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/

[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.

[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. ​​