Accounts with third-party service providers were used “for exfiltration or infrastructure,” according to a post by law enforcement on LockBit’s seized darkweb domain.
I think there was someone who was bitching here at one time, about ProtonMail handing out some user’s account by court order. And they were trying to be snarky like “oh, guess ProtonMail doesn’t care about your privacy after all!” or some shit.
And your comment here completely clarifies the differences about protecting privacy from enabling you to continue your criminal activity.
I myself cannot be 100% sure my privacy would be protected, if the service I knew, was having their door knocked because they knew I’m up to no good.
Your privacy is ensured from the likes of spam, advertisements and corporate eyes reading your e-mail. Not criminal activity.
I want to know what happens when something is only a criminal activity in a state.
Is an Alabama resident moving eggs and IVF clinics to a different state considered criminal activity?
How about a Texas resident talking about getting an abortion in a different state?
I’m not sure if state governments can even requests this but it does interest me what Proton’s response would be. What if it was countries instead of states?
As this thread had shown, there are dozens of serious questions for them to answer. Not least of which is the fact since you are not a criminal until a court has found you guilty , who are they calling criminal?
On the plus side, being that they’re in European countries, they likely have the enviable position of being able to ignore and chastise the worst excesses of USA law. However, that’s my question as well, this is all well and good, but it also puts them in the position of having to have a “scale” of which crimes are “worth” legally complying with, and which ones are “worth” ignoring and fighting.
They don’t have to support the fanatical religious government in Afghanistan, for instance, but surely there are dissidents there who would like to be able to communicate without being monitored in Afghanistan as well. Where’s the line? Is the line different for each country and it’s laws? Are they going to count the absurd “religious crimes” there as the same as more egregious crimes like ransomware?
It actually would behoove these groups to codify and communicate their positions on this wholesale now because the issue isn’t going to go away.
They’ve suggested people use VPN to connect to their email service for additional privacy.
https://protonvpn.com/support/no-logs-vpn/
"Proton VPN’s Swiss jurisdiction also confers additional benefits which are favorable for VPN services. In most countries, VPNs can be forced to log as the result of government orders, even if they are by default no-logs. However, within the current Swiss legal framework, Proton VPN also does not have forced logging obligations.
This notably differs from Swiss regulations for other online services such as email which is generally not no-logs and can require IP disclosure in the event of a Swiss criminal investigation. That’s why if your threat model requires hiding your IP from Swiss authorities when using Proton Mail, we recommend using a VPN or Tor."
They were probably referring to this event about a climate activist, which also mentions their suggestion of using Tor if you need to hide your IP address.
“ProtonMail also operates a VPN service called ProtonVPN and points out that Swiss law prohibits the country’s courts from compelling a VPN service to log IP addresses. In theory, if Youth for Climate had used ProtonVPN to access ProtonMail, the Swiss court could not have forced the service to expose its “real” IP address. However, the company seems to be leaning more heavily toward recommending Tor for this particular purpose.”
I think there was someone who was bitching here at one time, about ProtonMail handing out some user’s account by court order. And they were trying to be snarky like “oh, guess ProtonMail doesn’t care about your privacy after all!” or some shit.
And your comment here completely clarifies the differences about protecting privacy from enabling you to continue your criminal activity.
I myself cannot be 100% sure my privacy would be protected, if the service I knew, was having their door knocked because they knew I’m up to no good.
Your privacy is ensured from the likes of spam, advertisements and corporate eyes reading your e-mail. Not criminal activity.
ProtonMail advertises their service by saying they won’t comply with any court orders except by the Swiss.
I’m not sure where this particular court order came from, but if it was from a foreign government, that would be a big deal.
I want to know what happens when something is only a criminal activity in a state.
Is an Alabama resident moving eggs and IVF clinics to a different state considered criminal activity?
How about a Texas resident talking about getting an abortion in a different state?
I’m not sure if state governments can even requests this but it does interest me what Proton’s response would be. What if it was countries instead of states?
As this thread had shown, there are dozens of serious questions for them to answer. Not least of which is the fact since you are not a criminal until a court has found you guilty , who are they calling criminal?
On the plus side, being that they’re in European countries, they likely have the enviable position of being able to ignore and chastise the worst excesses of USA law. However, that’s my question as well, this is all well and good, but it also puts them in the position of having to have a “scale” of which crimes are “worth” legally complying with, and which ones are “worth” ignoring and fighting.
They don’t have to support the fanatical religious government in Afghanistan, for instance, but surely there are dissidents there who would like to be able to communicate without being monitored in Afghanistan as well. Where’s the line? Is the line different for each country and it’s laws? Are they going to count the absurd “religious crimes” there as the same as more egregious crimes like ransomware?
It actually would behoove these groups to codify and communicate their positions on this wholesale now because the issue isn’t going to go away.
They’ve suggested people use VPN to connect to their email service for additional privacy.
https://protonvpn.com/support/no-logs-vpn/ "Proton VPN’s Swiss jurisdiction also confers additional benefits which are favorable for VPN services. In most countries, VPNs can be forced to log as the result of government orders, even if they are by default no-logs. However, within the current Swiss legal framework, Proton VPN also does not have forced logging obligations.
This notably differs from Swiss regulations for other online services such as email which is generally not no-logs and can require IP disclosure in the event of a Swiss criminal investigation. That’s why if your threat model requires hiding your IP from Swiss authorities when using Proton Mail, we recommend using a VPN or Tor."
They were probably referring to this event about a climate activist, which also mentions their suggestion of using Tor if you need to hide your IP address.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/09/privacy-focused-protonmail-provided-a-users-ip-address-to-authorities/
“ProtonMail also operates a VPN service called ProtonVPN and points out that Swiss law prohibits the country’s courts from compelling a VPN service to log IP addresses. In theory, if Youth for Climate had used ProtonVPN to access ProtonMail, the Swiss court could not have forced the service to expose its “real” IP address. However, the company seems to be leaning more heavily toward recommending Tor for this particular purpose.”
proton mail is known to cooperate with law enforcement.
don’t trust them.