Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised • Hacker News Board

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#41

Post by gant » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

deltateam wrote: post #37

Payments with Monero use would have solved and prevented the donor data from being leaked. I'm still a little distressed at how few web-anything providers accept Monero. Privacy focused email services and cloud service providers should be using it but what we really have is protonmail only accepting credit cards and nobody seems to see the irony in that. occassionally in the past I have found email and cloud service…

As always with great (/s) solutions proposed on HN, it's neither simple, nor are there any great incentives for providers or is there consumer demand. The average protonmail user doesn't care and/or know why using a credit card could be a problem.

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#42

Post by mirimir » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

mattashii wrote: post #9

leke wrote: post #2

> They are not accused of a crime but considered to be witnesses in a case... Wow, so the witnesses are treated like criminals now.

I disagree with your comparison to criminals. Gathering evidence for a case can be done at any place relevant to a case. It is sad to see that they confiscated materials owned by a witness, but within the bounds of "reason": they are a related party in said case. Please note: I do still, from what I read here, find this excessive use of power. A normal warrant with a request for data could very well have been enough,…

They obviously wanted data from Riseup, about some email address. Which I gather has no presence in Germany. So they went after Zwiebelfreunde.

That seems ridiculous. I mean, there's no way that Zwiebelfreunde would have any data about Riseup's email accounts. Even Riseup claims to retain nothing.

I suppose that Zwiebelfreunde might have handled contributions to Riseup from someone using the targeted email address. So there might be a money trail. But that's pretty iffy.

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#43

Post by gant » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:17 PM UTC

skrause wrote: post #26

HenryBemis wrote: post #11

Germans won't learn from their past. Watching "the lives of others" doesn't mean anything to them. "Security" forces always want to shadow/spy on anyong and anything "just in case". This is how Democracies fail. This is how humanity reverts to the age of "securitat". German has one of the most elaborate spying-on-its-own-citizens dragnet around the world. This sting operations are just to bully/frighten anyone who da…

> German has one of the most elaborate spying-on-its-own-citizens dragnet around the world. Citation needed. The amount of surveillance in Germany is much lower than e.g. the USA or UK.

Last I checked DE-CIX is still in a never ending legal battle with the BND and courts seem to consistently rule in the favor of the BND.

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#44

Post by Proven » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #42

mattashii wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your comparison to criminals. Gathering evidence for a case can be done at any place relevant to a case. It is sad to see that they confiscated materials owned by a witness, but within the bounds of "reason": they are a related party in said case. Please note: I do still, from what I read here, find this excessive use of power. A normal warrant with a request for data could very well have been enough,…

They obviously wanted data from Riseup, about some email address. Which I gather has no presence in Germany. So they went after Zwiebelfreunde. That seems ridiculous. I mean, there's no way that Zwiebelfreunde would have any data about Riseup's email accounts. Even Riseup claims to retain nothing. I suppose that Zwiebelfreunde might have handled contributions to Riseup from someone using the targeted email address. S…

The police just needs just one identity from someone at Riseup IT to be able continue their hunt for the Website owners.

(Whether they will find anything or not doesn't concern me. It seems the site's organizers were calling for violence or illegal disturbance against a legitimate political party, so screw them)

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#45

Post by mirimir » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:31 PM UTC

gant wrote: post #41

deltateam wrote: post #37

Payments with Monero use would have solved and prevented the donor data from being leaked. I'm still a little distressed at how few web-anything providers accept Monero. Privacy focused email services and cloud service providers should be using it but what we really have is protonmail only accepting credit cards and nobody seems to see the irony in that. occassionally in the past I have found email and cloud service…

As always with great (/s) solutions proposed on HN, it's neither simple, nor are there any great incentives for providers or is there consumer demand. The average protonmail user doesn't care and/or know why using a credit card could be a problem.

That I find hard to believe. Maybe the average Internet user is clueless about that. But the average ProtonMail user?

I was shocked when I saw that. It's a total disconnect. Why not Bitcoin? All decent VPN services accept Bitcoin. ScryptMail accepts Bitcoin. Even VFEmail does.

Even worse, if you create a ProtonMail account via Tor, you can't use even the free tier unless you provide card and number numbers. That's worse than even Facebook!

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#46

Post by musage » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #36

rasengan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addition: why would a truthful fact be downvoted?

You've added opinion to the fact - "is someone at HN" etc.

People had their flagging privileges removed before, in cases "someone at HN" actually gave a fuck. If you give people the tools to flag this and let them abuse it, you're complicit, and you cant't effectively support browshirts and then cry about being called a meanie. It's like doing a murder and then complaining about being called an asshole. Which is not a nice thing to do, in a vacuum, but this is not a vacuum, and it's hardly the first time either.

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#47

Post by musage » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

HenryBemis wrote: post #11

Germans won't learn from their past. Watching "the lives of others" doesn't mean anything to them. "Security" forces always want to shadow/spy on anyong and anything "just in case". This is how Democracies fail. This is how humanity reverts to the age of "securitat". German has one of the most elaborate spying-on-its-own-citizens dragnet around the world. This sting operations are just to bully/frighten anyone who da…

Yet it's an American website where the discussion of such serious things is censored, too.

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#48

Post by solarkraft » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

anoncoward111 wrote: post #29

mattashii wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your comparison to criminals. Gathering evidence for a case can be done at any place relevant to a case. It is sad to see that they confiscated materials owned by a witness, but within the bounds of "reason": they are a related party in said case. Please note: I do still, from what I read here, find this excessive use of power. A normal warrant with a request for data could very well have been enough,…

Hi mattashii, This is the police. We have reason to believe you've witnessed a crime somewhere at some time. Please willingly give us all of your electronics right now. Yes we know you need them for work, for living, and that they cost thousands of USD. No we cant tell you when we'll give them back. Thanks Politie

It's not just "please gib", it's a full raid.

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#49

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

Is there a link somewhere to a summary of what happened here? A lot of context is missing that is only coming from the comments in bits and pieces. For instance the only thing I was able to gather from the comments is that there was some potential police overreach where someone who collects donations was raided because the recipient is involved in some illegal/terroristic bomb related activity. Seems like a lot of nuance is missing here.

Re: Police raid at Zwiebelfreunde: Donor data compromised

#50

Post by deltateam » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

gant wrote: post #41

deltateam wrote: post #37

Payments with Monero use would have solved and prevented the donor data from being leaked. I'm still a little distressed at how few web-anything providers accept Monero. Privacy focused email services and cloud service providers should be using it but what we really have is protonmail only accepting credit cards and nobody seems to see the irony in that. occassionally in the past I have found email and cloud service…

As always with great (/s) solutions proposed on HN, it's neither simple, nor are there any great incentives for providers or is there consumer demand. The average protonmail user doesn't care and/or know why using a credit card could be a problem.

> The average protonmail user doesn't care and/or know why using a credit card could be a problem.

Right, which is hilarious.

> As always with great (/s) solutions proposed on HN

Using an opportunity to patronize without understanding my perspective at all. Interesting... (cont.)

> it's neither simple, nor are there any great incentives for providers or is there consumer demand.

Despite not knowing or caring that I would agree with this.

Anyway! The landscape of cloud service providers always has providers that don't care about outsized consumer demand. Therefore this seems to be more of an educational issue as well as an assertiveness issue distinct from one related to the practicality of running a cloud service.