EU ProtonMail removed “we do not keep any IP logs” from its privacy policy - Little French leftist truant twat btfo by the Swiss reporting his location to the frog police and also fuck, clearnet privacy is a meme

Article (Archive)

This weekend, news broke that security/privacy-focused anonymous email service ProtonMail turned over a French climate activist's IP address and browser fingerprint to Swiss authorities. This move seemingly ran counter to the well-known service's policies, which as recently as last week stated that "by default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account."

After providing the activist's metadata to Swiss authorities, ProtonMail removed the section that had promised no IP logs, replacing it with one saying, "ProtonMail is email that respects privacy and puts people (not advertisers) first."

As usual, the devil is in the details—ProtonMail's original policy simply said that the service does not keep IP logs "by default." However, as a Swiss company itself, ProtonMail was obliged to comply with a Swiss court's injunction demanding that it begin logging IP address and browser fingerprint information for a particular ProtonMail account.

That account was operated by the Parisian chapter of Youth for Climate, which Wikipedia describes as a Greta Thunberg-inspired movement focused on school students who skip Friday classes in order to attend protests.

According to multiple statements ProtonMail issued on Monday, the company could not appeal the Swiss demand for IP logging on that account. The service could not appeal because a Swiss law had actually been broken and because "legal tools for serious crimes" were used. ProtonMail does not believe the tools were appropriate for the case at hand, but the company was legally responsible to comply with their use nonetheless.

Break out your Tor browser
In addition to removing the misleading (if technically correct) reference to its "default" logging policy, ProtonMail pledged to emphasize the use of the Tor network to activists. The new "your data, your rules" section on ProtonMail's front page directly links to a landing page aggregating information about using Tor to access ProtonMail.

Using Tor to access ProtonMail may accomplish what ProtonMail itself legally cannot: the obfuscation of its users' IP addresses. Since the Tor network itself hides users' network origin prior to packets ever reaching ProtonMail, even a valid subpoena can't get that information out of ProtonMail—because the company never receives the data in the first place.

It's worth noting that the anonymity offered by Tor relies on technical means, not policies—a situation that could serve as a textbook example of a double-edged sword. If a government agency or other threat can compromise Tor nodes your traffic passes through in a way that offers it a way to track origins, there is no policy preventing said government from doing so—or from using that data for law enforcement purposes.

ProtonMail also operates a VPN service called ProtonVPN and points out that Swiss law prohibits the country's courts from compelling a VPN service to log IP addresses. In theory, if Youth for Climate had used ProtonVPN to access ProtonMail, the Swiss court could not have forced the service to expose its "real" IP address. However, the company seems to be leaning more heavily toward recommending Tor for this particular purpose.

There’s only so much an email service can encrypt
ProtonMail is also careful to point out that although its user's IP address and browser fingerprint were collected by Swiss authorities acting on behalf of Interpol, the company's guarantees of email content privacy were not breached.

The service uses end-to-end encryption and deliberately does not possess the key necessary to decrypt a user's email body or attachments. Unlike gathering the source IP address and browser fingerprint, collecting that data is not possible simply by changing a configuration on the company's own servers as demanded by a court order.

Although ProtonMail can and does encrypt the email body itself with keys unavailable to the servers processing them, the SMTP protocol requires the email sender, email recipient, and message timestamps to be server-accessible. Accessing the service via Tor or a VPN may help obscure IP addresses and browser fingerprints, but the service can still be legally compelled to provide any of those fields to Swiss law enforcement.

In addition, email subject lines could also be encrypted without breaking the SMTP protocol, but in practice, ProtonMail's service does not, which means the relevant courts may compel the service to provide that data as well.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

Great, so we have to use Tor or Proton's VPN to check our emails. What a pain.

 

[Secret Messages]

uh.... tutanora?

 

[Celebrate Nite]

uh.... tutanora?

If you meant "Tutanota" then it's actually worse believe it or not.

It's a shame that all these "secure/privacy focused" email providers are turning into shit more and more with each passing year.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

If it's not there yet, this would be a relevant addition to the Technology thread.

 

[DumbDude42]

Great, so we have to use Tor or Proton's VPN to check our emails. What a pain.

their vpn will fall to the same courts that already busted their email
tor is the only option

 

[Pixy]

If a government agency or other threat can compromise Tor nodes your traffic passes through in a way that offers it a way to track origins, there is no policy preventing said government from doing so—or from using that data for law enforcement purposes.

You don't say...

their vpn will fall to the same courts that already busted their email
tor is the only option

Just use inprivate/incognito/private mode on your browser, easy.

 

[Bongocat]

YOU HAVE NO TRUE PRIVACY ON THE CLEARNET. STOP FALLING FOR THIS

The only thing you can do is provide more friction to make it a pain in the ass to get at you. You don't have to use Tor for everything, but don't think a VPN is going to keep you safe from pissing off the government. That's just not how it works. These services are a tool, not a silver bullet.

 

[tehpope]

Welp they're no better than any other email service now. Even worse since they don't allow you to connect using email clients. Any good suggestions for another service? inb4 make your own. I've tried. Can't figure it out.

 

[Bongocat]

Welp they're no better than any other email service now. Even worse since they don't allow you to connect using email clients. Any good suggestions for another service? inb4 make your own. I've tried. Can't figure it out.

Making your own won't help. Anyone who says it will is woefully uninformed.

It's still probably better than most services, like say, google who you know for a fact is mining everything you do and every blue haired tranny in the company can read whatever you write. If you use services like this and don't piss off a government, they're probably not going to go through the trouble of serving up a warrant.

But at the end of the day, Proton's CEO is not going to jail for you.

 

[Spiteful Crow]

Wait

The authorities are trying to break up a Greta Thunberg inspired environmental group?

I don't understand. Greta and her environmental cult operate under the watchful eye of King Soros. How could the peasants be doing this?

 

[Catch The Rainbow]

Protonmail's response: https://protonmail.com/blog/climate-activist-arrest/

We would like to provide important clarifications regarding the case of the climate activist who was recently arrested by French police on criminal charges. We are also deeply concerned about this case and deplore that the legal tools for serious crimes are being used in this way. In the interest of transparency, we would like to provide additional context.

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.

As detailed in our transparency report, our published threat model, and also our privacy policy, under Swiss law, Proton can be forced to collect information on accounts belonging to users under Swiss criminal investigation. This is obviously not done by default, but only if Proton gets a legal order for a specific account.

We would like to provide the following clarifications:

1. Under no circumstances can our encryption be bypassed, meaning emails, attachments, calendars, files, etc. cannot be compromised by legal orders.
2. ProtonMail does not give data to foreign governments; that’s illegal under Article 271 of the Swiss Criminal code. We only comply with legally binding orders from Swiss authorities.
3. Swiss authorities will only approve requests which meet Swiss legal standards (the only law that matters is Swiss law)
4. Transparency with our user community is extremely important to us. Since 2015, we have published a transparency report publicizing how we handle Swiss law enforcement requests: https://protonmail.com/blog/transparency-report/
5. Under Swiss law, it is obligatory for a user to be notified if a third party makes a request for their private data and such data is to be used in a criminal proceeding. More information can be found here.
6. Under current Swiss law, email and VPN are treated differently, and ProtonVPN cannot be compelled to log user data.
7. Due to Proton’s strict privacy, we do not know the identity of our users, and at no point were we aware that the targeted users were climate activists. We only know that the order for data from the Swiss government came through channels typically reserved for serious crimes.
8. There was no legal possibility to resist or fight this particular request.

What we are changing​

We will be making updates to our website to better clarify ProtonMail’s obligations in cases of criminal prosecution and we apologize if this was not clear. As a Swiss company, we must follow Swiss laws. We will also clarify that the use of our onion site (details below) is highly recommended for users with heightened privacy needs. Finally, we will also be updating our privacy policy to make clearer our legal obligations under Swiss law.

What does this mean for activists using ProtonMail?​

We understand your concerns and we stand with you – we are activists, too. There are a couple things we want to share.

Proton does fight for users​

Unlike other providers, we do fight on behalf of our users. Few people know this (it’s in our transparency report), but we actually fought over 700 cases in 2020 alone. Whenever possible, we will fight requests, but it is not always possible.

Use Tor for anonymous access​

There is a difference between security/privacy, and anonymity. As we wrote in our public threat model (published back in 2014), “The Internet is generally not anonymous, and if you are breaking Swiss law, a law-abiding company such as ProtonMail can be legally compelled to log your IP address.” This cannot be changed due to how the internet works. However, we understand this is concerning for individuals with certain threat models, which is why since 2017, we also provide an onion site for anonymous access (we are one of the only email providers that supports this).

There are worse laws than Swiss law​

No matter what service you use, unless it is based 15 miles offshore in international waters, the company will have to comply with the law. The Swiss legal system, while not perfect, does provide a number of checks and balances, and it’s worth noting that even in this case, approval from 3 authorities in 2 countries was required, and that’s a fairly high bar which prevents most (but obviously not all) abuse of the system. Under Swiss law, it is also obligatory for the suspect to be notified that their data was requested, which is not the case in most countries. Finally, Switzerland generally will not assist prosecutions from countries without fair justice systems.

What should we do?​

We need to help the youth activists, but ProtonMail cannot do that by breaking the law and ignoring court orders. We are on your side, and our shared fight is with the authorities and the unjust laws we have been campaigning against for years. The prosecution in this particular case was very aggressive. Unfortunately, this is a pattern we have increasingly seen in recent years around the world (for example in France where terror laws are inappropriately used).

We will continue to campaign against such laws and abuses, and we will continue to challenge unjustified government requests whenever possible.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

Making your own won't help. Anyone who says it will is woefully uninformed.

Yeah, emails suffer from that three options/pick two thing, like the college triangle of sleep/grades/social life.

Maybe for email... Quality/Control/Anonymity? Every time I've tried to brainchild my ideal email solution, I've come up with way more attributes than those, but let's go with those three for argument's sake.

I always get stuck at the part where Control and Anonymity are directly opposed to one another. Maybe not in spirit, but at least in how technology literally works. Either nobody can see what you're saying, or they can never know that it's you saying it, but both can't be true at the same time. If even one of those is absolutely true you're pretty lucky.

When it comes down to it you can't control everything unless you own the infrastructure, but you can't obtain the infrastructure and remain truly anonymous.

(At least, at the levels I demand anyways. My demands include "if a supplier fucks me I won't just not visit anymore, I want to ensure they won't even tell who my email address has been sold to, even if I don't value the spam". I'm talking autistic levels of control here.)

 

[Some JERK]

Making your own won't help. Anyone who says it will is woefully uninformed.

Running your own email server would only work if you never send or receive any emails to or from anyone.

 

[HeyYou]

Wait

The authorities are trying to break up a Greta Thunberg inspired environmental group?

I don't understand. Greta and her environmental cult operate under the watchful eye of King Soros. How could the peasants be doing this?

I kind of want to know what the activist did to make the Swiss and French of all governments actually try to prosecute her. Hopefully this is a wake-up call to people that security focused websites can't fight everything and there's no such thing as being completely anonymous on the open net.