ProtonMail Logged IP Address of French Activist; Should You Be Worried About Your Privacy?
https://beebom.com/protonmail-logged-ip-address-should-you-worry-privacy/Open linkView original on lemmy.dbzer0.com464
Comments148https://beebom.com/protonmail-logged-ip-address-should-you-worry-privacy/Open linkView original on lemmy.dbzer0.com
They still have to adhere to legal requests.
they should inform the victim about it
Through who's lens?
When a person is raped and seeking an abortion from Texas, do they deserve to be stripped of privacy? What about countries that see being gay a crime?
I don't particularly care about proton outing people, but they should absolutely be restricted from advertising that they're more private or secure than any other provider out there.
In the US right now, we're seeing this unfold. With the talk about classifying transgender folks as nihilistic violent extremists, who fucking knows.
When freedom of speech breaks down, and the government is logging / tracking all social media on the front end and back end AND private communication tools are under attack, nothing is really safe anymore. Most disturbingly, once they deem X or Y to be unlawful, if you've EVER talked about X or Y, you're at risk.
I could say the same about your comment.
Dude why are you being so hostile for no reason ?
what an eloquent way to get blocked!
The loss of privacy happens before the determination whether that person has done anything wrong. If the person's criminal case goes well, do you have a time machine to go back and not invade privacy?
I'm from the US and we have a system in place for search warrants. It's not a great system if I'm being honest, but I believe something of the sort will likely always be necessary. Do you have an alternative suggestion? I'm legitimately interested in different options.
At the very least have controls in place ensuring disposal of data when court cases are fully processed to the full extent of appeals possibilities. Not allowing broad requests such as « everyone that connected to a given antenna for a month » or even « all connections toward NET or ASN whatever ». Additionally have the data fully isolated, removing all possibilities to cross use data initially granted for a purpose. I could go on for a while… It’s all a balance though, sometimes reuse leads to solving unrelated cases but it’s bound to the imperfections of local authorities everywhere one’s data can be requested.
Agreed on all counts, and that's mostly how warrants should work, but that does not address the persons point. They seem to suggest full privacy should exist until found guilty of a crime.
That’s definitively not how they work in Europe and even though I’m not expert in other regions I assume that it’s absolutely not the case in USA either. Technologically there’s no solutions fully preserving everyone’s privacy hence the importance of the local culture. But if the current practices improve with the likes of the controls I mentioned I would say that it would be good enough.
I have added the text and a generic online summary below, but generally the issue is that judges are becoming more and more lenient and are unwilling to put their foot down when there are requests that are actual overreach. This is for a variety of reasons, and the law might need to be more clear/strict, but according to the letter and interpretation of the law they need to be specific about what they are looking for and it should minimize intrusion in general. Judges have just stopped caring in many cases, and of course the people carrying them out are trigger happy jackboots.
Edit to add: we have a pretty open legal and recordkeeping system here in the US, so the removal from public record is pretty against that. I don't know enough about the particulars to state whether I think that would be a wholly good or bad thing. I think a transparent judicial process is important, and things submitted to the court generally have a high degree of specificity and do involve redactions when relevant. I don't know the benefits necessarily, but if proposed I would not necessarily be against sealing cases where the party was not found guilty.
From Cornell law school: Amdt4.5.4 Particularity Requirement Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
“The requirement that warrants shall particularly describe the things to be seized makes general searches under them impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another. As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant.” 1 This requirement thus acts to limit the scope of the search, as the executing officers should be limited to looking in places where the described object could be expected to be found.2 The purpose of the particularity requirement extends beyond prevention of general searches; it also assures the person whose property is being searched of the lawful authority of the executing officer and of the limits of his power to search. It follows, therefore, that the warrant itself must describe with particularity the items to be seized, or that such itemization must appear in documents incorporated by reference in the warrant and actually shown to the person whose property is to be searched.3
Footnotes 1 Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 196 (1927). See Stanford v. Texas, 379 U.S. 476 (1965). Of course, police who are lawfully on the premises pursuant to a warrant may seize evidence of crime in “plain view” even if that evidence is not described in the warrant. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 464–71 (1971). back 2 In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 17–19, (1968), the Court wrote: “This Court has held in the past that a search which is reasonable at its inception may violate the Fourth Amendment by virtue of its intolerable intensity and scope. Kremen v. United States, 353 U.S. 346 (1957); Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 344, 356–58 (1931); see United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 586–87 (1948). The scope of the search must be ‘strictly tied to and justified by’ the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible. Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 310 (1967) (Fortas, J., concurring); see, e.g., Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 367–368 (1964); Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 30–31 (1925).” See also Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 470–82 (1976), and id. at 484, 492–93 (Brennan, J., dissenting). In Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 569 (1969), Justices Potter Stewart, William Brennan, and Byron White would have based the decision on the principle that a valid warrant for gambling paraphernalia did not authorize police upon discovering motion picture films in the course of the search to project the films to learn their contents. back 3 Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551 (2004) (a search based on a warrant that did not describe the items to be seized was “plainly invalid” ; particularity contained in supporting documents not cross-referenced by the warrant and not accompanying the warrant is insufficient); United States v. Grubbs, 547 U.S. 90, 97, 99 (2006) (because the language of the Fourth Amendment “specifies only two matters that must be ‘particularly describ[ed]’ in the warrant: ‘the place to be searched’ and ‘the persons or things to be seized[,]’ . . . the Fourth Amendment does not require that the triggering condition for an anticipatory warrant be set forth in the warrant itself.” back
Here's so generic information about the above: Requirements for a Valid Search Warrant
The police who submit an affidavit supporting a warrant must attach a sworn, detailed statement. The officer must then appear before a neutral judge or magistrate. The judge will check to see if the officer has probable cause to execute the search.
In Carroll v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court held that probable cause exists when a police officer has facts and circumstances that provide a reasonably trustworthy basis to believe a suspect has committed or is about to commit a crime.
If the police request a search warrant to search a location, the police must provide probable cause that evidence of a crime exists at that location. The officer must also state, with specificity, the items they are looking for.
Reasonableness Requirement
Even if the police have a warrant, their search must still be reasonable. Although the facts of the case dealt with a warrantless seizure, the court in Brinegar v. United States reiterated that the presence of a warrant does not give the police the power to conduct an unreasonable search.
The police officer’s search must be reasonable, or the prosecutor won’t be able to use the evidence they find in court. For example, if the police are looking for a large suitcase that contains drugs, it wouldn’t be reasonable for them to look in your bedroom drawers. A large suitcase or duffel bag could not fit in a nightstand drawer.
It's an atrocious system, innocent people get killed every year over it.
I don't think the concept is inherently flawed, but the execution is obviously terribly flawed. If several people credibly report seeing someone burry a body in their yard, the description of which corresponds to a missing person, I understand how getting a warrant to at least visually inspect their property would be necessary to fully investigate this claim. I don't think this requires the kind of force we often see, but I don't see people offering alternatives to warrants in general. I understand that privacy is a fundamental right, but presumably that's where a judge would come in to decide if there was probable cause to partially suspend that right.
I am open and interested in hearing alternatives, but I do not see them posed. I think what underlies the system would function fine with a less militarized group enforcing it.
We've seen this several times now. Proton is subject to Swiss law, just like every company in their respective countries. You choose Proton because Switzerland has the most privacy protections of any country on the planet (for now).
If you want private communications, don't use email. In fact, if we could all stop using email entirely, that'd be wonderful. There are hundreds of truly-private alternatives, many with no company involved at all.
This is absolute nonsense. I would prefer most of Europe over Switzerland. The swiss government was always bad with privacy. See Fichenaffäre for example. Not to mention the new büpf and similar laws. I'm swiss. I would never store sensitive data in Switzerland on a public server. Well. Except taxdata, I guess. Can't really get around that.
Such as...? I bet some ISPs or hardware maker companies are involved at some point.
Cwtch. XMPP. Matrix. SimpleX. Quiet. Delta Chat. Arcane Chat. Revolt. Briar. Meshtastic. etc. etc. etc.
Aren’t most of those requiring dedicated setup? How does that work without a pre-existing communication channel such as email to prep for them? You walk to every party you need to integrate?
Sorry, I don't understand the words you're using. Some of them are peer to peer. Some of them use servers which can be hosted by individuals. Some of them work locally over Bluetooth or WiFi.
Damn. They didn’t seem so wild especially compared to the flow of yours. All mediums / techs you listed are complex technologies that take efforts to setup. Compared to the ubiquitousness of email. How do you propose to make that as available to the baseline human being?
Email is much more difficult to configure than most of these services. Some of them require no configuration at all. You just open the app, type in the recipient's address, and Bob's your uncle.
For others, it's already available through community projects like AdminForge and Disroot.
Users don’t need to configure email that’s kind of the point… and the receiving side of most of your techs still had to eventually setup the server side right? Adminforge is Linux tutorials, hardly something for the basic user. And disroot has not the best reputation if I can trust the few top links in my search results due to its gtc where they mentioned that they would collaborate in criminal investigations as well.
You should consider reviewing your baseline to integrate actual persons. Some need help to use WhatsApp so go figure how they would fare with most of those.
Most of those still rely on some company to host a server, except Briar, and in practice most Briar users are still relying on companies to access Tor to connect.
They are more robust, not perfect.
None of them require a company to host a server. That was my entire point.
Explain how you'd use Delta Chat without a server, please? I may have misunderstood its need for a mailserver when I tried it.
I didn't say without a server, I said without a company-hosted server.
How do you even get a non-company-hosted server now? Public bodies don't host services for outsiders much any more and aren't really safe places for privacy in this type of case anyway.
Apart from it's an old story, discussed already back and forth, Proton's claims regarding privacy are really weak. Especially when it comes to presenting Switzerlamd as a privacy safehaven. Switzerland is a tax evasion savehaven, not a privacy safehaven, Proton. How Proton puts it: we provide world class privacy (but have to break our claims and comply with Swiss law immediately once there is a legitimate or not request from law enforcement, oepsie sorreyy!)
The lesson here is despite what a service says, don't trust it and take the appropriate measures to cover your tracks.
You can create an access the inbox through Tor at
protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7ozyd.onionThe important thing is to always access it through Tor.
Also pay attention to what the service says and what it doesn’t. We get into this spot regularly because of things people assumed about Protonmail without being told.
Yeah it’s getting really annoying at this point.
That's just such an easy link to memorise, isn't it? Just like the New Emergency Number
Onion TLDs are inherently not human readable for many well documented reasons of varying levels of legitimacy.
The idea is that you write it down ahead of time (bookmarks and password managers are a thing) and paste it into your TOR browser or bake it into your privacy oriented live USB.
You memorize your links & type them out like a boomer?
Why is this a surprise? IP Logging is pretty normal for any service.
Source: Their privacy policy.
That’s some funny language around “May be obtained permanently” though. Is this minority report? Do they know ahead of time that someone is going to violate their TOS?
That said, I’m not totally against proton mail. It’s a lot better than other free alternatives. Of which there are few left. I’m sure Gmail tracks the IP of your rectum.
This seems necessary if they're to maintain an IP ban list. You shouldn't just be able to unban yourself by submitting an information deletion request.
This is stupid though. IP addresses in many homes rotate, so IP ban lists are utterly ineffective and could very well ban the wrong people.
Welcome to selfhost email, many large ip block banned, fuck you, use large email service.
I would rather they have funny language in their privacy policy opposed to mandatory logging, they have to cover themselves legally as well so they got to utilize legal-ise so they aren’t sued into the dirt.
I bet Google predicted you would say that!
There seems to be no suggestion yet that any crime was committed on/using ProtonMail itself. Just that it was a tool to track someone accused of offline crimes. So this comment feels like misdirection because there are probably options between being liable and effectively telling the cops where users are.
They have to abide by court orders.
Do Swiss courts not allow any defence to be presented?
I don't know Swiss law well enough to answer that. But getting mad that a company followed the laws they're bound to by their jurisdiction is dumb.
Proton needs to get its head out of its ass and fire Andy already, grow a pair and get off Reddit and back onto Mastodon and face the backlash like actual adults.
Proton are very open about what they do and don't provide.
They're not going to protect you and they will turn on you the second they get a letter in the mail or a text from the cops.
But what they DO provide is the ability to register an email address (with a domain that isn't blocked by most services) without providing any other information. And, from there, you can encrypt it yourself if it is a particularly sensitive message.
As for IP logging? if only there were tools like VPNs and Tor to negate that.
IMO if proton can change their stance and their policies (like their website no longer says emails are anonymous), then I don't think they are a good private service provider. The only thing going for proton now is that their emails are encrypted and can't be read by them.
Who knows if a request came from a specific channel of the government that deals with crime, may be they will decrypt the content for them?
No.
The "only thing going for" them is the ability to sign up with zero personal information. You can encrypt your emails with ANY service because it is you exchanging keys ahead of time and doing it locally before you even look up Job on usenet.
Do not trust a third party to encrypt your sensitive communications for you. Do not trust a third party to protect you. Instead, look at what the the third party actually offers you and figure out how you can take advantage of that.
This is the kind of person that isn't worried about incognito market black mailing them.
In most cases, they fight tooth and nail and use their own lawyers if necessary
Did they in this case?
So Protonmail was required to log the IP of the user after being ordered to via the proper international Swiss legal channeks, per Swiss/Europol law. And at some point recently, Protonmail thus removed the copy from their frontpage that advertised never tracking IPs.
What the article doesn't really explain, is what exactly changed about Swiss or euro law? And when? What rules or acts have sprung up that made this possible? Or, was this always something that was possible that has only just now made precedent?
It's important to hold accountable the named individuals who are harming individual security, safety, and trust in this manner so that they can be prevented from continuing to do so.
Then what makes a privacy oriented service different from others when they can open a backdoor for government? The thing is government wants control and they will change laws for exactly that. What Proton should have done was to eliminate the chance of this happening in the first place. Why are they having a logging mechanism? Why don't they use RAM only servers or something like that? Privacy services should have the infrastructure and legal power to say "No", or they are lying.
You need to read the article. It explicitly and IMO satisfactorily answers your excellent questions.
The IP isn't even that important. They straight gave up that person's phone number and identified them.
Oh ffs. We have known for years that Proton is just a for profit company like any other. They dont give a fuck about you or your privacy. They never have and they never will.
They complied with laws. Where is the issue?
That’s the issue.
Whatever they gather. It says as much in the article; they started recording IPs once a request by the Swiss government came through.
That's based on the currently available laws. So if a law gets drafted that says "if we suspect someone to be complicit in criminal activity we want you to gather more data" we should just be fine with that because the authorities say so? Because the authorities are always infallible and incorruptible, right?
The details of this individual case isn't the problem, it's the precedent it sets that is. When Mullvad got raided for their logs there was nothing recovered because they don't store anything. Proton stores things based on if the authorities ask them to, and when they find out that it wasn't a terrorist or child-trafficker they go "woops we had no idea the account belonged to a climate activist."
The authorities aren't infallible. Some years back here in Sweden we had police raid, physically abuse, and kidnap a guy they suspected was a pedophile because he'd sent images of him and his 30 year old boyfriend having sex via Yahoo Mail. There's no reality where this man should've been fucking beaten up and traumatised the way he was, but it happened, and there was no recourse for him. Nowhere down the chain of responsibility did anyone get reprimanded or investigated for misconduct.
Complying with the law is such a bullshit fucking excuse.
ProtonMail does not log things by default, but they can still be court ordered to do so by swiss authorities - if you want to run any business at all, you have to submit to a jurisdiction, you can only choose which one to run under. And even if your chosen authority is alright by itself, it can still be misled by other jurisdictions like the French did, using the terror-cudgel against climate activists.
I can also recall that in this case Proton said that had their user actually bothered to use any VPN, even Proton's, there wouldn't have been anything to give to authorities except for an exit node IP.
"She shouldn't have dressed that way."
Proton could do better, and it's ridiculous that there are people out here okay with them not doing better.
You'll agree that Proton doing better would require them to move to a different country, right?
Also Mullvad doesn't offer email accounts, does it? Seems that they couldn't have a 'no user data' policy if they did since the emails would be exactly that.
Mullvad is not a mail provider...?
They both have no-log policies. One is "we never log" and the other is "we log sometimes" do you see the difference?
The difference is that they're different products with different technical requirements.
Right, because corporations are widely known for going to prison when they break the law. Where exactly did they imprison Facebook for interfering in elections? Running illegal experiments on people? Pirating books and pornography? Surveilling children and selling their data?
Look at Mullvad. They've denied access to their data multiple times, they got raided, and nothing of use was recoverable. That's what respect for privacy looks like. Proton could set their infrastructure up in this fashion, but instead they've chosen to just hand out user data freely.
So Proton should refuse to comply with the law and have to close their entire business?
I don't know about 'should' but wasn't that the impression their marketing tried to give? Or at least that they would fight to defend user privacy for noble activists? But when challenged, its owners seem to have folded quicker than a strapontin.
No. Nothing in their marketing says they'll refuse to comply with lawful orders.
They do successfully challenge many of them. This is all documented in their transparency report.
Maybe not now, but it used to say 'your privacy comes first' which certainly gave the impression privacy would be more important than blindly believing and obeying courts.
Thanks for the link to their report.
Privacy is not binary. It lives on a Spectrum. On one end you have Proton and Tuta. And on the other, Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.
No. The impression their marketing gave was that they followed Swiss law.
Legal entity that doesn't comply with the law is simply not possible. If you think otherwise, you're being really naive
And yet, legal entities are often found guilty of not complying with the law. I think people were expecting Proton to at least try to fight a morally-questionable court order.
They said things that led the unwary to trust they wouldn't. Remember, this isn't some terrorist mass-murderer they handed over, but apparently an anti-gentrification youth activist linked to Greta Thunberg's campaign groups.
Edit to add: in particular, Proton used to claim 'your privacy comes first' but this case suggests in reality, the Swiss government's help for French police comes first.
In fact, they frequently say that they'll comply with orders from the Swiss government.
I meant Proton is pretty open about complying with the Swiss government
Please tell me a mail client that doesn't comply with national laws.
I never said anything about complying with laws, people just interpreted it that way. Of course everyone will comply with local laws or secret government orders that come with threats of imprisonment. I dont know if Proton was required to log this data in the first place, but if they were then this specific situations is not their fault.
The issue with Proton isnt that they follow laws, but that they portray themselves like they are better or more private than others when they are just not. Bigger = worse in the tech world. Whenever too many people are using services of a single company, it becomes an attractive surveillance target.
What im also annoyed about is people being surprised by this and these headlines that make it look like its some sort of betrayal. You should always be worried about your privacy when you put data on a computer that isnt in your physical possession. Proton isnt trustworthy because nobody is trustworthy except yourself.
it's always disappointing when people all about FOSS and shit suggest Proton to people looking to switch from google. no, don't do that. use Tuta or self host or ANYTHING other than Proton. it's such a shit company that does not deserve the praise they receive.
So...why is Tuta better again?
You're replying to a comment chain that said "use Tuta".
They are saying that they are technically right.
You recognize that it is absurd to complain about recommendations and then recommend something you know nothing about and refuse to stand behind, right?
Tuta are also a for-profit company, aren't they? Just one that currently has better published positions than most. Use them, but make sure you keep a path to the exit door in view.
proton is arm in arm with the us government and republicans, so it should be expected that they'll track and sell you out.
Nothing unexpected from a company that openly espouses fascism.
Could you elaborate on this comment?
Surely recent CEOs actions
A few months ago the CEO tweeted that he supported Trump and his policies. The most ironic part was that he’s an immigrant himself but lives in Switzerland.
Not sure if anything else happened since.
Unless I'm missing some recent news that sounds like a really misleading interpretation of what happened. I thought he tweeted that he thought republicans were better than dems on big tech legislation.
That was an insanely stupid statement but its far from supporting trump and all his policy.
https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e
Well, immediately since, the board supported the CEO's support for Trump; but I don't recall anything of note since then.
Just switch over to a privacy focused mail service like... uh... like... well shit.
I dont really blame Proton for this. Accessing anything on the internet on a clear connection and not through a VPN or TOR makes it your own damn fault when you get identified.
Victim blaming at its finest!
I mean, I understand where you're coming from, they absolutely shouldn't log IPs. BUT, if you're committing crimes or even doing legal things the government doesn't like, it would behoove you to put in the absolute bare minimum of OPSEC at least.
Like, some people know they have STDs and don't warn people and spread them, right? And while the spreader is obviously the problem there, some commonly accepted advice to the victim is "you should have worn a condom anyway." And they should have worn a condom to protect themselves (and also the spreader should be held liable.)
Like the previous example, anyone using any online service (for secrety things) should know to put a VPN condom on before they put their data inside that sexy, slutty server rack. And like how contraceptives were that knowledge needs to be spread.
What if Proton is your VPN?
LOL wearing condoms is copium now? Have fun with your STDs!
Oh hey I’m not shocked at all by this.
Journalists, activists and even lawyers on the side of activists should always use something like Tails. No matter what companies like Proton promise or what the law in the country they operate in says.
https://tails.net/
Those who used it imagined Swiss law to be less intrusive? I suppose it sounds like a good idea to anyone, which is mostly everyone, who doesn't know Swiss law.
Yeah, they rolled over to the authority, as expected. But, they sold themselves as "private", not "private up to the extent of Swiss law, and our laws here are very intrusive, so really the private part isn't going to get anyone very far if they use this service for anything slightly questionable, let alone outright illegal. You might as well be using GMail for how 'private' this thing is."
Nice, this proton apologist knows what everyone would do in their position.
Originally the CEO said they would pack up and leave Switzerland if the government continued its course.
So apparently there is more than just one option.
Hey, I get it. When you put all your eggs in one basket you are committed. Personally I don't commit to any corporation, especially ones that try to sell "privacy".
Companies balk at legal orders all the time.
Listen, you are just wrong at this point and you keep digging yourself deeper looking more and more ridiculous.
Do you own stock in Proton or something or are you just a subscriber? Because your relentless fanboyism gets old quick.
The popular myth is that Swiss privacy law is so strong that banks can hide gold and profits for major criminals. It wasn't to Proton's benefit to correct that.
It is called deception. All email providers in Switzerland have to follow Swiss Privacy laws.
This is no different than companies advertising licensed and bonded when every company legally has been licensed and bonded. Note that this practice of advertising what is required by law is actually illegal in a lot of places.
They sold a convenient lie and got rich doing so. Now we get to sit here on Lemmy and watch them try to justify another corporation shiting on them while they give them more money. The Proton defenders are a special kind of stupid.
No, they sold themselves as “private up to the extent of Swiss law”.
Please show any Wayback Machine link for that quote on Proton's site. I can find 'your privacy comes first'. I didn't find 'up to the extent of Swiss law' yet.
Here you go: https://proton.me/mail
Just scroll down. Each selling point is marked with title case text, followed by their reasoning.
Under the first one that mentions privacy ( Highest standards of privacy) it says:
The entirety of their reasoning behind their claim of “Highest standards of privacy”, right on their main landing page is based on the limitations of Swiss Law and literally nothing else. It even contains a link to a blog post where they go into detail on how Swiss Law affects what they can and can’t do lol.
Can you find me a way back machine link to their website where they told you that they aren’t subject to or otherwise do not comply with Swiss law?
I don't find your earlier quote on that page anywhere.
Why would I do that? My claim is not that they ever said that explicitly, but that their marketing claimed 'your privacy came first' without any similar-size mention how it would be limited by Swiss law. It was not in their interest to explain that the Swiss courts can order them to track and shop French climate activists.
Here’s a screenshot
Their marketing around privacy as it exists right now is extremely up front and detailed about the fact that it’s based on Swiss law. If you’re going to claim that at some point in time it didn’t, you’re going to have to show some kind of proof of that. I don’t recall any time in the last few years that they weren’t touting Swiss law as the very basis for their privacy claims.
Internet becoming more and more unusable
Email has been a decentralized federated system from the start, though I'm not aware of any community I'd trust to be a more privacy-respecting host than the available commercial offerings.
All these people relying on a private corporation for privacy have a serious screw loose.
Proton fully cooperates with all government requests. They are just another tech company selling "privacy" to make a buck. The only people who care are those foolish enough to give them their money.
WHAAAAATTT???
The same company that supports Trump and closed the account of two journalists???
Who would've EVER EVER EVER expected that???
I AM IN SHOCK!!!
Stop spreading misinformation.
You can look it up for yourself but the tldr is that the company donates to leftist organizations that promote freedom, privacy, and open source.
They temporarily suspended 2 journalist accounts in order to verify if they were nation state hackers which was flagged by a CERT, which they reinstated.
Time will tell...