A court record reviewed by 404 Media shows privacy-focused email provider Proton Mail handed over payment data related to a Stop Cop City email account to the Swiss government, which handed it to the FBI.
Proton was legally ordered by the Swiss justice department to hand over the (severely limited) information about a law breaking organization’s account. They had paid for Proton using a credit card instead of the anonymous payment methods Proton offers, and that is what Proton was forced to hand over. It was the organization’s bad OpSec, not Proton willingly deanonymizing users.
On the one hand, I really like how often Proton’s shortcomings are highlighted. This SHOULD be a wake up call that you should never rely on a company to protect you and should instead focus on what you can do to ptorect yourself. And Proton… actually are pretty good in that regard. Connect from a burner/live image computer over public wifi using tor (or something similar) and their free accounts are STILL the gold standard for journalism and whistleblowers.
But the problem is that people are stupid and lazy (and many outlets actively benefit from "Eww, proton is bad. If only they had paid for NordVPN to really protect them from the FBI! ~Note, NordVPN provides no guarantees of protection~ ". So we just get stupidity.
On the one hand, I really like how often Proton’s shortcomings are highlighted. This SHOULD be a wake up call that you should never rely on a company to protect you and should instead focus on what you can do to ptorect yourself. And Proton… actually are pretty good in that regard. Connect from a burner/live image computer over public wifi using tor (or something similar) and their free accounts are STILL the gold standard for journalism and whistleblowers.
But the problem is that people are stupid and lazy (and many outlets actively benefit from "Eww, proton is bad. If only they had paid for NordVPN to really protect them from the FBI! ~Note, NordVPN provides no guarantees of protection~ ". So we just get stupidity.
Yeah, I am no fan of proton and they have lied before (no log VPN logs magically finding logs for authorities and then later removing the no-log claim).
But this is literally just proton being legally compelled to hand over data the user willingly gave (not being harvested or de-encrypted). A nothing story.
Proton was legally ordered by the Swiss justice department to hand over the (severely limited) information about a law breaking organization’s account. They had paid for Proton using a credit card instead of the anonymous payment methods Proton offers, and that is what Proton was forced to hand over. It was the organization’s bad OpSec, not Proton willingly deanonymizing users.
Hopefully people like you will be able to nip this in the bud before yet another joke of a controversy starts…
You must be new here…
On the one hand, I really like how often Proton’s shortcomings are highlighted. This SHOULD be a wake up call that you should never rely on a company to protect you and should instead focus on what you can do to ptorect yourself. And Proton… actually are pretty good in that regard. Connect from a burner/live image computer over public wifi using tor (or something similar) and their free accounts are STILL the gold standard for journalism and whistleblowers.
But the problem is that people are stupid and lazy (and many outlets actively benefit from "Eww, proton is bad. If only they had paid for NordVPN to really protect them from the FBI! ~Note, NordVPN provides no guarantees of protection~ ". So we just get stupidity.
OP’s title certainly doesn’t help.
You must be new here…
On the one hand, I really like how often Proton’s shortcomings are highlighted. This SHOULD be a wake up call that you should never rely on a company to protect you and should instead focus on what you can do to ptorect yourself. And Proton… actually are pretty good in that regard. Connect from a burner/live image computer over public wifi using tor (or something similar) and their free accounts are STILL the gold standard for journalism and whistleblowers.
But the problem is that people are stupid and lazy (and many outlets actively benefit from "Eww, proton is bad. If only they had paid for NordVPN to really protect them from the FBI! ~Note, NordVPN provides no guarantees of protection~ ". So we just get stupidity.
Yeah, I am no fan of proton and they have lied before (no log VPN logs magically finding logs for authorities and then later removing the no-log claim).
But this is literally just proton being legally compelled to hand over data the user willingly gave (not being harvested or de-encrypted). A nothing story.
@Charger8232 @jrcruciani The bug is between keyboard and chair. It is always a problem to use crédit card.
B…But…Swiss evil?