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Privacy-Focused Proton Mail Aids FBI in Uncovering ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester’s True Identity
(www.gadgetreview.com)
We still blaming basic OpSec mistakes on Proton?
this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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Proton is clear that they complie with legsl government requests and post stats about how many they fight and handover. They offer private ways to use the service and if you dont take them thats on you.
Europe bullied them out of their tax haven status a decade or so back. Germany and others made them hand over tax scofflaw account details. It was in the papers don't remember the year.
Remember when Switzerland was neutral?
When was that? They took in the Nazi gold.
No, they responded to a legal request by the swiss government to provide banking details.
Sounds just like Proton in the article:
Proton AG clarified they shared no data directly with the FBI — technically accurate but missing the point.
Proton AG clarified they shared no data directly with the FBI
“I’m gonna put this data in this box right here, the one labeled ‘Private Data’. If the FBI takes that data and does something with it, I had nothing to do with it and didn’t give them the data directly”
The fuck is the point? That banking details are subpeonable?
The point is that the headline is true. Proton helped the FBI uncover that person's identity, by revealing their banking information.
Yes, it was legal for the Swiss government to request that information and for Proton to release it when asked.
Those facts aren't mutually exclusive.
I don't understand why you're responding so aggressively.
not directly related but on top of this, wasnt it the massive campaining and political pressure from us and eu that forced swiss banks to lift the swiss bank secrecy? maybe people start to understand this law exist(ed) for other reasons than tax evasion.
Because people are like "OMG proton is such a snitch time to switch to <other service that will do the exact same thing>"
I am pretty sure Mullvad couldn't do it even if they wanted to.
They can do it up to 6 weeks or something.
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Again, they did not "aid" nor "give" that information. They were legally obliged to do so. There was never a choice. This could've happened with literally any company, E2EE stops them from being forced to turn over the emails themselves, but basic account metadata (creation date, payment methods, contact details, potentially IP access logs) will always be available. What you can do is limit the amount of information a provider requires/saves (for which Proton is a good choice) or don't rely on a company at all and roll your own email server.
In fact, knowing that the only thing Proton was able to hand over was the credit card identifier is pretty solid proof that they in fact cannot access (and thus provide access to) your email account and its contents.
If full anonimity is the goal then stick to crypto or cash payments, because credit card always leaves a trail and not a single email provider is above the law in that regard.
This case is entirely the fault of the user's bad opsec.
In this case, wouldn't rolling your own email server make it even easier to find you, since they'll just have to look up who registered the domain you used for your email address?
Depending on how you register the domain, there are some registrars that require no info at all. One of those paid with Monero creates no links to your identity.
But yes, self-hosting does not shield you from court orders. If they find you they can still access your shit, depending on how much your country's infosec police gives a shit and/or how closely they cooperate with US agencies.
Yeah, it's the distinction between "anonymous" and "private".
Furthermore, you can pay with bitcoin or even cash (sent to their HQ by mail). That way they'd have even less on you.
Furthermore, you can pay with bitcoin or even cash (sent to their HQ by mail). That way they’d have even less on you.
With the caveat that in some of their procedures they (seem to?) require to append account information in the mail, so if the postage can be traced back to you that's an issue.
Yeah, not sure how it'd work with return addresses and whatnot. But if the letter itself is intercepted there's probably more that can be used to trace back to you, unless you only handled the money and paper in a clean room.
Well, the entire procedure requires you to first trust the snail mail chain in the first place, so it's a different category of trust that "trust a CC provider". Snail mail used to be sacred, but it's been known not-to for a long while now. And at the point that you can expect the acabs are willing to inkdust and laser your mail for biological traces, that means you are facing a nation-state adversary with nation-state power, so you should be looking into nation-state level defenses instead.
Yeah. Bitcoin is probably safer and easier.
I'm just saying the option exists, and that I think it's neat.
They litterally gave information they were legally required to
E2EE stops them from being forced to turn over the emails themselves
Except it doesn't, E2EE in browser is pointless, they send your browser the code that does the dycription, they can just as easily send your browser code that does decyption & uploads the contents to themselves.
Yes doing actual E2EE emails is harder because both ends need to use an email client and configure it to do encryption, but for amost all scenarios protonmail is no more technically secure than any other webmail provider.
| Scenario | Gmail | protonmail |
|---|---|---|
| Legally required to hand over your emails | can comply | can comply the next time you use the account |
| Datacenter breach | emails encrypted at rest | emails encrypted at rest |
| Persistent threat within supplier | can read your emails | requires code injection capability |
I think offering per-user encryption that makes it harder for the company to data mine your emails is good, I just wish people would stop believing companies selling you "secure solutions".
In this case defendtheatlantaforest would have been more secure if they used any free email provider and GPG, yet there's a cult-of-produce around protonmail as if it's offering you a level of security that it can't.
Except you don't have to use their browser version and can instead use their apps or their bridge or even a 3rd-party bridge like hydroxide, which makes injections quite a bit harder. They can still get incoming and outgoing plaintext (i.e. not pmail ←→ pmail) emails, tho
Switzerland is not a safe jurisdiction.
There is no safe jurisdiction.
They complied with Swiss law. Only the name on the credit card was given.
Could've paid with crypto, choose not to.
I'm not sure entering the ponzi scheme that is cryptocurrencies would have helped in this case.
You don't need to hold crypto to pay with crypto. You just only buy exactly enough to make your payment right when you are going to do so. Yes you're still buying crypto but you're also immediately cashing out so there's no risk of being caught holding the bag.
Yeah using a public ledger would have saved the FBI having to get a warrant, especially given how in bed crypto-exchanges are with Trump
Sad to see the Swiss are still complying with demands from a fascist regime.
If you're going to be doing illegal shit in your activism, you should consider using anonymous communication methods like SimpleX.
My question is what's the legal requirements for payments? How long do they have to keep transaction records and do they have to connect this to accounts? This should be available in the ToS(but cannot find this). Compare with Mullvad (https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy) (Edit: spelling)
I'm pretty sure proton offers a crypto payment of some form. Which would mean if this person had used that instead of a credit card, theoretically there wouldn't be anything to subpoena.
Either way, email isn't exactly safe.
If I remember correctly, payment data is required to be logged for 10 years.
Edit: This varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but it's normally 5-10 years.
I signed up for a proton account and they immediately suspended it for "suspicious activity."
My IP is on some foreign blacklist I found out. No option to appeal or anything, no explanation, I would have to verify my account with personal information which defeats the purpose.
Garbage company, 100% handing information to the cia and israel I bet.
And that's why I only use Proton's free tiers. If they are going to openly support Dementia Don and openly hand out their users to fascist governments like Spain or the US, then I can at least do my part by being a financial burden to them.
This is one of the most insane and detached takes I've ever seen
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