Posted on 09/09/2021 7:22:45 PM PDT by dynachrome
A French climate activist has been arrested after the private email service ProtonMail cooperated with authorities after a court ruling, logging details of a user before providing it to the police to identify a French citizen. On Monday, Andy Yen, the founder and CEO of Proton, the company behind the Swiss email provider ProtonMail, published a statement saying that he deplored the way legal tools had been used to bring about the arrest of a French climate change activist, but claimed his service was still secure.
“In this case, Proton received a legally binding order from Swiss authorities which we are obligated to comply with. There was no possibility to appeal this particular request,” Yen wrote.
The data was requested as part of a wider investigation into the occupation of a number of Paris flats and commercial properties by climate activists. While attempting to remain anonymous, one of the activists had used the address “jmm18@protonmail.com” in online postings.
French police sought to find the person behind the account and registered a request with a court in Switzerland – the home of ProtonMail – with the help of Europol. Being a Swiss entity, the firm abides by that country’s laws, meaning foreign requests, such as the one put forward by the French and Europol, would only be acted upon if approved by a Swiss court.
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
These guys are amateurs. Those who really don’t want to be traced can’t be found.
I think ProtonMail listed in their TOS that they would comply with any proper legal requests from the Swiss government. Many people still think of the Swiss and their privacy/secrecy of banking practices as it was 50 years rather than the reality of today.
It is hilarious that these services still try to push the “privacy” claim—no matter how many times they are breached, legally or illegally.
They have _no_ shame.
Climate change activist? What was he being investigated for - was he a [dun-dun-DUN] climate change denier?
More likely he was an environmental terrorist.
“It’s still secure. We will just give your info to the government. If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.”
“It’s still secure. We will just give your info to the government. If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.”
Not trying to be dense, but what is an environmental terrorist?
Guess what email device I am dropping...
Any ideas for another? The field is thin.
Device=service😒
He signed up using his real name and probably his own credit card?
He probably didn’t use Tor to sign up, either.
Same goes for crypto currencies. If the government wants your wallet password they have ways of getting it.
I guess the difference is that Proton Mail didn’t want to hand over the data on these Leftists, whereas the US Tech companies gladly hand over the same data when it can bring conservatives down.
I had to read this several times.
One of the great things about Protonmail is unlike Whatsapp, they can’t read your messages.
What they did was under court order, gave police the IP address of the offender.
The police then tracked them down using the persons ISP.
They did NOT give them email transcripts as they have zero access to them.
Yep... Even the FR would be forced to do the same in this case. In fact every domain in the country would also have to do the same in this legal situation. It is federal law.
A good VPN is pretty much a necessity for any online activity these days.
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