Expecting everyone to be good at opsec is not a practical solution
Comment on let's kill proton mail
stoy@lemmy.zip 3 days agoArguing about what people should or should not have to do is pointless.
It changes nothing and removes the debate from being practical to being theoretical.
ChristerMLB@piefed.social 2 days ago
stoy@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Well, not everyone needs to be good at opsec, most people are fine as is.
Most people are not working against the government either.
But if you are going against the government, or any large and powerful entity, you absolutely need good, reliable opsec.
When the police comes knocking on your door, you can’t just blame Proton for not informing you about not using your own CC to sign up for your service.
This isn’t a playground, you are dealing with the big boys now, and they have far more tools than you have, unless you learn and adapt, you will get burnt.
So while you are right that bot everyone can be expected to be good at opsec, that isn’t the issue.
The issue is that this was an opsec failure of the guy, it wasn’t Proton messing up.
ChristerMLB@piefed.social 2 days ago
“When the police comes knocking on your door, you can’t just blame Proton”
obviously, but the ideal we should be working towards is that privacy is the default, right? The more normal it is to have this kind of privacy, the less suspicious it is.
are they legally required to store the credit card information?
stoy@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
I agree that we should work toward a more private society, but we are not there yet.
And to answer your question, yes, Proton is required to store the CC info.
mushroomman_toad@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
It’s not theoretical. Protonmail should not have handed over the personal data for victims of political persecution.
stoy@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
They clearly give you options to avoid this scenario, this is not on Proton, this is simply an opsec fail of the user.
Don’t get me wrong, opsec is hard, exhausting and just annoying, it needs discipline and constant focus, you only need to fail once for it to be ineffective.
The customer signed up for Proton, but didn’t follow their guidelines for anonymity, that is not a failure of proton, it is a failure of the user.
mushroomman_toad@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Maybe they’ve changed the website, but when I started using Proton, they never gave me any warning about paying with a credit card.
stoy@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
And that is why you would have failed at opsec.
You can’t demand warnings about stuff like that all the time, YOU need to teach yourself these things.
You can’t rely on anyone else for your own opsec.
That is the entire argument here.
The guy should have read up on protecting his anonymity before he started his activities.
Opsec fails have brought down many, many people.
From darknet site owners, to government agency operations, to countries at war and more.
Opsec sounds easy at first, but it is extremely difficult, and you can’t rely on anyone else doing your job for you.
You need to develop OCD like habits, you need to understand why they are needed, and what you are giving away when breaking them.
You imply that a warning would have prevented the guy from using his credit card, I don’t think it would have made any difference, the guy would either not understand at all, or just ignore it
Unless he intuitively understood that Proton was required to retain cc numbers for X years, and that these cc numbers were tied to a specific transaction, his account and his identity, I just don’t see him taking a warning serious.
This is the real world, it isn’t fair, it doesn’t care, you need to care about this for your self preservation.
gravitas@pie.gravitywell.xyz 3 days ago
How do you think it would play out if protob refuses lawful orders from a court in the country they operate in?
I do think proton does a lot of misleading advertising, but its still on the user to research and have good opsec. Paying with a card when crypto is an option, using the same service for both email and a vpn, using that service from a public wifi near where you are known to live while actively doing crimes.. Proton is running a business not a criminal protection racket.
mushroomman_toad@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Privacy is not a crime, nor is protesting.
tuhriel@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Correct, but arson vandalismn and a call for violence is. I couldn’t what exactly the charges awere in the MLAT request, so i have to go what 404 wrote
One can argue if the swiss goverment should have honired the MLAT request…unfortunately, that thing was put in place before the USA whent insane, and most countries do honor agreements they sign