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Proton Mail Discloses User Data Leading to Arrest in Spain
(restoreprivacy.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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I do not understand why people continue to trust Proton. They seem no better than Gmail from where I sit.
Proton upheld their claim of privacy, no Emails were disclosed. But they never promised anonymity cause that's something they simply can't do under the Swiss law. If you willingly give them your other mail addresses or contact details, they have to comply. Sure they could have denied the Spanish authorities, but it takes less than a week to get a court order for things like this.
And if they didn’t require that secondary email address or would allow a temporary, they would have had nothing to give in the first place.
Proton aren’t the victim here.
They don't require a secondary email address.
They do in certain cases. If you sign up through a VPN or Tor, they require you to provide a recovery email. They don't accept temporary email addresses, and even if you don't sign up work a VPN, they'll still collect and be obligated to hand over your IP
Proton doesn't require a recovery email.
Proton isn't the victim, but they aren't at fault either.
Oh yes because you HAVE to give them your real.name@gmail address. Very cool and privacy focused.
Suspect knew what info he had put where. Poor OPSEC.
Yes, as the reporter demonstrated, you have to give them a second email address. Or did I miss your point?
I think you missed their point. You don't have to give them anything related to or connected to your real name or identity.
Fair point.
Then you are ignorant.
Comments like this are why no one takes privacy advocates seriously. Really? No better than Google? You guys are fucking delusional.
Depends in what field. Proton, at least, doesn’t scan your email contents and metadata to sell it on to advertisers.
FWIW Gmail no longer sells your email data to advertisers either. That changed years back.
I'm gonna need some evidence before I believe Google isn't analyzing all the data that passes through it unencrypted.
All data sent through protons mta is also unencrypted. That's how mail mtas function.
Google doesn't sell your data because they don't need to. They take the data and use something called Real Time Bidding that also skirts GDPR and data protection laws/best practices.
People in this thread are really showing their ass about how little they know about how their data is actually being collected and protected. Sure, Proton isn't 100% private, but to say Proton and Gmail are on the same levels of consumer protection is hilarious.
Clearly, they do collect metadata and share it with police for the asking. Personally, advertising seems the lesser evil.
It wasn't metadata it was an entirely optional recovery email address that he used for his apple account.
Which was linked to his metadata which was what the police were after in the first place.
They're not perfect, but they're nothing like Gmail. What email provider do you suggest?
I don't. If I have something to share that could get me killed, I send it through an actual secure channel or I just say it in person. Fortunately, I don't have such important information in my possession. :)
Sounds like the best option to me.
Wrong on both counts. Google on the other hand does everything you’ve accused proton of, and much, much more.
Evidence? I'll stipulate Google's culpability. I never said that Gmail is better than Proton just that there's not a lot of difference between them, Proton fanbois' protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
The evidence is in the article above. They don’t cooperate with police requests for information, they only comply with legal orders from the Swiss judicial system. Google on the other hand not only works directly with police, but has been known to initiate contact with police, handing over the contents of entire accounts unprompted.
Then there’s the fact that the metadata supplied by Proton in this case isn’t even required to use the platform. It’s an optional feature a user can opt into for usability, at the expense of a little anonymity.
The differences between Proton and other providers like Google are immense. Proton can’t hand over the contents of your account because they don’t even have access to it. Google on the other hand has total access to all your data that they regularly abuse for profit, and will gladly hand over the entirety of to law enforcement. After all, the headline as posted to Lemmy here is misleading. The user wasn’t found out due to Proton, they were found out due to Apple. There’s your difference right there. They couldn’t do anything with the information they got from Proton directly, they had to link it to a different service that unlike Proton, handed over all the users information.
So there’s no real evidence of Google doing what you accuse them of?
Again, I’m no gigantic fan of Google, but they don’t seem any less reliable than Proton.
https://policies.google.com/terms/information-requests
Google can and will share not only metadata, but the full content of all data you have stored on Google servers, including emails, files, and photos. Proton on the other hand can’t share your emails, files or photos with anyone, even if they wanted to.
https://www.koffellaw.com/blog/google-ai-technology-flags-dad-who-took-photos-o/
Here’s one of a few cases where Google’s AI will analyze all photos and files you’ve uploaded to Google photos, google drive, or sent/received via Gmail, and can automatically close your account and will report you to authorities. In this particular case, after being alerted by Google, local authorities investigated and found that no crime had occurred. Yet they never restored access to his account. Proton once again doesn’t even have access to the content of the files you upload to their drive offering.
The differences between these two companies are inarguably vast. Suggesting otherwise is absurd. Yet accounts like yours fight tooth and nail to spread misinformation to discredit privacy-centric service companies. Makes me wonder what your real motives are, because privacy is not one of them.
Spanish police asked for a court order which was apparently easy to get. So yes, for the asking.
I never said I have nothing to hide. I said I don't trust any online service to keep it a secret. And if it's really important, I sure as hell won't send it on a postcard (email).
I don't think that Proton sells my data to advertisers or trains AI using my emails and documents. As of laws, unfortunately any service in any reputable country has to obey them. You can always buy a server in some banana republic and set up an email service there, but even then there are some risks.
All good unrelated points.
With Proton’s anti-privacy requirements for establishing service, they don’t deserve anyone’s trust. They’re just a LEO honeypot that charges you to get in. Again, in that regard, you may as well stick with free Google. At least they’re (mostly) honest about what they are.
How is proton being dishonest here? I'd like to read your point. They never pitched themselves as a way to protect yourself from the law, they always clearly said they are a confidential email provider, meaning they don't know what you are sending and receiving. It works like a doctor meeting, the information is very confidential, but not anonymous, it is tied to you even though nobody except authorized parties should be able to access this info.
Way way better than gmail IMO. One simple reason is if you have something wrong with your account you can get in contact with a real human. And still better data protection than anything in the US. I'm not a journalist or freedom fighter so for my use case it's ideal.
Fair point. And if whatever you want to keep private isn't likely to get you killed, then Proton is probably as good as any.
Because we can see through the clickbait to what actually happened.