PayPal freezes ProtonMail's account due to legal concerns • Hacker News Board

Re: PayPal freezes ProtonMail's account due to legal concerns

#21

Post by xenophonf » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 4:05 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #8

x1798DE wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am firmly in the "ProtonMail is snake oil" camp, this is obviously a stupid move on PayPal's part (why are people even still using them?). Even if the old idiotic export control laws were in place (they are not, and Paypal should know that, since it uses TLS and doesn't check the physical location of the counterparties before negotiating an encrypted session with them), it's not even clear to me that ProtonMa…

See also Paypal blocking anything vaguely connected to Cuba. I live in England. Let's say I want to go to see something about the Buena Vista Social Club, and that it is held in London. (London, England). I am not allowed to use PayPal to pay, because Cuba. People have tried and failed to buy dresses that are called "cuba".

That actually makes sense. Paypal is subject to U.S. embargoes of Cuba, Iran, Syria, etc. Yeah, it's kind of stupid to just do a pattern match, but until we invent A.I. strong enough to figure out when "Buena Vista Social Club" means London and not Havana, it's probably smarter to dedicate scarce resources to handling exceptions to the pattern match.

Re: PayPal freezes ProtonMail's account due to legal concerns

#22

Post by dspillett » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 4:05 PM UTC

x1798DE wrote: post #3

diafygi wrote: post #2

http://www.cryptolaw.org/cls2.htm#us_exp_1101 > On 7 January 2011, a minor amendment was made to the EAR (Federal Register Vol. 76, No. 5, p. 1059). Publicly available mass-market encryption object code software (with symmetric key length exceeding 64 bits), and publicly available encryption object code of which the corresponding source code falls under License Exception TSU (i.e., when the source code is publicly av…

While I am firmly in the "ProtonMail is snake oil" camp, this is obviously a stupid move on PayPal's part (why are people even still using them?). Even if the old idiotic export control laws were in place (they are not, and Paypal should know that, since it uses TLS and doesn't check the physical location of the counterparties before negotiating an encrypted session with them), it's not even clear to me that ProtonMa…

> While I am firmly in the "ProtonMail is snake oil" camp

Could you point to some analysis of that? I can see many people shouting "javascript crypto!" which I agree seems to be the only way they can do what they claim in a cross-platform manner, but I see no such detail of what they are doing (or planning to do) in that regard. All the funding advert page stats if "end to end" not "end to end using technology X".

> why are people even still using [PayPal]?

Momentum due to critical user mass, and lack of alternatives in many places, most likely. Other payment processors are not as available globally, charge more, or are even less trusted then PayPal. Bitcoin is too unstable for my tastes, and not something I see Joe Public using en-mass in the near future.

Using Bitcoin for this would make sense though: I would guess that most (if not all) those paying in are users of the currency already or would be willing and technically informed enough to join in for just this purpose.

> Are they even US citizens?

While that probably should be relevant, I doubt it is something that PayPal really consider. They have concerns in the US and are not going to risk having them frozen by going up against US law over this any more than I am going to sue PayPal over a few tens of $ - it would cost too much in time, legal fees, and so forth. Where something might contravene US law in any way they'll block now and ask questions later mainly because they don't want those enforcing US law to do similar (slap PayPal now, ask questions later).

Re: PayPal freezes ProtonMail's account due to legal concerns

#23

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 4:11 PM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #17

The thing that bothers me is that a company would consider itself the enforcer of The Law. While it is incumbent on any company to obey said Law, it's the government's job to enforce it. So, rather than shut down an account, since PayPal doesn't necessarily have the details, they should just bundle up what they think is the incriminating evidence, toss it over the wall to the US Attorney and ask "This legal, bro?" If…

[deleted]

Re: PayPal freezes ProtonMail's account due to legal concerns

#24

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 4:12 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #8

x1798DE wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am firmly in the "ProtonMail is snake oil" camp, this is obviously a stupid move on PayPal's part (why are people even still using them?). Even if the old idiotic export control laws were in place (they are not, and Paypal should know that, since it uses TLS and doesn't check the physical location of the counterparties before negotiating an encrypted session with them), it's not even clear to me that ProtonMa…

See also Paypal blocking anything vaguely connected to Cuba. I live in England. Let's say I want to go to see something about the Buena Vista Social Club, and that it is held in London. (London, England). I am not allowed to use PayPal to pay, because Cuba. People have tried and failed to buy dresses that are called "cuba".

[deleted]

Re: PayPal freezes ProtonMail's account due to legal concerns

#25

Post by aman_abhishk » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 4:44 PM UTC

When people ask me why bitcoins are needed in this world, I will cite this as another example. Whether ProtonMail is able to provide what it claims is irrelevant, the fact that a few people decide how I spend My money is as outrageous as it could be. #Wikileaks

Re: PayPal freezes ProtonMail's account due to legal concerns

#26

Post by jason_slack » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 7:32 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #16

jason_slack wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered this too. It seems to me that more times than not Paypal freezes an account on a "whim". Almost like they are unsure if they would or wouldn't face legal ramifications later so they just freeze it to be safe. People backlash they unfreeze but at the end of the day they have suffered nothing except people being mad at them...

It seems to you like that because you never hear about the many instances where Paypal freezes accounts for actually fraudulent transactions.

No, no I surely know they do freeze for valid reasons. You are right, we usually dont hear about those instances.