If you pay Proton Mail for a service, they may hand over the payment data in response to a court order: https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/

[evacide@hachyderm.io]

If you pay Proton Mail for a service, they may hand over the payment data in response to a court order: https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/

[cliffle@hachyderm.io]

@evacide I've been following the articles on this, and was curious -- you would know this better than I -- does it sound like they were in a position where they had a legal alternative?

[eldersea@expressional.social]

@evacide Mail cash, I guess? Not really into crypto.

[rashunda@mastodon.social]

@evacide It's even worse if you pay for Proton Mail and live in CH like I do (also citizen). It means they'll just turn my sh*t over to Bern. I wonder if they'd even inform me.

[esplovago@mastodon.uno]

@evacide this happens when people don't understand the difference between privacy and anonimity.

[wcbdata@vis.social]

@cliffle I had this same question when I read the article... Would the only defense here be to pay cash (mail them an envelope full of Euros?) or sufficiently obfuscate payment card ownership (Bahamas holding company maze)? @evacide

[simonzerafa@infosec.exchange]

@evacide

The only winning move is not to pay.

Not quite as privacy focued as they claim really.

[31113@kolektiva.social]

@evacide When will people stop using this honeypot?

[tekchip@mastodon.social]

@evacide this is far from new? What happened to the internet never forgets? Proton regularly complies with police/government/legal etc.

2021

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2021/09/protonmail-hands-users-ip-address-and-device-info-to-police-showing-the-limits-of-private-email

[evacide@hachyderm.io]

@Tekchip Is there something in my post that says this is a novel development?

[tekchip@mastodon.social]

@evacide no, left more so for the other folks replying to your post as if this is unexpected.

[evacide@hachyderm.io]

@cliffle This is exactly what they have already said they would do, but it is very common for me to encounter people who use Proton Mail who do not expect this.

[stinerman@mastodon.social]

@eldersea @evacide if you want to remain as anonymous as possible, you'd use the free tier and don't populate a recovery email. They had to give that to French police by way of court order, which helped the police identify the suspect.

[evacide@hachyderm.io]

@Tekchip Feel free to reply to them while leaving me out of it.

[stinerman@mastodon.social]

@evacide @cliffle I will admit to being surprised that they are required to log certain information by way of court order that they don't log by default.

[maya_b@hachyderm.io]

@evacide @cliffle

and with owners in the US, there's even more legal jeopardy potential. where the servers are located is less relevant than who owns them.

contrast that with Tuta, sure it's EU owned but you have to go through more layers to get to account details, and not as easily strong-armed.

though the French MS email saga from a while back makes it all muddier. French authorities will comply with requests made through the proper channels, a US judge said she didn't have to and demanded compliance - putting MS-France in non-compliance with the US court order, or non-compliance with French law.

[doodee@mastodon.social]

@evacide

You can actually pay Posteo in cash by mail: send banknotes in an envelope with a code to Posteo.

@Tutanota as alternative does not offer direct cash payment, but you can buy Tuta gift cards cash same way via the reseller Proxystore.

@protonprivacy also accepts cash payments according to their support, by sending physical money via post. You get the details by contacting Proton support…

But if you pay with a Creditcard, you have an US provider an board

[ohmu@social.seattle.wa.us]

May I assume @Tutanota would be bound to do the same thing?

[lasombra_br@mas.to]

@evacide Wouldn’t that be a given in most jurisdictions?

[stinerman@mastodon.social]

@wcbdata @cliffle @evacide cash is a supported payment method:
https://proton.me/support/payment-options#cash