So with FastMail under Australian privacy-bashing laws and now this, what are our options for secure, private e-mail?
Lavabit?
Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
581–590 of 619 posts
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#582Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, you are complaining that they had immigrants working for them? They are part of the EU free movement region, so that is hardly surprising. Immigrants on the payroll don't change whether or not a company is Swiss. Were they inside the country? Were also they subject to Swiss laws? Aren't these the things that would make a company Swiss? Even if the company was started by a person that isn't Swiss, I'm pretty sure…
I am not complaining about the company hiring immigrants and allowing remote work across the Europe. I just haven't seen anything inherently Swiss in it, anything different from any other European company I worked for, that would justify the "Swiss quality" marketing.
Then why would you bring up the nationalities of the folks working there instead of pointing out things about the quality that you find lacking as compared to the advertising?
There wasn't any of that there. The only detail in the complaint was about the non-Swiss folks working there. And I really, really don't understand how it just isn't low-key racism. Could you explain it better for me?
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#583Earlier quoted context omitted.
This wouldn't even have resulted in the catching of the person in question, due to the use of an Onion Service, your link referring to the guy downgrading HTTPS on bitcoin exchanges. Hacker News users have surprisingly little comprehension of just what Tor is, so much so that I made an account here just now. Lurkers, please read: Tor is a powerful tool for increasing the privacy of its users, though it is worth notin…
I vouched for this, because I don't understand why this was dead and I would like to hear some other opinions.
It's dead either because my account is new, or because I mentioned a mix network.
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#584Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tor helps, but is not especially robust against state-level actors / APTs. An actor running a sufficient number of entry/exit nodes could perform at least some traffic analysis. Tor is an improvement. It's still a limited tool.
No it’s not bulletproof but there isn’t really any other network with the same availability which would protect against a targeted and sustained analysis. Even if a nation state was targeting you, it would still take months for a timing/bandwidth attack to identify a user. Even then it would only provide your adversary a probability of certainty and requires consistent traffic from the victim through a compromised ex…
Probabilities factored in with other data can be exceedingly useful.
Remember: all you need is 33 bits.
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
Put "By default we don't keep IP, but may be required to by local laws. We suggest you connect through Protonmail through Tor". I would much prefer this, as a Protonmail paying customer.
Tor helps, but is not especially robust against state-level actors / APTs. An actor running a sufficient number of entry/exit nodes could perform at least some traffic analysis. Tor is an improvement. It's still a limited tool.
In discussion with Christine Webber on Mastodon: Onion services rather than simply using Tor as a transit service offers far more protection.
Here, data enter the Tor system, but don't leave it as the onion service itself has a Tor address.
Yes, traffic analysis and timing correlations may still be used to draw inferences, but again, costs are raised, and that's the critical factor.
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#586For me, I NEVER expect protection from any governmemnt authorities. They have unlimited resources (compared to a regular person), and you can't fight city hall, as the saying goes. The reason I use tutamota (similar to protonmail) is to stop the Googles and Yahoos and hotmails from scanning all of my emails, using them to advertise to me, selling the information to advertisers. Could you imagine if the US post office…
This, 100%. I think Protonmail gives people a false sense of security. I want to protect myself from companies that collect my data to profile me and sell that profile to people with money who want to manipulate me (aka advertisers). All of the parties I communicate with via email use more insecure providers, so even if Protonmail was perfectly secure, my emails are vulnerable anyway. I think it's important to keep i…
Well, it only gives a false sense of security to people who are not paying attention. It literally says that it will give information to governments with a valid search warrant. They never have hidden that, ever. While, yes, it is true that if you send an email to a gmail, yahoo mail, hotmail, etc, those companies don't have access to all of your emails. That's the best one can hope for. They can't read my payments to the company that I lease my office from, my payments to my VOIP provider, etc. I agree with using multiple emails - I must have 8 or 10 of them. And not for nothing. One I use for only personal friends and acquaintance, so I don't get junk emails, one for only personal business accounts, one for my business accounts, some for general information, one I use as junk email when I have to fill in an email and don't know if I want to use that service, etc. And most of them are email names like YRV782SQLN483@hotmail.com.
You are right about Protonmail and Fastmail giving up info to legit governmental agency subpoenas. It's just obvious. Any company will do this, no matter what.
I chose tutanota after an extensive search, because I don't want aliases, I want completely separate email accounts, because if you have aliases, they all still come to the same exact account and I would still have to wade through all the emails. The filters really don't do it for me personally.
And tutanota was the least expensive option that I found. Emails are only $1 per month - $12 per year, while Protonmail is $5 per month after the first email address, at least that is what I remembered at the time. So that is 500% more in cost. So if I have Protonmail, it would cost me $240 per year (if paid annually, otherwise more if paid monthly) for 5 extra email accounts, while tutanota is $60 per year.
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#587Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. But I'm talking about opening your letters, scanning them into a computer, and selling that information. I personally don't fill out the change of address forms.
Yeah, the USPS cannot open your mail without a warrant, which is a pretty nice assurance to have. That would be pretty bad if it was how you described- all the more reason for us to make sure the USPS stays around :) Edit: Note, this is a "nice assurance to have" because private shipping companies generally reserve the right to open anything that they are shipping.
Right. And that would be my point. That why do people use gmail and yahoomail, etc, when they have permanent records of every single word you write, but people would be outraged if the USPS scanned every piece of mail contents and sold it to advertisers.
And again, with private shipping companies, it's not like they are going to open 100% of everything. But the large email companies can, and have it forever. Can look at it 10 years from now, if they choose.
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#588Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you work for a PR company that works for the industry? Are you an industry flak? Peddle your wares elsewhere. Go tell it to the Marines. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/google-says-it-doesnt-...
From the article: "And companies like Google shouldn’t be able to monetize data they collect without consent even if they aren’t technically “selling” it. Data collection, use, and sharing should be minimized by default." If you meant "selling the information" more broadly as EFF used it here (which I think is not an unreasonable way ultimately, just not what most people would commonly understand the phrase as), then…
OK, fine, maybe I was being a touch hyperbolic. But really, the thing is - they keep your information for forever. It's on their hard drives. There's no guarantee that what they say today, won't change tomorrow, or in 2 years, or 5 years. That's the real creepy part for me.
Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#589Earlier quoted context omitted.
> to stop the Googles and Yahoos and hotmails from scanning all of my emails, using them to advertise to me, selling the information to advertisers. They don't sell your information to advertisers. So your threat model here is factually false.
Do you work for a PR company that works for the industry? Are you an industry flak? Peddle your wares elsewhere. Go tell it to the Marines. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/google-says-it-doesnt-...
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Re: Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address
#590"By default, we do not keep any IP logs" is obvious to mean "We MAY keep IP logs"... I don't know how people read it as simply "We do not keep IP logs". It's on you if choose to use it and get busted doing something illegal with it. Protonmail is not or should not be a safehouse for criminals.