ProtonMail: User data for the USA thanks to legal assistance and good cooperation with authorities (in German) https://steigerlegal.ch/2021/08/02/protonmail-daten-usa/
@yogthos The article clouds the difference between mass surveillance & targeted surveillance. The benefit to Swiss law is that it protects people from unwarranted mass surveillance. But Swiss law does not protect criminals from warranted investigation that targets them. What developed country differs in that regard?
@yogthos I don't mean to imply #Protonmail is safe from mass surveillance. There is no reason to suspect gov-sanctioned mass surveillance AFAIK, but Protonmail users are still vulnerable to corporate mass surveillance at the hand of hCAPTCHA, #Google, & #Apple, since the protonmail app is exclusively distributed via #Playstore and Apple store.
@yogthos The US has a history of being fast and loose with their warrants as they often target whistle blowers, & that rightly scares people. But I don't believe the Swiss give a blank check to the US. Would the Swiss gov cooperate with US in an investigation against Snowden or Danial Hale? I hope not.
@resist1984 yeah completely agree with your analysis. The concerning part for me is that people often don't realize that privacy focused platforms like Proton do have access to your data and can end up sharing it with the government.
It's fine to use them and they do provide a good amount of privacy for most people, but it's important to know their limitations as well.
@yogthos Indeed. Transparency is lacking. Laypeople probably don't know that the metadata is plainly visible to PM admins & all mail servers transacting w/Protonmail. Msg payloads are protected by crypto unless malicious js is pushed to someone who is targeted. #Hydroxide fetched over Tor can counter that (right up until #Protonmail pushes a #CAPTCHA which forces users into a browser).
@yogthos What would be interesting is to spotlight the nature of the investigations. Targeting someone making death threats to Anthony Fauci is the system working as expected. But if there is an example of the Swiss abusing that power by, for example, probing an activist/dissident/journalist, then that would be interesting to spotlight. Many govs can't resist the urge to abuse subpoena power