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

theregister.com

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

#301

Post by elliekelly »

atok1 wrote: post #243
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I also bought a lifetime plan from that cloud storage company few years ago, scammed by the marketing page, only to find out somewhere in the settings page that my data were never in switzerland or even in EU but were physically in US, and had to pay to move them to EU, just deleted my account, I guess the swiss thing is just a marketing scam

You got played. Just remember to never trust marketing in the future and always read the fine print, no matter how long it may be.

> always read the fine print, no matter how long it may be.

I think it’s time we stop doling out this advice and acknowledge that it’s entirely unrealistic. I’m a lawyer. I read the fine print a lot. Sometimes just for fun. But even I don’t “always” read it. Usually I don’t even read it so much as I give it a skim. If I read the fine print each and every time I came across it during the day I would literally do nothing else. Not even sleep.

And that’s to say nothing of the average person’s hope of actually understanding what the fine print even means!

But even for someone very well-suited (a retired lawyer, for example, with all the time in the world) the suggestion to always read the fine print is absurd.

These are contracts of adhesion. As consumers we usually don’t have any leverage to change the terms or even much of a choice to take our business elsewhere. It makes far more sense to regulate consumer contracts and force businesses not to screw people over than it does to ask millions of people to waste hours of their lives reading pages and pages of legalese they don’t understand and couldn’t change even if they did.

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

#302

Post by dwild »

edly wrote: post #286
dwild wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is exactly what baffled me about people saying "I'm cancelling my PM subscription" as if they didn't make this abundantly clear. We are on a thread talking about them removing claims on their marketing material... that's abundantly clear to you? Have we reached that level of expectation? That it's abundantly clear when marketing material are not saying the same thing as reports? > In addition to the items list…

I agree that Protonmail has been dishonest in their marketing, but marketing =/= policies. If you're storing any kind of information you'd rather keep private on a server you do not control and not diving into the policies and blog posts of said provider to make doubly sure they're all they say they are, it's no one's fault but your own when something inevitably happens. Either do your due diligence or blindly accept…

> And yes, I would say an order from Swiss courts that was unappealable is an extreme criminal case. Anything that could threaten Protonmail qualifies.

So before this case, if I told you is someone in France trespassing enough for ProtonMail to log and provide IP, you would say sure?

My point is that this is not what most people would expect by reading extreme criminal case. If it's not what they expect, it is thus misleading.

I also wouldn't even agree that this is an extreme criminal case. What an non extreme one then? This is not an exception, this is simply a criminal case. It clearly doesn't need to be extreme to allow them to get the IP.

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

#303

Post by kazoomonger »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #284
cbg0 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bent over in all directions" is a bit of an exaggeration, most countries nowadays abide by various conventions to prevent money laundering & terrorism funding, since the G7 founded the FATF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Action_Task_Force

Ironic since the US is more or less the world leader for money laundering and tax evasion. It also bothers me that the US has spent billions of dollars over the past several decades fighting narcotics just to turn around and make them legal. They must have passed the "It's Ok When We Get Our Cut" Act when I wasn't looking.

THC is still illegal at the federal level, if that's what you mean. The federal government is just being dragged kicking and screaming into sanity by individual states that are legalizing it.

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

#304

Post by dane-pgp »

ghaff wrote: post #82
jasode wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think there is a market for datacenters in open seas. The idea of having a isolated sovereign floating platform in the ocean doesn't doesn't really solve the problem of escaping the rules of national governments because it still needs network connections into those countries . Whether it's underseas fiber optic cables or bouncing signals off of satellites, the datacenter will be rendered useless if nations' citize…

Exactly. Sealand/HavenCo could Play their micronation thing right up until the UK cut their supply and comms links. Does it raise the bar for bothering to do that? Sure. But it’s certainly not absolute protection.

> right up until the UK cut their supply and comms links.

So if a referendum in Switzerland passed tomorrow which changed the law so that the Swiss government had to refuse to process any foreign warrants requesting IP addresses of email users, would France cut their trade and comms links to Switzerland?

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

#305

Post by lnxg33k1 »

stilisstuk wrote: post #295
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought it from pCloud, and the person I replied to also said in another reply that he was talking about pCloud, so I think we both have had the same experience and it should be ok to name names as one person could be lying but if 2 people who never met each other say the same thing I guess that would make it at least believable

I am fairly happy with pcloud though. Didn't buy for privacy (i use encryption for that), but for cheapness. I am not aware of any violation of trust like what is mentioned here.

But to be honest i have had my files there for few years unencrypted and in US without realizing, so it's not that encryption was needed or anything special, but it just sucks to be a victim of marketing practice advertising "your files are under the jurisdiction of Switzerland" and find out that they never been, then it's a good service? It's debatable, it's cross platform and has good client support for Linux OSes, but from mobile for example i have never been able to show to friends pics and videos, always timed out, and i have good connections, i.e. TMobile and Vodafone for mobile (I'm Italian living abroad)

But whether or not you need encryption, is that ok to advertise something that you don't have?

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

#306

Post by LordRishav »

yaris wrote: post #293
istingray wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ProtonMail requires a phone number for account creation through Tor. "no personal information"...does it still say that? Let me know where, will email them.

In Sweden you can get a prepaid phone number completely for free: Comviq literally gives away SIMs and to pre-pay you can still use cash. So from this point of view PM is not lying, not one bit.

Isn't a phone number personal information as well? And what about countries where it is mandatory to register your SIM card? ProtonMail can't just reply to this part by saying "Just move to a different country bro". A phone number is personal information and should be treated as such.

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

#307

Post by lnxg33k1 »

dylan604 wrote: post #298
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought it from pCloud, and the person I replied to also said in another reply that he was talking about pCloud, so I think we both have had the same experience and it should be ok to name names as one person could be lying but if 2 people who never met each other say the same thing I guess that would make it at least believable

Great, so to get the full picture of your point, one must read the entire thread. My actual point, was why in the world would you not post the name of the company in the original post? What thought processes occurred that suggested you shouldn't provide the name in the first place?

I am not sure, i am relatively new to HN, and read the post i replied to not mentioning the service's name, so i used the same approach

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

#308

Post by tzs »

CalChris wrote: post #134

Wasn't this a form of fraud? I don't know what the Swiss law is but in the United States, fraud is both a civil tort and criminal wrong. The elements of a fraud are: 1) the making of a statement 2) the falsity of the statement 3) an intent to deceive 4) reasonable reliance on the statement by the injured party 5) injury sustained as the result of the reliance ProtonMail knowingly told this activist 'we don't log your…

Reasonable people are assumed to know that the obligation of a service provider to obey the law of its jurisdiction has a higher legal priority than their obligation to oby contract terms with customers.

#2 likely fails because the statement was at worst ambiguous or incomplete, not false. The statement that they do not keep logs by default combined with what reasonable people are expected to know as mentioned above should have led a reasonable person to see through the ambiguousness.

And if not PM went in to more detail in the TOS. Yes, it is well known that most people don't read the TOS. Heck, I often do not read the TOS.

But when you are using a service as part of some criminal endeavor or for something for which there is a reasonable chance will be mistaken for a criminal endeavor you really do need to read the TOS. To not do so is unreasonable.

#3 probably fails because there is likely no way to prove intent to deceive.

#4 likely runs into problems similar to those of #2. A reasonable person using a service for furthering some illegal activity would be expected to put some care into checking out the service to see if it is safe for such activity, and in doing so should have discovered that PM is not safe against Swiss law enforcement obtaining some meta data.

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

#309

Post by nrvn »

It is not the first time this company finds itself in the center of an international scandal.

It has proven multiple times that privacy and security are not something they really care about.

I wonder what else should happen for everyone to completely lose trust in this scam.

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

#310

Post by lnxg33k1 »

elliekelly wrote: post #301
atok1 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got played. Just remember to never trust marketing in the future and always read the fine print, no matter how long it may be.

> always read the fine print, no matter how long it may be. I think it’s time we stop doling out this advice and acknowledge that it’s entirely unrealistic. I’m a lawyer. I read the fine print a lot . Sometimes just for fun. But even I don’t “always” read it. Usually I don’t even read it so much as I give it a skim. If I read the fine print each and every time I came across it during the day I would literally do noth…

I agree with you, but i also think as i wrote before in another reply, another issue i would like to submit to you as a lawyer with experience in law, reading the TOS to me seems something to make you feel relatively good on the moment but most of it retain the right to change those after you've bought something, what do you think about that?
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