastructure". Or: "the guys who manages the logs just quit, we can't recover t…

The ways you've listed would work only once (each). With several hundreds of requests per year PM would pretty quickly run out of plausible excuses to not start storing the requested info. Also - what is so precious about this particular request compared to 700 requests PM received last year (if we trust PM on that)? Also - the purpose of any commercial activity (which surely PM email service is) is to make money for…

Post by _gohp » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

plater wrote: post #34

Be careful when companies market themselves as Swiss or that due to them being located in Switzerland means there is some extra layer of security or privacy. Sure, it's a more stable country than many other countries in the world, but not much different from most EU countries for example. And privacy wise there is no difference. Be also aware of the fact that many companies market themselves as Swiss, but all it mean…

Post by ghostwriter » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #189

bluGill wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is to grow big enough that by the time anyone thinks cutting your links you are big enough that you can't fail. I have no idea how to pull that off.

> I have no idea how to pull that off. you start with a military force that is enough to prevent another sovereign nation from doing something bad like cutting off your comm link, or forcing or freezing your bank account...