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/

[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

[lispi314@udongein.xyz]

@evacide Payment data is d0x data. Always has been.

[caitp@mstdn.social]

@evacide so the only real solution is to run your own mail server, because corporations will always do this if pressured?

[siv@mastodon.praxis.red]

@ohmu @Tutanota Yes. No corporation is immune to legal compulsion.

[hlrx@techhub.social]

@doodee thanks for the tips

[siv@mastodon.praxis.red]

@simonzerafa @evacide  I think you mean "anonymity" rather than "privacy". No corporation is immune to legal compulsion. If you link a credit card to an account of any type, it will show up in all kinds of metadata via credit card companies and data brokers, and the banking records will forever deanonymize the account.

So yes, pay for a ProtonMail account with CC if you want, but use a free one if you want *anonymity* in addition to privacy.

[siv@mastodon.praxis.red]

@lasombra_br @evacide you'd think so, but a surprising amount of people don't realize a credit card immediately deanonymizes whatever they pay for with a card.

[schroedingerspossum@mastodon.social]

@maya_b @evacide @cliffle

All email providers that operate legally - including Tuta - must provide this info if they have it upon court request. If your threat model includes this risk, then having owners in a different country does not protect you at all.
To be clear, I like Tuta, but I haven't seen any evidence yet that they wouldn't be forced to do the same if they operate there.

[maya_b@hachyderm.io]

@schroedingerspossum

agreed. however the reach of US courts is limited by entities that have no US ties. Tuta is still bound, and I expect that a properly processed request through German officials would result in a disclosure, but that requires a bit more rigour than I'd expect from an entity with US ties.

@evacide @cliffle

[porcus@hostux.social]

@evacide @cliffle @stinerman There is a thin line on logging stuff for user debug (being an isp/supplier for friends, i have some clue, not pretending it's expertise), therefor where is that line. also, i might understand that proton needs to comply with swiss law (which isn't up to date vs data retention and digital data, because totally f*ing legacy.) my short swiss citizen view : we're in deep shit with this and local politics dont care. ( i'm geneva's former pirate party founder and lost)

[mxenbionix@mastodon.social]

@evacide yeah proton has done this before and has made statements about it that proton is a privacy tool, not an anonymity tool. Hate to see it still though.

Its definitely good to make people more aware of this though, thanks.

[orca@nya.one]

@evacide@hachyderm.io Glad that I paid them nothing while I was still using Proton Mail.

[powerfromspace1@mstdn.social]

@evacide cause of course

[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.