There are web services that won't sell your data, but there aren't web services that'll go to jail for you.
This.
I also read some stuff on Reddit about why Protonmail should shut down rather than comply.
The Lavabit strategy is commendable but I think the damage it would do generally would be tremendous if it happened.
I personally believe Proton is striking the best balance they can in this circumstance.
#Switzerland's reputation of being a privacy haven is unjustified.
I visited Switzerland last week, and *all* public wifi hotspots require SMS verification. Apparently, it's a legal requirement.
Come on, even Italy stopped doing that long time ago!
@kravietz @emacsen @cjd Did they really said so, or people wanted to think that? "No email or phone number required to create your account." - that is probably true. "No IP logs which can be tied to your username." - that may not be true, depends what was tied. https://protonmail.com/why-protonmail
"We respect your right to privacy. " - that's probably true.
That's what they say:
> By default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account
And then they shared not only the IP but also fingerprint of the browser.
If we were lawyers, we could certainly argue that "by default" creates a clever loophole that allows them to store IPs for specific clients 🤷
Fortunately, we aren't (at least not me) which saves our right to judge them from subjective and moral point of view 😄
And then there's the whole "unbreakable encryption" line of marketing — also false.
I wrote about it in 2014:
https://ipsec.pl/protonmail-security-promise.html
Kobeisi did in-depth analysis in 2018:
@kravietz There's also a problem in either 1) retaining the data (as a matter of course) such that those orders can have any useful effect or 2) architecting the system such that the orders can compel collection.
At the same time, IP-based administration of systems against various forms of abuse is common and critical.
@kravietz @cjd
I must have missed that part. Where did they lie?