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/

[flipper@mastodonapp.uk]

@caitp @evacide i would think it would be even easier to track someone with their own server. If you run it in the cloud, they can pressure the cloud provider. If it's under your desk, they can presumably track your DNS registration.

The only real solution is probably to use something like Signal.

[caitp@mstdn.social]

@flipper @evacide Doesn't signal have the ssme stuff, paid accounts associated with handles or phone numbers they could find on an arrested person's phone?

[flipper@mastodonapp.uk]

@caitp @evacide no paid accounts, possibly could track you with phone number. I don't know if they store that.

[wonkothesane@mstdn.social]

@Orca @evacide This actually how you avoid this issue…your credit card is tied to you, full stop. Either pay with an alternative method or not at all

[jab01701mid@mastodon.social]

@evacide I support the idea that you should pay for your email service, if you value your privacy.
Using ANY commercial email service exposes you to surveillance and your identity being exposed. Especially if you use your iOS or Google device as a computer.
I continue to hold that Proton is better than a "free" gmail or microsoft account.
For example, I currently support my mastodon instance via Patreon. Patreon could and would expose my identity. They have my email. Still I persist.

[haste@mastodon.social]

@evacide More polite rebuttal than I could have managed.

[celeste_42bit@infosec.exchange]

@evacide Privacy != Anonymity. Beware!

[steff@soc.femme.cat]

@evacide@hachyderm.io My reading and understanding of this, is that the Swiss govt order came from an MLAT request from the FBI, and not a US court warrant. Thus, the issue, to me, is how US law enforcement essentially uses MLAT to bypass what in the US could be withheld without an appropriate judicial review. Maybe I’m projecting a misunderstanding, but when I had to respond to such requests, in the ISP I ran, we would, generally, only comply with a legal warrant or order authorized by a court.

[victor_mori@infosec.exchange]

Proton alternatives, for everyone's consideration:

️ Email: Tuta (free) or Proton (free tier)

VPN: Mullvad or IVPN (pay with Monero)

Password manager: Bitwarden (free)

🥷 Email aliasing: Addy.io (pay with Monero) or SimpleLogin (belongs to Proton, but still, and Monero is an option apparently)

Of course, those services and Monero might be honeypots, who knows. They're all FOSS as far as I'm tracking, but I didn't audit any of them personally. That's probably the best we've got I guess. And I believe some take cash payments too, if Monero isn't an option.

[evacide@hachyderm.io]

@steff A lot of people use Proton Mail because they think its location in Switzerland gives their data greater legal protections than it might have in the US or the EU. In some cases, this may be true, but as you can see in this example, these protections are not absolute.

[starlight@mk.absturztau.be]

@evacide@hachyderm.io Fuck me, I've been trusting Proton to keep their heart and soul. ​​

Not that I'm in the US or doing anything criminal, but it still sucks to lose trust.

I'm deeply locked in with Passmail and stuff tho, so it's not trivial to change providers. ​​

[ahrienby@mk.absturztau.be]

@victor_mori@infosec.exchange @evacide@hachyderm.io speaking of #Bitwarden, you could self-host #Vaultwarden

[bascule@mas.to]

@evacide never understood why people liked them. I thought they were clowns ever since their first trivial reflected XSS when they initially launched

[theangelofinsanity@mastodon.social]

@evacide Anyone who thinks Proton, Tuta or any other company is going to disobey a court order to protect a user is delusional. Proton states upfront that for absolute anonymity, use a free account (or pay with cash or whatever) and only connect using their onion site. They've never given up the content of emails (cause its encrypted in such a way that they can't access). They've never given any log info for VPN use (cause they have a strict no logs policy). Its as simple as that.

[chiraag@mastodon.online]

@evacide This...seems perfectly normal? Like, what was Proton's alternative here?

[private_brewing@mastodon.social]

@wcbdata @cliffle @evacide You could use a free account. If they don't have your payment data they can't hand it to anyone.

[kdelta@ieji.de]

@evacide @Tekchip If you don’t want to be part of a conversation on an over dramatised news article maybe don’t post it then ‍️

[private_brewing@mastodon.social]

@chiraag @evacide I suppose there could be a mechanism making that impossible for Proton to do. Like the user account could have the right to create email accounts with certain privileges, but the mapping is itself encrypted with the users key.

[nomadskateboarding@mastodon.social]

@evacide Yes, that's following the law. All reputable companies follow the law.

I'm not a big fan of 404 media for the way they try and hype things that people might need info on or be ignorant of, but use terms of sensationalism.

[propertyguy@social.vivaldi.net]

@evacide use cyberfear and their related mailum