Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester

https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/

by sedatk • 5 months ago

435 198 5 months ago

404media.co

sam0x17• 5 months ago

Well I guess Proton cannot be trusted. You know what they say, centralization corrupts absolutely

mystraline• 5 months ago

Given they were praising Trump, Vance, and gang - I called it then.

I cancelled my Proton account when all of that hit Mastodon. Their VPN was good, but I dont support nazies and their toadies.

GolfPopper• 5 months ago

I wasn't even aware of anything around Proton and specific US political parties. Thank you for your post, as it led me to some searching.

The single most useful link I found was this Reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_poli...

lucb1e7• 5 months ago

In trying to check this claim (I thought Proton did sensible things), I found that the submitted news article is not new at all:

[Proton's] homepage touts that “With Proton, your data belongs to you, not tech companies, governments, or hackers.” However, [...] Proton previously handed over an IP address at the request of French authorities made via Europol to Swiss police. Yen wrote a Twitter post at the time, stating, “Proton must comply with Swiss law. As soon as a crime is committed, privacy protections can be suspended and we’re required by Swiss law to answer requests from Swiss authorities.” ---https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-tru...

Big surprise: swiss company complies with swiss law!

And the same happened now, quoting the part of the submission that you can read without signing up:

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.

Anyway, regarding your claim, it's a whole rabbit hole of statements they made but broadly speaking it sounds like you're right: Vance supported legislation which Proton campaigned for and, subsequently (as of 2025-01), Proton loves the US Republican Party, believing they would stand up for 'the little guy'. To be fair, they bring some evidence that sound like it can be verified and back this opinion up somewhat, but even if it's a correct opinion on this sub-topic, it's still supporting authoritarianism. Anyway, this is where I'm going to stop trying to politically analyze their situation and just not recommend Proton anymore...

Anonbrit• 5 months ago

I don't think any commercial entity can be trusted to break the law on behalf of customers who only pay a small fee each

sithadmin• 5 months ago

As a long time Proton customer...I am fairly certain Proton has always been completely upfront that they will comply with lawful requests for information from the Swiss authorities, if response is obligated by Swiss law. Therefore this isn't especially surprising.

bombcar• 5 months ago

The key is and always has been to make sure that someone like Proton simply doesn't have the information so they can't give it away.

ranger_danger3• 5 months ago

It's wild to me that people are downvoting this. Nobody is going to jail for you...

thephyber• 5 months ago

In this case, it was Swiss courts who forced them to comply, not foreign courts.

And from what little I can tell from the article, it was account payment data, not content from the account.

Proton was never designed or advertised to resist this kind of threat.

dgxyz• 5 months ago

What Proton sell you is reduction of anxiety. But that's a lie.

The whole idea of encrypted email is pointless. There's absolutely no guarantee it's encrypted in transit or encrypted at rest on any machines it transits through unless you encapsulate the messages with PGP and then you still leave a trail of envelopes everywhere. Any government who wants your data will come round and beat it out of you or the provider as best as they can. And if you have the pay the provider, as evidenced here, they can point to you and then beat you for it. Beating being metaphorical or otherwise.

Use any old shitty email provider and make sure you can move off it quickly if you need to. Standard IMAP, not weird ass proprietary stuff like proton. Think carefully what you do and say. Use a side channel for anything that actually requires security.

wolvoleo7• 5 months ago

Thanks for pointing that out. I always do too. I'm always surprised how many people here aren't aware of this.

rando1234• 5 months ago

You can pay proton anonymously according to some other comments here...

petcat• 5 months ago

The records provide insight into the sort of data that Proton Mail, which prides itself both on its end-to-end encryption and that it is only governed by Swiss privacy law, can and does provide to third parties.

Didn't Proton already say that they were physically relocating their servers outside of Switzerland because the Swiss government couldn't be trusted?

Although I guess the server location didn't matter in this case since all they wanted was the billing information and the credit card info to identify the person.

VWWHFSfQ• 5 months ago

prides itself both on its end-to-end encryption

Their end-to-end encryption is pointless because the vast majority of any recipients will just leak the plaintext emails via their own account providers anyway. It only works under very specific circumstances (all parties are using it). I think their marketing overstates what their secure private email actually means.

njarboe• 5 months ago

Yes. If you send an email from a protonmail account to a gmail account that email is in google's system. Same if in the other direction. Would anyone using protonmail not know this. I would guess at least 99.9% of proton users understand this.

elashri• 5 months ago

Didn't Proton already say that they were physically relocating their servers outside of Switzerland because the Swiss government couldn't be trusted?

They said they want to relocate to Germany which I would say in a polite way, is much worse in this regard.

spelk2• 5 months ago

In what sense? Germany has among the strongest judicial oversight for invasion of privacy in Europe. Due process is followed when securing search warrants that provide access to subscriber data (Germany does not have administrative subpoenas like in the US and other countries).

Former attempts at surveillance have been struck down in the Bundesverfassungsgericht, and the right to privacy has even been affirmed for foreigners (as opposed to other countries like the US that reserve that foreign nationals have zero due process rights for invasion of privacy).

pjmlp• 5 months ago

No goverment is to be trusted if that is the main point.

SunshineTheCat• 5 months ago

Wild that it says this on their site:

Sign up with no phone number: Get a private email account without handing over more personal data than necessary, making it harder for advertisers, data brokers, and other services to track you online.

I guess it doesn't mention law enforcement so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ranger_danger3• 5 months ago

The article explains that the account was identified based on a credit card payment for a paid account, which does not invalidate the statement in question IMO. Perhaps we differ on the definition of "private" or something else, but unless all parties are using proton, email is inherently insecure and somebody can/will have a record of your communication regardless.

lucb1e7• 5 months ago

unless all parties are using proton, email is inherently insecure and somebody can/will have a record of your communication regardless.

That the person you're exchanging messages with, has your messages, is hardly a surprise. Not everyone-but-Proton sells your data though so it's not quite that black-and-white

gruez7• 5 months ago

I'm not sure what you were expecting here. If you have data and the police shows up with a warrant, you can't just tell them "nah we don't feel like it".

drnick1• 5 months ago

You can do what Signal does: store basically no data, so that you don't have any data to hand over.

renewiltord3• 5 months ago

This is disappointing. I would pay up to $10/month for an email provider who would go to jail for me.

gruez7• 5 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_hosting

roughly• 5 months ago

I would pay up to $10/month for an email provider who would go to jail for me.

You might need to pay more than that.

expedition323• 5 months ago

When a SWAT team drops in nobody's gonna take a bullet for your emails.

wat10000• 5 months ago

They could have used a VPN to connect to Proton and paid for their account with bitcoin or cash and then law enforcement would have had a very tough time. Instead, they paid with a method connected to their identity. Of course Proton handed it over when law enforcement came knocking.

If you don't want info being given to law enforcement by third parties, your best bet is to make it so that nobody else has access to it in the first place. You might get away with third parties that are in a jurisdiction unfriendly to wherever you live. Definitely don't hand over your info to a company in fricken' Switzerland and then be surprised when they comply with law enforcement requests for it.

h4kunamata• 5 months ago

People will never understand, Proton is a privacy based email server, it is not the dark web where you can do as you please without consequences.

Proton only has access to your IP and device ID, not your data. With IP and device ID, you can easily track an user like finding the ISP, etc.

Do you wanna do naughty things?? Don't use such services do to so.

And ironically,this 404 Media is the only place I found covering this information and they require you to login to read the whole thing.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm red flag big time!!!!

observationist• 5 months ago

Proton isn't opsec, it's just the best available commercial clearweb host that still has to follow all the laws and comply with warrants, but won't be arbitrarily selling your metadata or engaging in the adtech garbage.

Kagi is to google as proton is to gmail.

You get web mail, custom domains, decent security, decent spam detection, solid features, and no PII being sold. Nice, clean, simple - I like paying them money. I feel good about doing business with them, and I don't run into that often these days.

rationalist• 5 months ago

Sounds like Fastmail, except Fastmail is less sketchy and has better deliverability.

lucb1e7• 5 months ago

What device identifier are you referring to, something like the MAC addresses of your network cards? How are they retrieving that via a browser?

hypeatei• 5 months ago

Proton doesn't really protect anything email related unless the recipient is also using protonmail. The article also points out they sought payment data, not "IP and device ID" information.

lucb1e7• 5 months ago

unless the recipient is also using protonmail

Or any similar service from another vendor? Or hosts their own email. If someone using Protonmail emails me, their data is also not getting sold for example, it's just stored on my laptop

niam• 5 months ago

This seems misleading inasmuch as your correspondents aren't all on the same mail servers.

Yes, correspondence between you and Build-A-Bear, and between you and your local terrorist cell, are unencrypted individually. But Build-A-Bear presumably doesn't know about your correspondence with the cell, and the latter presumably has some interest in not sharing organizational data access with the former.

I suppose you do have to trust that Proton isn't served a directive to snoop on your correspondence in transit with other providers. But that's still a much better position than leaving all of your historical data unencrypted at rest.

rideontime• 5 months ago

404 Media has an excellent track record and is very reputable, if you're saying the "red flag" applies to them.

expedition323• 5 months ago

Journalists should work for free. Which means that they are going to be paid by governments and corporations to spout propaganda because everyone has a mortgage to pay off...

RandomNickname• 5 months ago

Meh,they got their own agenda.

If the person or politics / group,they don't support then they have no problem just straight up making stuff up.

Like the hit piece of Elons Grok where it was "doxing" pornstars names,but in reality all it did was just search web online and got the info from the first website it could find.

But they made it seem like it was some hidden info that only Grok and Elon would know...

mhitza3• 5 months ago

That's 404 media's approach. That's why I only read their headlines.

In theory you could open up your protonmail account over tor and with bitcoin (or does that not work anymore?).

Its been a good while since I tried them out. Why I don't recommend them anymore is because when I didn't extend my subscription in time (expecting an account downgrade), my mail was locked and emails hold on to as random. Allowed to login only for payment.

That was one red flag from me, the second was when they shared IP address logs of a French protestor. E̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶l̶o̶g̶s̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶c̶y̶,̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶r̶e̶m̶e̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶r̶r̶e̶c̶t̶l̶y̶.̶ ̶O̶r̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶.̶

gruez7• 5 months ago

the second was when they shared IP address logs of a French protestor. Even though at the time they had a no logs policy, if I remeber correctly. Or if I don't.

You probably aren't remembering correctly given that specifically have a "login logs" option that can be toggled on/off.

mistyvales• 5 months ago

You can still pay with cash!

tototrains• 5 months ago

last time i tried they asked for an email to link the account to. I don't think they provide anonymous accounts anymore, but you can probably create one with another anonymous email.

encrypted_bird8• 5 months ago

I let my subscription expire and my account was never locked down or emailed held for ransom. I suspect there is another piece to the story you're either neglecting to mention or don't know.

afavour• 5 months ago

I really don’t think 404 Media having a login gate is a red flag. They’re a business that needs to make money and the alternative to subscriptions is ads, which would be exponentially worse for user safety than what exists today.

netfortius• 5 months ago

Here you are: https://archive.ph/Zvw3O

robcohen• 5 months ago

Proton only has access to your IP and device ID, not your data.

I like Proton. I use Proton.

However, the problem with proton is that if you access your email via a web browser, there's nothing stopping protonmail (to my knowledge) from reading your email from within their webapp via JS. This type of attack could be targeted at the behest of authorities.

So, actually, Proton COULD read your email (IFF you use webmail).

gruez7• 5 months ago

So, actually, Proton COULD read your email (IFF you use webmail).

The authorities can also read your self-hosted email if they had a warrant to search your house. Even if you enable FDE they can do a cold boot attack.

perching_aix2• 5 months ago

Is even that needed? Nothing e2ee about the emails you receive normally, they could just read them right away if they really wanted to. And that is to say nothing about the metadata.

johanyc2• 5 months ago

You always put trust in the vendor even if they use e2ee because the end clients are made by them.

They can just send things without e2ee from any of their clients (not just web).

This type of attack could be targeted at the behest of authorities.

No? How can authorities tell them how to do their business?

Andrex• 5 months ago

Do you wanna do naughty things?? Don't use such services do to so.

Is that really what happened here?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City

hunterpayne2• 5 months ago

Look at the numbers for number of people who die from interactions with police (both armed and unarmed) and then compare that to the extra violent deaths that happen because of defund the police polices and then let us know what you find. Only then can you make the claim you are implying. Otherwise you are doing the conspiracy theory thing where you present random data and then imply the idea you are pushing.

wolvoleo7• 5 months ago

Yes it does have access to your data, at least any email coming from or going to another mail provider. Because those are not end to end encrypted. Only encrypted in transit (and even that is optional). So they need to handle the plaintext at the point of transmission.

I really don't like this about proton, they're always going on about their encryption but most emails they've seen in plain text on their SMTP servers. Because that's just how SMTP works. And so has the provider of the other party.

Once they've put them in your mailbox they can't decrypt them again but I always consider a single exposure a loss of confidentiality. The only emails this doesn't apply to are those from people using PGP (yeah all three of them) and those on proton themselves.

In my view this Achilles heel makes most of their protections irrelevant. But they still market it as if it's the email equivalent of signal, which actually can't see what you say at any point of transit. And non technical people have no idea about the difference.

Ps I'm not blaming proton for not having a technical solution for this because interoperability makes it an unsolvable problem. But I do blame them for their marketing around it.

mandeepj• 5 months ago

Proton is a privacy based email server, it is not the dark web where you can do as you please without consequences.

If you are so hard-pressed to do something, then maybe setup your own smtp server

_alternator_• 5 months ago

Man 404 Media is really crushing it lately. Thanks to the team!

CodeWriter232• 5 months ago

This should surprise exactly nobody after it was disclosed back in [checks notes] 2021 that ProtonMail gave up user data to law enforcement and also changed their TOS.

gruez7• 5 months ago

after it was disclosed back in [checks notes] 2021 that ProtonMail gave up user data to law enforcement and also changed their TOS.

You shouldn't even need that. A warrant isn't a strongly worded letter that they can just turn down. It's the law. Therefore you should assume that if the police can get a warrant, they can get your data. Even for people who don't follow the law (criminals), there's no guarantee they won't snitch on you.

brokensegue• 5 months ago

they used to claim that being Swiss based protected them from warrants like this

loteck• 5 months ago

Where are the stories about all the other mail providers who routinely cough up everything about your email account, including full content, metadata, and full payment details, on a daily basis?

Proton is one of the few services who accepts anonymous payment, and cannot themselves provide encrypted content in cleartext. They cannot save you from yourself, though.

encrypted_bird8• 5 months ago

They accept anonymous payment? I could've sworn they require an account...

wildzzz3• 5 months ago

You can literally mail an envelope of cash to them and they'll credit your account. Probably the best way to remain anonymous. At worst, they'll have the zip code from where it was mailed from and potential fingerprints. But since an envelope isn't really a financial record, I doubt they would hold onto it.

toofy• 5 months ago

i can’t speak for the journalists who wrote the story, but i assume it’s due to how prominently proton markets their email as safe/private/encrypted and then it turns out they may be sharing data with the swiss government who then gives it to the us government.

it absolutely should be news when the company who heavily promoted themselves to normies as safe, encrypted, and private is sharing customers data which is ending up in the hands of authoritarian foreign governments who are hunting for protesters.

johanyc2• 5 months ago

Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester

This is a highly deceptive title. As if Proton proactively helped FBI, which is not even close to truth. Proton is not even in direct contact with FBI. It's Swiss government that forwarded the info to FBI.

A much better title would be:

Proton Mail Payment Info Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester

FBI Unmasked Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester via Proton Mail Payment Info

The point is informing the normies that your payment info is linked to your identity and a potential risk to your anonymity.

That clickbaity title makes me want to unsubscribe from their RSS feed.

then it turns out they may be sharing data with the swiss government who then gives it to the us government.

Literally every legal business complies to law enforcement. They have to.

kittikitti• 5 months ago

Thank you for sharing. I was trialing Proton Mail but I will move away from it because of this. This is some teenage level crime and legitimate protesting that it threw away its reputation for.

coppsilgold• 5 months ago

Does Proton store the payment information tied to an account for the duration of a potential chargeback period or indefinitely?

Whether they store such info for cryptocurrency payments as well (no chargeback risk) would be telling.

laweijfmvo3• 5 months ago

Proton won’t lock me out of my email because I accidentally sang a copyrighted song in a Youtube video. That’s why I use it, not because it’s the pirate bay for email.

latexr4• 5 months ago

Proton won’t lock me out of my email because I accidentally sang a copyrighted song in a Youtube video.

Is there a specific story you’re referring to? Mind sharing a link? I have no intention of disputing it, I just haven’t heard of that particular case.

laweijfmvo3• 5 months ago

there are plenty of examples throughout history, although i haven’t heard much about it recently. tl;dr you don’t have a gmail account, you have a google account. if that account gets banned on one service, you may lose everything.

kube-system• 5 months ago

They updated YouTube rules so it no longer is the case.

But just the other week there were stories all over HN about Google banning accounts for accidental Gemini ToS violations

thegrim33• 5 months ago

Let me guess .. they weren't going after a "protestor" like the headline would try to lead you to believe.

"Authorities were investigating [them] for their connection to arson, vandalism and doxing"

And there it is.

scoofy• 5 months ago

I don't know what is in the water, but "I can do crimes, as long as it's part of a protest" seems to be what people actually think these days.

Civil disobedience means accepting punishment. Literally "letter from Birmingham jail" was sent from a jail in Birmingham for a reason.

BoredPositron• 5 months ago

Proton = Privacy Theater. Always has been.

jesse_dot_id3• 5 months ago

Unsurprising.

If you don't want to receive the punishment for thought crimes, which is being threatened outright more loudly every day, it's increasingly difficult to actually have a dissenting voice online. Don't believe me? Set up a linux VM, Mullvad VPN with a killswitch, then run Tor browser. You MAY be able to get a TutaMail account, which requires a backup e-mail that disappears after a short period of time (allegedly), and then a Proton account with the TutaMail account as your required backup there, but all of the privacy-first "anonymous" services require some form of verification. Then, if the social media network isn't blocking you from signing up via a Tor exit nodes outright, you are immediately shadow banned.

I remain very annoyed with the massive number of engineers that are making it possible for people who can't figure out how to check their e-mail to utilize advanced technology to spy on us, steal our tax money, pervert the technologies we build, and indiscriminately murder innocent people.

We are a community of greedy ladder pullers and that's so disappointing.

emeril• 5 months ago

I generally just use tor browser and proton (verified through a disposable email address only accessed via the tor browser) - seems secure enough for me?

I use it often...

jesse_dot_id3• 5 months ago

How old are the accounts?

fc417fc802• 5 months ago

verified through a disposable email address

To the extent it works that's a loophole. I can't speak to proton specifically but the majority of services don't want to permit disposable email because the entire point is to cut down on spam and abuse.

I can appreciate having the option of providing a phone number or email or whatever but I think the state of the ecosystem is telling. The option for anonymous email with PoW per outgoing email isn't provided despite largely addressing the commonly cited rationale for requiring some sort of verification. And we're still stuck bashing PGP, shilling for competing E2E message solutions while it's plain as day that the vast majority of commerce isn't going to move off of email any time soon. Meanwhile TLS can figure out how to distribute public keys via DNS as part of implementing ECH in all major browsers over a period of less than a decade.

pixl972• 5 months ago

annoyed with the massive number of engineers that are making it possible

Where you one that voted for laws that protected our privacy?

Where you one that upvoted comments in forums that said software engineers needed a standard ethics?

Where you one that downvoted every post saying we should have unions in software so we can protect ourselves as a group.

Or were you greedy like the rest of us saying, I don't want any of those things because I can make more money without it.

This is were the hunt for more money has taken us, and it only gets worse from here.

logicchains• 5 months ago

Where you one that downvoted every post saying we should have unions in software so we can protect ourselves as a group

In other professions such unions inevitably end up building a chummy relationship with the government and going along with whatever it says, software engineering wouldn't be any different. If anything it'd be worse because the government could pressure the union into removing the license of engineers who make privacy-preserving software.

eth0up2• 5 months ago

"it's increasingly difficult to actually have a dissenting voice online."

If willing, I would appreciate some examples, actual or hypothetical. I have left a few comments regarding my concerns over AI and have been surprised by the hostile reactions. Much of my research kindof revolves around a central concern matching your statement. But my perspective is in a vacuum, out of touch with what others are dealing with. Feel free to ignore this if not comfortable.

orangebread• 5 months ago

Don't apologize for your truth. A lot of people on reddit/HN fancy themselves as free-thinkers and the moment something contradicts their reality they reveal themselves to be as emotionally vulnerable as the rest of humanity.

zmgsabst2• 5 months ago

It was already going downhill a decade ago, eg, using bad think on video games.

But my personal experience is something snapped in a lot of people during COVID when people asked reasonable questions like — “is an experimental gene therapy really QALY positive in populations not at risk, such as healthy children?”

According to government actuarial tables, the answer was no: the UK government concluded that there was no point at which for those under 40 the immunizations prevented more serious outcomes than they caused. But people were (and often still are) absolutely rabid if you point out we (in administering a QALY negative treatment to a vulnerable population) decided to poison children and young adults en masse. I’ve had people look up my mother on Facebook for calmly citing UK government actuarial reports, which did the calculation on COVID vs vaccine harms.

That’s setting aside that on HN you’d get shadowbanned for even posting the clip of BLM leaders describing themselves as “trained Marxists” and BLM itself as Marxist in ideology. Apparently, no matter how politely you state facts, if HN froths irrationally in response it is an “inherent flamewar”.

But I’m not sure I qualify for what you’re asking, as I generally post under my true identity, not anonymously.

Henchman213• 5 months ago

I've said this a million times to people in this industry: we have a Real Problem with adderall, it's abuse, and the way it robs a person of their ability to feel empathy. Yes, you're a 10x engineer, yes you write amazing code, yes you can work and work and get. it. done. But you'll also be A-OK with dark patterns, just fine with spying on people who aren't you, and hell, you might even think building the first Terminator robots is an interesting project.

Hyberbolic? Sure. But we live in a society that reinforces the idea that the performance enhancement is worth it. But there is a cost, and what you've described is it.

kgwxd• 5 months ago

I've been on it, never once felt a lack of empathy, or forwent my principles. If that's happening to a person, it's likely a mask is just being lifted.

pasquinelli2• 5 months ago

i think it's silly to think we just need gooder coders with better morals. if the tech industry didn't do what it does it wouldn't enjoy the position in society it has.

Aeglaecia2• 5 months ago

if youre going against the regime of hyperpathologization please be strong and gentle. people dont want to have their pacifiers ripped out, whether that be by lifting the veil of hypercapitalistic coercion, or simply by making plain the wealth of side effects that can be entirely avoided by ignoring artificial diagnoses and seeking solutions more in line with our biology.

like no shit people are going to be more willing to do the bidding of evil when their decision making apparatus is unnaturally saturated. and no shit people are going to have adhd symptoms in a screen based society. its completely obvious. but me saying that is going to get down voted to oblivion. people don't enjoy having a comfortable narrative questioned; dissent (no matter how minor) is equivalent to full scale assault on perceptions of existence. that being said, i dont blame anyone for this, considering that the entirety of existence is currently geared towards forcing the populace into fight or flight mode, thus rendering null the capacity to exact societal change and disrupt the status quo.

people really do think their best interests are at the heart of billion dollar companies like those producing pharmaceutical goods !

otterley4• 5 months ago

Who in the Western world is being charged with, convicted of, and punished for “thought crimes”? Be specific, please.

rileymat2• 5 months ago

It is a bit different than what we are discussing, but intent plays a huge role in Western justice. The same physical action can lead to vastly different outcomes.

A high profile interesting example of this is the assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh. If you look at the details none of the actions would have been an attempt if not for the intent.

It is an interesting thought experiment as to how many actions you have to take for a crime that you don’t commit to be charged as an attempt or more broadly as conspiracy and at what point people are allowed to change their mind. We see this in terrorism cases pretty frequently.

jesse_dot_id3• 5 months ago

Well currently, it's people being denied entry or re-entry to the United States due to the content of their social media accounts. Also, people getting door-knocked by the FBI for making posts on Reddit.

Historically, there won't be trials for this when it gets worse, so there won't be anyone charged or convicted. They will eventually just be murdered by a secret police force.

burnt-resistor• 5 months ago

Dumb Lavabit with extra privacy-washed marketing.

unethical_ban• 5 months ago

As a proton user I know I am not completely anonymous. I pay them for their bundle of services because I get VPN, encrypted password storage and email that isn't scanned for ads and other purposes.

Privacy and anonymity are a gradient. If I needed real opsec from government threats I wouldn't tie a credit card to a service.

bronco21016• 5 months ago

Why is there a paywall AND anti-aging snake oil ads? Pick one. If that's the type of ad you sell it signals to me the site is absolutely not worth the subscription.

amatecha• 5 months ago

Proton Mail complied with a legal demand they had no choice but to comply with, providing the basic shred of information the user willingly and knowingly provided.

You want to be anonymous? Don't use your credit card! Don't connect from your home internet connection. (I don't know whether this person did because I can't read the story due to login-requirement). Either way, total non-story. Anyone whose potential adversary is a powerful government should already know this stuff.

Either way, Proton didn't help the FBI. The article title is deceptive and implies a degree of insidiousness or dishonesty that has not been demonstrated by Proton in this case.

GS523523• 5 months ago

Either way, Proton didn't help the FBI.
Proton Mail complied with a legal demand they had no choice but to comply with

brookst4• 5 months ago

You seem to think those two quotes make a point, but for the life of me I’m not seeing it?

Are you trying to say that any compliance is by definition help? Like if the FBI subpoenas my public key and I comply, that’s helping them?

panja• 5 months ago

If I'm not mistaken, proton didn't give anything to the FBI, they provided what was required by law to the Swiss government who then gave it to the FBI. It's a small distinction but it matters.

eviks2• 5 months ago

Proton did not provide any information to the FBI ... Swiss justice department This is an important distinction

Not really, that's a minute procedural distinction without a difference.

can only happen after all Swiss legal checks are passed.

Oh, don't worry, US also has some "checks", just as useful!

we understood that a law enforcement officer was shot and explosive devices were involved

And now you're just compounding your fail by siding with the notorious liars against your own customers.

realityking• 5 months ago

What do you think they should’ve done when faced with a legal warrant from the jurisdiction they operate in?

eviks2• 5 months ago

They should've prepared themselves and their customers better before that happens - one tiny example: there is no anon payment option listed at the main payment flow and no warning that credit card. Or maybe there is some smart way of not having permanent access to the payment identifier, only during the time of payment?

Re. at the moment not sure, that depends on their jurisdiction, but that's another thing - why don't they explain what's possible and what and why they did/didn't do?

foundart• 5 months ago

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.

KerrickStaley• 5 months ago

https://archive.is/cGvKG

jacyro• 5 months ago

Not exactly the best article. Proton complied with a lawful Swiss request. Their ToS clearly state what they can provide if requests are lawful.

The Proton user had bad opsec by using a credit card to pay for the account.

Had Proton just turned data over to an out of jurisdiction LEA, then it's more of a complaint. But they followed their policy and law here.

Proton offers a Tor address for accounts requiring anonymity rather than just privacy. The crux of this is on the account user

Markoff• 5 months ago

Wouldn't make more sense to not store information (or have it encrypted without proton having access to it), so they would have nothing to share even if they were forced to comply?

tpoacher• 5 months ago

As memers say, of all things that didn't happen, this one didn't happen the most.

Frieren• 5 months ago

As it should be. All corporations must follow the law. If the police has an order signed by a judge then it is lawful and a necessity for society to work to follow the law.

What is horrifying are big corporations giving access to all user data without recourse. That my data in Europe is send to the USA and accessed without limits by their goverment is a crime and a very dangerous situation.

- Fighting crime in an open criminal case with judge oversight is a very good thing and part of keeping the rule of law.

- Collecting data from all users without probable cause is a crime and will have nefarious consequences for all of us.

Know the difference.

Jolliness7501• 5 months ago

This is feedback from Proton Mail Team I got about this matter:

"Thank you for reaching out and sharing your concern. We understand why this story is alarming, and we want to give you a clear picture of what actually happened.

First, Proton did not provide any information to the FBI. The data was obtained by the Swiss Federal Department of Justice through a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) process. Proton operates exclusively under Swiss law and only responds to legally binding orders from Swiss authorities, after all Swiss legal checks have been passed. This is clearly stated in our TOS and Privacy Policy.

In this specific case, Swiss authorities determined that the legal bar was met because a law enforcement officer had been shot, and explosive devices were involved during an incident in 2024. Switzerland has one of the strictest privacy frameworks in the world, and legal assistance is only granted in cases involving serious criminal matters.

Importantly, the only information that could be disclosed was a payment identifier because the user chose to pay by credit card although Proton accepts gift cards, cryptocurrency and cash. No emails, no message content, and no communications metadata were handed over. This actually demonstrates how little data Proton holds by design, our end-to-end encryption means we cannot access email content even if ordered to.

We hope this provides some reassurance. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions.

Best Regards, The Proton Mail Team"

Digit-Al• 5 months ago

It says all that in the article.

psteinweber• 5 months ago

Which is paywalled, so thanks for posting it here.

john_strinlai• 5 months ago

many people read the headline, immediately start commenting, and only afterwards maybe read the article.

a little snippet of the article can help reduce the number of people who have a knee-jerk reaction to whatever the headline says

edub• 5 months ago

I think 404 Media has an ethical obligation to provide Proton Mail’s response outside the article’s paywall. The word “Helped” in the headline is more sensational than stating that Proton “was required by Swiss law to provide...”

For readers who do not want to pay to read the article, the headline leaves incomplete context and creates a misleading impression of the story. That damages Proton’s reputation, and the missing context is only available if someone pays for the article, reaches out to Proton, or searches forums for substantive information.

query_demotion• 4 months ago

Let me get this straight: The FBI was monitoring a protestor’s bank account and spotted a Proton Mail purchase. They contacted the Swiss DOJ, requesting a subpoena based on the specific Order ID, date, and credit card digits of the bank account being monitored. The Swiss DOJ agreed, approached Proton Mail, and the company complied with the official legal request under Swiss law.

The real scandal here isn't Proton Mail's compliance. It is that the FBI is seemingly monitoring the financial transactions of millions of citizens' bank accounts.

This can happen with Mullvad too. If the FBI spots a Mullvad Purchase on anyone's bank account, they can go up to Mullvad with the Order ID, date, and credit card digits, and request Mullvad to redirect VPN traffic of that specific Order ID to the FBI's own monitoring servers.

Haven880• 5 months ago

Using Proton for privacy and security is quite ignorant. They are known to support legal requests without ever challenge that request. At least Yahoo has way better record than Proton. I use Proton, but never for privacy reason. It is as good as hotmail and yahoo mail. If you truly care privacy do it in another country. So qq mail and yandex mail have zero chance being look at by any western authorities. And the same with if you distrustful of China and Russia which cant look into Google mail.

Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester

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