signal w : privacy

[-] Nugscree@lemmy.world 113 points 2 months ago

That is exactly what they did, the user used a credit card with their damn name on it, while Proton even allows you to send them cash money for the service.

The FBI filed a MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty) request which was processed by the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police.

The Swiss gave a legal binding order to Proton to hand over information that they had, the only information that was handed over was the payment identifier.

I don't get why people get hung up on a company complying with a legal order by their justice system, especially with Proton that could not hand over any more information.

[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The issue is them having any info to give out in the first place, it is a horrendous transgression for a shop that touts privacy as their thing.

Signal demonstrated that you can decouple payment info from account info and thus they ain't got nothing to produce, MLAT or not. The least Proton coulda done is mimic that tech.

edit: are you shills illiterate, what's your deal? signal also accepts payments, the kind normal people use, like CC and stuff. and they decoupled payment info from account info, so nobody can link John Smith, Fuckville, AL to account protonshill4lyfe@proton.yo

[-] bort@sopuli.xyz 22 points 2 months ago

The least Proton coulda done is mimic that tech.

Proton even allows you to send them cash money for the service.

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[-] ReluctantlyZen@ani.social 18 points 2 months ago

Signal demonstrated that you can decouple payment info from account info

How did Signal demonstrate this? Signal is not a paid subscription service

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[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 8 points 2 months ago

Proton even allows you to send them cash money for the service.

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[-] Nugscree@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

That is not really the same, Signal is a donation and Proton is a subscription where a monthly (or yearly) request has to go to the payment provider for your fee, for this you need to keep the payment information on file and linked to the account. Signal can say I got donated by someone but they do not need to keep this information linked to a specific user, just the payment record (that still has your cc/bank details on it) for tax purposes.

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[+] bonenode@piefed.social 76 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

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[-] not_IO 5 points 2 months ago

both could log ip addresses and payment info, meta infos like who you message with, both do key management, only saves this stuff and then has to give it to the feds

[-] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 24 points 2 months ago

Email headers need to be unencrypted, unless they had a proprietary "almost like email but not interoperable" protocol. Signal doesn't have payment info for most users because it's free to use, but for donations they need to store payment data too.

[-] darkstar@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

I work in digital forensics specifically with emails, and this is not how the email protocol works

Signal and email are 2 different things, completely different

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[-] sveltecider@lemmy.ca 49 points 2 months ago

…email will inherently be a lot less secure than messaging, no matter what you do.

If you truly want to be private about something, don’t email it lol

[-] elephantium@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago

no matter what you do.

Even PGP?

...TBF, getting your counterparty to also use PGP is the heavy lift there.

[-] TechLich@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

Security yes, privacy not especially.

PGP lets you encrypt the messages and sign them to digitally prove you sent them.

It doesn't help with the problem here which is that the metadata of who you are (the IP used to log into the webmail and the email address of the sender) and who you're talking to (the email of the recipient) and when (timestamps etc.) were able to be leaked.

In fact, depending on the implementation, PGP could be considered slightly worse for privacy because you'd have the added identity proof of the message having a signature that only you could create with your private key (although that's encrypted, it's a stronger identity proof than the sender email address). It also generally leaks the recipients' key IDs too (although that's configurable) PGP is great for accountability, message confidentiality and non-repudiation. Not so much for privacy. For that you'd need other systems.

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[-] Avicenna@programming.dev 8 points 2 months ago

People like Jeffrey Epstein running one of the biggest blackmail networks in the planet and at the same time blatantly emailing each other about it from gmail really amazes me. Either they are that stupid or powerful enough that they just don't care.

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[-] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 45 points 2 months ago

I don't like Proton after the CEO posted the pro-Trump statement and did not use them after that.

Its really weird how people are blaming Protonmail when it was the Swiss government that complied with the FBI. That to me is really suspicious. The US government is currently not a trusted source of accuracy, and for the Swiss to readily agree to it?

Worse, the chuds blaming the proton user?

Protonmail is used by a lot of reporters/whistleblowers. As what point is their work also a threat to the US government and will the Swiss force Protonmail to hand that over too?

[-] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 14 points 2 months ago

Switzerland has been a proud fascist collaborator for at least a hundred years. Why wouldn't they cooperate with the US?

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[-] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

What are some good alternatives to Protonmail? I'm talking companies that don't exploit their users and also that don't support unsavory politicians. I've been looking for one (I was not impressed with that post from the Proton CEO either). Thanks.

[-] FriskyDingo@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

Tuta and fastmail

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[-] ReluctantlyZen@ani.social 37 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This comparison makes no sense.

Signal doesn't have payment data. It's not a paid service. Proton is a paid subscription service and that payment data needs to be accessible in order to charge the user and they're not a payment processor.

[-] leadore@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

The fact that it's a paid service doesn't mean they have to keep your PID and payment info on file. I use posteo.de for my email, which is a paid service. But my payment info is only used during the payment process and they don't keep it on file once they receive the payment. You buy like 12 or 20 months and have that many credits. When it starts to get low, you buy some more.

[-] Taldan@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Proton let me delete the payment information between charges, but they certainly made it a painful process. I had to email support

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[-] SuspiciousFlop8964@sh.itjust.works 36 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Service A is compelled to hand over all the data it has on a user

They comply

Service B is compelled to hand over all the data it has on a user

They comply

"And that's how it's done!"

[-] bss03@infosec.pub 9 points 2 months ago

Proton has the disadvantage of having to work with other email services as well, so there's protocol limitations. When mailing from one Proton mailbox to another, they do intentionally avoid SMTP for this reason, but Signal has the advantage of "owning" the whole protocol, too.

I imagine if you donate with a CC to Signal, they might also be forced to turn that over. The weakness is not in Signal or Proton, but in the Visa/Mastercard duopoly and CC processing in general. Cryptocurrency has some advantages here, but they are outweighed by the abuse, fraud, speculation, and general dishonestly (and just general failure to be good currencies for "normal" purchases.)

[-] blujan@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 months ago

The criticism is that better privacy can be achieved by not saving data, it is a good criticism but I don't know how legit it is because I don't know if credit card payments can be processed without saving the data (i would assume yes, if tokenized)

[-] TheFool@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 2 months ago

Proton was legally forced to record IPs for this account (as per the linked article). Theoretically that could happen to Signal just as well if the laws allow it in their jurisdiction. There was nothing in the article about message content or metadata being handed over to authorities.

As far as I know in France you can‘t have an anonymous phone number so technically using TOR and Proton Mail you can achieve a higher level of privacy than with Signal

[-] 87Six@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 months ago

Huh wait does using Tor actually help with mail privacy in any way? I know Tor hides pretty much as much as can be hidden about the user, but for mailing, don't you need to give out your personal details to sign up regardless?

[-] TheFool@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 2 months ago

Not generally but since in this case they had to record and hand over the IPs used to access the Proton Mail account, if he had used TOR they couldn’t have handed over anything useful

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[-] LordOfLocksley@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago

God, I wish more people used Signal

[-] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

One problem with Signal is that it can be difficult to connect with someone who is on there.

I've run into this a couple of times myself. And I've had friends run into it too. We know for a fact someone is using Signal, but you can't find them in the search, even though you have them in your contacts with the correctly formatted number.

Personally, this issue has become a stumbling block for getting people I know to use it more.

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[-] paequ2@lemmy.today 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I've been using Signal more to test if I can recommend it to other people... it's mostly like WhatsApp, which is good...

Except, can we please disable all of those god damn popups. Everyday: "Hey! Verify your pin!", "Hey! Verify your LONG ASS recovery key!", "Hey, plz donate!", "HEY! I couldn't start a backup", "HEY LOOK AT ME!"

[-] white_nrdy@programming.dev 7 points 2 months ago

I have never been asked to verify my recovery key.
It asks to verify pin once a month. Which I think is fair, since it can help you recover from a lockout / transfer your device.
backups are important, but they can also be disabled
Donating to open source projects is important, as it's a large portion of their funding.

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[+] Ghostie@lemmy.zip 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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[-] white_nrdy@programming.dev 17 points 2 months ago

I hate this sentiment. I was part of a bachelor party, and we had a group chat going. Had Android/iPhone users, so it was just a MMS chat. I suggested we use signal, and one of the iPhone users goes on a rant

"I'm not gonna use Signal. It's just a honeypot for the CIA. Why else would they fund it if they didn't get any value out of. It's obviously a honey pot"

[-] Cort@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

I'm not gonna use Signal. It's just a honeypot for the CIA.

No you're thinking of telegram.

[-] white_nrdy@programming.dev 8 points 2 months ago

So there is actually disinfo about it being funded by the CIA. I had heard it was, and tbh didn't care too much. I figured they funded it because they used it and got value. It's well audited so I trust it. Only learned it's disinfo when I looked for a source to include in my original reply

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/us-intelligences-services-control-the-signal-app/

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[-] RAFAELRAMIREZ@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago

When a service can only hand over a timestamp, that’s when you know the encryption is doing its job. 🔐

[-] JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago

On one side you have a free software, on the other you have a paid service. If you pay for that service with a credit card, of course they'll have your name.

This is like comparing walking across town to hiring an Uber and being annoyed the Uber keeps a record of the transaction.

[-] notabot@piefed.social 19 points 2 months ago

This is why it's always struck me as unreasonable for proton to claim they care about user privacy. If they did, they wouldn't provide an email service, as it is inherently impossible to adaquately protect the metadata if it is sent to a different mail server. A better approach would be for them to explain why you can have email or privacy, but not both, and to point people to a separate service if they insist on email, so it is decoupled from any of their other services. Accepting payment through a means that isn't tied to your personal identity would be a good step too.

[-] JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world 25 points 2 months ago

Accepting payment through a means that isn't tied to your personal identity would be a good step too.

They do accept bitcoin, and if that's not private enough, they also let you mail them cash in an envelope.

[-] frongt@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 months ago

Mailing cash is probably less private. Your mail is postmarked, and can be tracked. The serial numbers on the bills can be tracked too. Not to mention the envelope itself, fingerprints, possible DNA in the saliva when you licked it to seal it, your handwriting or printing to address it, how unique the stamp is...

[-] testaccount372920@piefed.zip 12 points 2 months ago

Only if all that information is collected and stored. Digital finance systems tend to track every transaction and keep a record of them (because of legal requirements among other reasons). With cash in an envelope a government can't check all the info you suggested a year after the payment has happened, perhaps not even after a few days.

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[-] dev_null@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That seems a little disingenuous. Just because email can't be protected well in most cases, doesn't mean you can't have a service that cares about privacy and does whatever is possible.

Google can train AI on your email, and then when I go make an alternative that doesn't do that, you will say I don't care about privacy? What is that, no true Scotsman? Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Even with all these issues, Proton is more private than Gmail.

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[-] lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Proton = Protrump

[-] Cattail@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Ain't gonna stop me from shit posting about group chat leaks on signal

[-] reksas@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

if i ran a privacy focused company, i would keep records that are just wrong and dont link to correct people at all. If i actually need to make records maybe i would make somekind of system where i personally can use them, kind of like extra cypher on top of everything else that would transform/pick the useless data into actual data. So if someone demands the records and i just have to give them, i'll just give them -> they cant get anything out of them anyway.

Can't demand me to be competent too 🤷‍♂️ maybe i would give excuse that i used ai to wibe code the thing

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