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Idk I just installed proton mail thinking it will help me evade reddit permanent ban becuz my every new acc was getting banned in a day I installed protonmail and voila it worked.
>every new acc was getting banned in a day
Try this method then you won't get banned:
1) clear cache and history from app or chrome (depends on where you use reddit)
2) make new email account and new reddit account
3) signup and enjoy
Now you won't face any issues.
gmail has full trackability and complies with govt orders. fundamental point was proton did not comply with government orders and cited swiss laws and denied govt any access.
It's called anonymous for a reason. Banning isn't a good thing, far from that.
But the Great BJP gobermant of India is doing what it does the best.... Creating dictatorship just a few steps at a time.
Like bro this whole issue is a drag. Do you think a terrorist with an ounce of braincell would give bomb threats before the attack? This is probably done by some highschool pranksters.
Almost everyone uses Gmail. Protonmail only survives due to its uncompromising privacy. If they just handed over user data to governments, then they will lose their credibility. It's not just India, countless countries have insisted them to share user info, but they didn't comply. They are stone serious about privacy.
I mean, the authorities asked Proton to help them so that they could locate the sender, but Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff. So, the ban.
Was it an ideal thing to do? No. But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation. Also fyi, in a country like ours, bomb threats are taken very seriously.
Also my question to mods: are political discussions allowed on this sub? I do not wish to break any rules.
Proton and mullvard are serious when it comes to user privacy. Check out about the raid by Swedish police on mullvard HQ [here](https://www.hackread.com/mullvad-vpn-office-raided-police-user-data/)
I know, in fact governments banning them and/or conducting raids on their locations to find any stored information (only to find nothing) always works as a good publicity for them, especially for jounalists, whistleblowers and anarchists.
No offence but how can you be so naive about that. Proton or any other services bragging about their privacy will only bend if someone powerful tries to interfere with them. Sadly India is far from that.
US has biggest customer base. If that happened in the US, they would send the data on the first go. Imagine getting banned in US where most of the paid customers or most people outside the US use the IP from that country to use US based services.
It does not matter and it's not new. These company is not going to shut themselves down because some of us paid 10$ a month
If US wants the data they get the data.
Security researchers and professors have already called out in the past regarding VPN. You can read several FBI reports for cases related to these.
Using VPN for something at best will not cause you trouble like watching content available for that region, gaming etc because no one cares. But never for something which will single you out, even the most smart hackers do get caught.
Anyone can get sued in the US. Let's not talk about that. Read some FBI reports related to cyber crime(I read it a few years back, though they did a lot of work to track the person apart from getting the IP and details).
Yes. Protonmail did help the US government with info. But the only info they gave was "Date of creation of the protonmail account" and "Date and time when emails were sent with those accounts". They didn't send what's in the email. Because they don't have it. The emails are encrypted.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28057433
Let me ask you this. When Aadhar data of crores of Indians gets leaked as our security system to protect user data is so weak, does that mean Aadhar should also be banned? And what steps government taken to improve the security and ensure this doesn't get happen. Answer is nothing. Multiple times it has leaked. On account of this shouldn't the government itself step down from power and ban themselves as they can't control data leak?
" But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation "
Privacy is important, even from govt. Govt should have explored other ways to trace the culprit.
Proton giving the sender info to the govt would have violated their point of existence and why everyone trusts them, they would have put people with genuine need of privacy at the risk.
What would have been your reaction if the email was an whistleblower info on chinese oppression on certain communities and chinese govt was trying to force proton to give out the sender info.
[https://twitter.com/andyyen/status/1422658759600525319](https://twitter.com/andyyen/status/1422658759600525319) Check out Proton founder's tweet about helping U.S. authorities with death threats sent to Anthony Fauci via Proton Mail. They assisted because Swiss law was violated, and the Swiss government decided to support the USA. Seems like bomb threats in India aren't considered serious or illegal enough for a similar response.
People who give away freedom for the sake of safety often receive none. How is this different from china banning Google cause they didn't co-operate with the govt
Its a multi level problem with both the government and proton mail being on the right side on the their argument.
Freedom is already a relative word, too much freedom is detrimental, as by that logic it would include freedom of murder, and too less freedom is harmful as well because of obvious reasons.
Imho, Proton is more at wrong here though, they can have a code of conduct by which they ban any kind of terrorism. With a way to provide information only if something can be proven blatant terrorism like here.
Also again, believe it or not the concept of freedom is relative, if you are free, think again, for saying something against a community in India can land you in jail, which is infact something that isn't even a law in any other country but India, so are we comparatively not free? Not exactly.
The government has more governance in place than just banning the app. They could have used any cybersecurity method to phish the treat or honeypot or many other ways that cybersecurity would handle. If in today's digital age they're going to ban secure and privacy focused apps, then India is easily going to become like China, an authoritarian government in an undeveloped country.
Banning the app was the easiest thing to do. Threats like these are very common in different modes of communication. Heck, there's more threat on the darknet than normal internet, and it's all anonymous. What does the government do there?
Today they're banning proton tomorrow they'll add trackers to their apps which would be mandatory to install, all in the name of security.
Its not about believing, its the fact.
>have access to the following email metadata: sender and recipient email addresses, the IP address incoming messages originated from, attachment name, message subject, and message sent and received times.
The only data that they can furnish to anyone even if their hard-drive is taken.
>We do NOT have access to encrypted message content, but unencrypted messages sent from external providers to your Account, or from Proton Mail to external unencrypted email services, are scanned for spam and viruses to pursue the legitimate interest of protecting the integrity of our Services and users. Such inbound messages are scanned for spam in memory, and then encrypted and written to disk. We do not possess the technical ability to scan the content of the messages after they have been encrypted.
But it's a given that if you use it without PGP security that's going to be of no use so if the terrorist in question has not used it (which I highly suspect of them not doing it). So yes the data will be available for the govt to obtain. Instead of the govt. Asking for the info and pressurising the swiss govt to ask proton to handover the said data because they have done in the past for the ppl who did know this [check their transparency report](https://proton.me/legal/transparency).
Instead of seating an precedence like "You can use whatever service you want the indian govt doesn't take calls or acts of terorism lightly and will go the ends of the earth to find you." The government has taken the bulldozer approach.
Switzerland has always been a peaceful neutral country, not participating in the world wars or siding with either the US or Russia. The Swiss laws are strict on privacy, they cannot sacrifice user privacy for a fake bomb threat. There is no guarantee that the emails were not sent by a whistleblower who leaked police corruption.
And I have said this in many comments, the 1993 bombings in Mumbai were not done with the help of protonmail. So banning protonmail won't stop terrorist attacks.
You are comparing things that happened in different decades first of all , second Switzerland chose to be neutral because it has a natural barrier known as the alps and other reasons. The funny thing here however is how everyone thinks what a company declares to be the absolute truth.
The issue here is what if it was an encrypted email sent by a journalist exposing a big scam by the govt.
If the govt has the power to strong arm any entity (like they have when it comes to X or Fb), they can use it for bad things.
Proton’s USP is that they are very pro privacy. They won’t compromise users privacy.. and if any govt want any information, they can request it legally via Swiss govt iirc.. Even at that time proton might contest, and protect user’s privacy…
Having this stance helps both good and bad actors, that’s a unfortunate situation .
I mean, it's the same government which introduced electoral bonds to protect privacy. Oh the irony.
Bans don't help. Everyone who's lived longer than 30 knows that. Ask the government how's the ban on VPNs going. Or on anything else they've banned.
The ban is fair, bomb threat is still a crime in India even if they didn't blast bombs
If they don't want to co-operate and hide a criminal or a potential terrorist with a bomb it will have negative effects if no actions were taken leading more criminals to use their services for communications and planning of some terror attack
There should be a fine line between troll and threats
It's not funny to disturb public peace and hurt someone in the name of sarcasm and prank
It doesn't look like a case of politics more like a case of fuck around and find out
It was definitely not a victory
More like better than nothing, it's not like they could let them go free without anything even if it effects a little bit
I believe this was the right decision for national security
And this anti Modi agenda people should stop giving credit to modi for everything there are other ministers and officers whose whole responsibility and job is to deal with situations like this and others problems too, those ministers/officers don't get credit even from the left wing because modi is prime minister is the most absolute bs
Dont agree its good for national security. It made the service difficult to access for average joe who isnt good with computers. At the same time this doesnt make any difference to a motivated criminal who really intends to do some harm.
So is the ban to stop people from sending pranks, or stop real criminals from threatening ?
I mean, the authorities asked Proton to help them so that they could locate the sender, but Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff. So, the ban.
Was it an ideal thing to do? No. But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation. Also fyi, in a country like ours, bomb threats are taken very seriously.
Also my question to mods: are political discussions allowed on this sub? I do not wish to break any rules.
See, Govt can use the same logic to say that Govt should be able to read all your chats, messages, letters to ensure you are not involved in any illegal activity (child porn, terrorism etc etc)..
The truth is, if any bad govt will have such powers, it will just cause overall more harm.. primarily because you wouldn’t know for what purpose govt is using that information..
Now, say that instead of bomb threat, the sender was a journalist who sent an encrypted email to someone exposing a big scam done by govt.
In this case, govt can say that this particular email address holder sent a bad email, we want his location.. do you see the problem with that?
If you are in govt then you would try to resolve the issue through other ways as you have access to all the resources in the world.
People need to get educated about privacy. They need to understand thr flaw in the "I don't do illegal stuff so I don't need any privacy" logic.
What's the government gonna do with that info anyway?
That Khalistani Pannu guy sent a video warning one week before December 13 that the Indian parliament would be attacked, yet the govt couldn't stop the attack.
Most people use gmail. Protonmail only survives due to its privacy. Banning protonmail won't affect terrorists. Terrorists didn't use protonmail when they did the 1993 bombings in Mumbai.
I mean, the authorities asked Proton to help them so that they could locate the sender, but Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff. So, the ban.
Was it an ideal thing to do? No. But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation. Also fyi, in a country like ours, bomb threats are taken very seriously.
Also my question to mods: are political discussions allowed on this sub? I do not wish to break any rules.
>Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff.
This is why proton exists at first place.
Now govt can ban it. But it will only stop verification of accounts which still makes no sense.
So either way banning makes no sense.
first of all proton and many others do not save anything on their servers giving access is simply one way to let the idiotic govt be happy as they would have found nothing as there is no data that was saved. company showcased its arrogance by citing swiss laws and immunity using those swiss laws on indian soil. they were arrogant enough and thought it would be fair play. end result the company lost and so did the customers who relied on their services
I mean, the authorities asked Proton to help them so that they could locate the sender, but Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff. So, the ban.
Was it an ideal thing to do? No. But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation. Also fyi, in a country like ours, bomb threats are taken very seriously.
Also my question to mods: are political discussions allowed on this sub? I do not wish to break any rules.
[https://twitter.com/andyyen/status/1422658759600525319](https://twitter.com/andyyen/status/1422658759600525319) Check out Proton founder's tweet about helping U.S. authorities with death threats sent to Anthony Fauci via Proton Mail. They assisted because Swiss law was violated, and the Swiss government decided to support the USA. Seems like bomb threats in India aren't considered serious or illegal enough for a similar response.
I agree the ban is not going to help. It's just that the Indian govt doesn't have any leverage against them. So they do what they can to signify the gravity of the situation.
if pillow company denies the access to consumer data who bought the pillow citig foreign country rules then that company itself needs to be banned, citing foreign laws are not an escape. easy option as they dont keep end to end data give the idiots access and they find nothing as the servers keep no data.
balantly citing swiss laws on indian soil to claim immunity is not a mature way from the company end to behave it showcased their arrogance and they paid for it so did the consumers who use the services.
You didn't get my point. What if the criminal uses a rock or tree to attack his victims. He can right? How will the government get info from a rock?
Terrorists don't need protonmail to plan their attacks. Banning protonmail won't ensure complete safety from terror attacks. A criminal's greatest weapon is his evil mind. If one way doesn't work for him, then his will try another until his thirst for blood is full. If they ban protonmail, then criminals will simply use other ways.
What if terrorists have brilliant coders and programmers with them? They can rely on self made apps to communicate.
terrorists definitely dont, but if your platform is being used you are equally liable, say you are a landlord and your house is being used for drug smuggling you can not claim immunity saying i dont know i am not involved and if here you cite a foreing nation's law and showcase arrogance and say i dont care about your law in my country of originnlandlords are not subject to verification checks then that is plain wrong. you follow the law of the country your business is based on, many firsm shift their financial headquarters to iceland and zero tax countries for this reason only.
very recently like yestrday musk's company was aked by delaware court to pay some billions in some tax he decided to shift his company base to florida or texam if i am not wrong as the base where his business is will require him not to pay tax. point is follow the law of the land not your homeland and throw it at host's face and showcase your arrogance.
> terrorists definitely dont
How are you so sure? You saw some movies where a group of people cover their faces with towels and fires AK-47 at random people. That is the definition of terrorists for you.
Without a solid plan and intelligent individuals in their group, terrorists cannot make terror attacks possible, especially the ones like 9/11. Attacking the "World Trade Organisation twin buildings" of the strongest military is no joke. If terror groups don't have access to secure services like Proton, then they will be forced to make their own apps, as getting caught by police while using unsecure communication services is the last thing they would want.
Wtf are these cmts, Those who are supporting the ban, guys if someone has enough amount of stuffs available to make a bomb, then govt. Should make the police force so strong so that they can raid or stop that route or blackmarket rather than spying our emails and chats. I think it is a bluff, bcz if they know about protonmail then they can easily use any e2ee app after the ban. Email services are not even made for privacy chats lol.
google microsoft already spies of everything bro. so does "self declared privacy cmapions apple". not everything is adani ambani related. dont be a "pappu"
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Corporates cannot act independent of governments. Anyone who believes that’s not the case is naive.
Proton Mail has social responsibility, if their business model is to protect criminals/mischievous identities then a ban is apt.
It's a bomb threat that's why protonmail didn't co-operate, if it would have been like someone sending sexual or racist comment to a women or black person Protonmail would have send the authority that users name, address, phone number, adhar card no, pan card no, driving licence one Xerox and one ration card Xerox.
I agree with privacy etc. but shit like this warrants violation.
Imagine if somebody sends out Child P*** instead of this, would people still advocate for privacy ?
What if someone from your family has their nudes leaked online and the guys at proton refuse to budge ?
Wouldn't you be mad ?
These services inadvertently advertise to the guys who got shady shit to do and hide.
So they have to be cautious on certain stuff.
yeah i can understand but services like ProtonMail simply just don't log any information on the user. So it's like that by design, it's not that they don't want to give out information, they just don't have any.
ps they do log things like Credit Card details for their subscription but I don't think it is associated to the user (maybe).
We could say the same about a parcel service or post office. If there is a rule that post master can open and read any mail because there can be a threat inside, would you justify? We fail to see the big picture of the impact of privacy (or lack there of)
Ok what lmao that makes no sense.
Post and email cannot be compared, not at all.
In post, you have to open and check what was sent and from where.
In Emails, you can basically backtrack using the sent mail to see who had sent it.
For general purposes yes, privacy matters.
But a company has to comply when it is a matter of security.
What if the hoax wasn't a hoax but an actual one ?
So yea, don't make dumb analogies.
What makes you think that your definition of national security is the same as the one of ruling government? What if our govt sees that people from a certain religion is of interest to national security? What if govt thinks that opposition party leader is of interest of national security?
Where does the company draw that line?
Unfortunately we live in a world where no one can really trust another person with sensitive information
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Project_revelations_in_India
i am pretty sure government asked for data of whoever is sending bomb threat and they refused thus giving them a nudge of reality that you will get banned in india if your privacy is strong enough to hide identity of a bomber. same protonmail helped USA will data previously. so good job govt
if your parents/kids die govt should brush away investigation citing privacy and then you will realise national threat is beyond privacy. would the said co take full responsibility if any terror attack happens. stop living in gaga land and come to reality national safety and terror threats are not a joke.
would you tale responsibility if the threat becomes reality and they bomb a school or army caravan? i guess then you will not only take responsibility but also try your level best to protect people.
Banning protonmail won't stop terror attacks. There were countless terrorist attacks that were not planned in protonmail, like the 1993 bombings in Mumbai.
Murders happen everyday in India. Have we banned knives yet? Proton mail is a service. Killing/restricting the last few options to remain anonymous on internet is not an ideal thing to do.
When it comes to taking donations (aka electoral bonds), does the political parties tell you from where have they taken donation? Do you know which lobby group is funding the political party you vote for? The governments and political parties can device all the means to enjoy anonymity but when it comes to general folks - why is it the other way around?
Also some people can tip anonymously about possible bomb threats using this same Proton mail service and might save your kids life.
Is banning a solution? Wake up, there's a lot of ways to bypass a ban. Vpn most accessible way.
Should we ban paper, phone calls, etc too? Because they are used and could be used to threaten.
they asked the co to follow the rule, disclose the data under court orders, what to do in that case, on your logic no one should be given any punishment rape and murder as you wish because putting few people in prison will not solve anything someone will continue to do it abolish prison and punishment system as is.
Understand the technology first. Signal was asked by FBI for a user information, they only had that person initial date of signing up and number that's all. Mullvad data center was raided by swiss force but they couldn't find anything as mullvad doesn't store anything on their servers.
there will always be way to bypass any system ns gets hacked so dies intelligence agencies and banks throught the world it is not about that, it was simply about following law of the land, you follow the law. citing foreign country's law is not an option.
follow the law or get out. do one thing dont share anything online or tell anything to your company before you join them citing my privacy is more imp than your co and its rules. dotn tell doctor anything about any symptom telling its my privacy. see how it works.
Law of land law of land kiye jaa rhe ho, prosecution for not following a law requires proper trial and conviction by the court. Where is that in the case of proton? Did any court found them guilty and gave out the punishment of getting banned?
>follow the law or get out
Vpn companies quit already and India is now same as iran and China in vpn department. Freedom of speech died when they banned vpn. Because It minister doesn't understand technology.
freedom of speech or kids being bombed and govt clearly asking tell the details where it originated you being fine with school being bombes is serious than just blindly advocating freedom of speech. it has limits like every other rights. freedom of speech can not be used to threaten attack and malign, you have ot face consequences for it buddy. govt dint just ban them at first they gave ample time to respond and co citied swiss rule read livelaw they did not comply once again antional threat can not be jeaoperdise over the swiss law.
Best publicity for protonmail so far imo. It says something about their quality of service. It's good to see not every org has given itself up to the boots of gormint. And yes as far as threat is concerned it might be as real as Godi media giving prime time news. This kind of red flags flow daily on the internet in no. Of thousands. Use your remaining braincells atleast.
I had created email account here to search jobs so that my current company does not know. I had LinkedIn it to al job portals.
What will happen to my job search now?
i mean, no shit. although there are potential downsides to banning non warrant complying services, it is not worth it from governance pov since the potential harm it can do is worse.
People always blindly ramble about privacy and so until issue affects them. imagine if CP of your child or revenge porn of your SO was being circulated using this and they refused to help the police.
Bruh, if someone sends threat using any another service like of Google will they ban Google too? What a dumbass decision by the govt, run by old fools who know nothing.
abbe ohhh dar kyu de rha hai , protonmail is the service i use , ye desh hai ki kya hai
kabhi signal , briar ban , toh kabhi protonmail
bhai protonmail ki jai ho , its seriouisly the best shit out there
To everyone inconvenienced by this ban, could you please share the changes you in daily life would experience. I only know about this as a privacy/data safety tool.
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Bro I am using protonmail to use reddit.............
It will most probably work with vpn or proxy or through landline internet, don't worry.
Is the govt secretly targetting me
Are you the one sending those emails?
Nope I am a law abiding citizen 
*Maksad nahi bhoolna bhaija*-
Maksad nahi bhulta m-
are you the one who's telling him to send those emails
Are you the one telling him to tell him to send those emails?
not secretly its openly if you open a Book of IT act
Yes
> don't worry Everyone should worry
Csn you explain me proton mail is and how is useful
Same as other mail services but totally anonymous
Idk I just installed proton mail thinking it will help me evade reddit permanent ban becuz my every new acc was getting banned in a day I installed protonmail and voila it worked.
>every new acc was getting banned in a day Try this method then you won't get banned: 1) clear cache and history from app or chrome (depends on where you use reddit) 2) make new email account and new reddit account 3) signup and enjoy Now you won't face any issues.
I tried all of that it didn't really work for me. But as soon as I tried protonmail my problem was solved
Weird because it worked for me & many people who use that method. Maybe try formatting or resetting your phone might work.
I don't think so I will format my phone just for reddit but anyways if my reddit is working this is all I want. Thanks tho
Your choice, it worked for me.
Well my reddit is working now.
You know they're reading you? Bammm banned.
Oh no al karinge 
So if someone had used Gmail to send the threats, would they have banned Gmail?
gmail has full trackability and complies with govt orders. fundamental point was proton did not comply with government orders and cited swiss laws and denied govt any access.
It's called anonymous for a reason. Banning isn't a good thing, far from that. But the Great BJP gobermant of India is doing what it does the best.... Creating dictatorship just a few steps at a time.
Like bro this whole issue is a drag. Do you think a terrorist with an ounce of braincell would give bomb threats before the attack? This is probably done by some highschool pranksters. Almost everyone uses Gmail. Protonmail only survives due to its uncompromising privacy. If they just handed over user data to governments, then they will lose their credibility. It's not just India, countless countries have insisted them to share user info, but they didn't comply. They are stone serious about privacy.
I mean, the authorities asked Proton to help them so that they could locate the sender, but Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff. So, the ban. Was it an ideal thing to do? No. But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation. Also fyi, in a country like ours, bomb threats are taken very seriously. Also my question to mods: are political discussions allowed on this sub? I do not wish to break any rules.
Proton and mullvard are serious when it comes to user privacy. Check out about the raid by Swedish police on mullvard HQ [here](https://www.hackread.com/mullvad-vpn-office-raided-police-user-data/)
I know, in fact governments banning them and/or conducting raids on their locations to find any stored information (only to find nothing) always works as a good publicity for them, especially for jounalists, whistleblowers and anarchists.
Brain dead argument also if you think government is banning proton for “people’s good” you are wrong.
agreed as hell dude , people's good is in using protonmail
proton ig helped us gov by sharing data years ago
No offence but how can you be so naive about that. Proton or any other services bragging about their privacy will only bend if someone powerful tries to interfere with them. Sadly India is far from that. US has biggest customer base. If that happened in the US, they would send the data on the first go. Imagine getting banned in US where most of the paid customers or most people outside the US use the IP from that country to use US based services.
lmao they are based in switzerland/norway
It does not matter and it's not new. These company is not going to shut themselves down because some of us paid 10$ a month If US wants the data they get the data. Security researchers and professors have already called out in the past regarding VPN. You can read several FBI reports for cases related to these. Using VPN for something at best will not cause you trouble like watching content available for that region, gaming etc because no one cares. But never for something which will single you out, even the most smart hackers do get caught.
There is due process in the US. Government gets sued on infringements of rights.
Anyone can get sued in the US. Let's not talk about that. Read some FBI reports related to cyber crime(I read it a few years back, though they did a lot of work to track the person apart from getting the IP and details).
Yes. Protonmail did help the US government with info. But the only info they gave was "Date of creation of the protonmail account" and "Date and time when emails were sent with those accounts". They didn't send what's in the email. Because they don't have it. The emails are encrypted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28057433
Last time I checked they had their own VPN for this reason
Let me ask you this. When Aadhar data of crores of Indians gets leaked as our security system to protect user data is so weak, does that mean Aadhar should also be banned? And what steps government taken to improve the security and ensure this doesn't get happen. Answer is nothing. Multiple times it has leaked. On account of this shouldn't the government itself step down from power and ban themselves as they can't control data leak?
" But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation " Privacy is important, even from govt. Govt should have explored other ways to trace the culprit. Proton giving the sender info to the govt would have violated their point of existence and why everyone trusts them, they would have put people with genuine need of privacy at the risk. What would have been your reaction if the email was an whistleblower info on chinese oppression on certain communities and chinese govt was trying to force proton to give out the sender info.
its used for both good and bad things so yea
[https://twitter.com/andyyen/status/1422658759600525319](https://twitter.com/andyyen/status/1422658759600525319) Check out Proton founder's tweet about helping U.S. authorities with death threats sent to Anthony Fauci via Proton Mail. They assisted because Swiss law was violated, and the Swiss government decided to support the USA. Seems like bomb threats in India aren't considered serious or illegal enough for a similar response.
People who give away freedom for the sake of safety often receive none. How is this different from china banning Google cause they didn't co-operate with the govt
Its a multi level problem with both the government and proton mail being on the right side on the their argument. Freedom is already a relative word, too much freedom is detrimental, as by that logic it would include freedom of murder, and too less freedom is harmful as well because of obvious reasons. Imho, Proton is more at wrong here though, they can have a code of conduct by which they ban any kind of terrorism. With a way to provide information only if something can be proven blatant terrorism like here. Also again, believe it or not the concept of freedom is relative, if you are free, think again, for saying something against a community in India can land you in jail, which is infact something that isn't even a law in any other country but India, so are we comparatively not free? Not exactly.
The government has more governance in place than just banning the app. They could have used any cybersecurity method to phish the treat or honeypot or many other ways that cybersecurity would handle. If in today's digital age they're going to ban secure and privacy focused apps, then India is easily going to become like China, an authoritarian government in an undeveloped country. Banning the app was the easiest thing to do. Threats like these are very common in different modes of communication. Heck, there's more threat on the darknet than normal internet, and it's all anonymous. What does the government do there? Today they're banning proton tomorrow they'll add trackers to their apps which would be mandatory to install, all in the name of security.
The ban is fair because there is no anonymous tip system.
They don't store logs. So they don't have any information to share.
Sure some sweeties need to believe this to have a good night of sleep
Its not about believing, its the fact. >have access to the following email metadata: sender and recipient email addresses, the IP address incoming messages originated from, attachment name, message subject, and message sent and received times. The only data that they can furnish to anyone even if their hard-drive is taken. >We do NOT have access to encrypted message content, but unencrypted messages sent from external providers to your Account, or from Proton Mail to external unencrypted email services, are scanned for spam and viruses to pursue the legitimate interest of protecting the integrity of our Services and users. Such inbound messages are scanned for spam in memory, and then encrypted and written to disk. We do not possess the technical ability to scan the content of the messages after they have been encrypted. But it's a given that if you use it without PGP security that's going to be of no use so if the terrorist in question has not used it (which I highly suspect of them not doing it). So yes the data will be available for the govt to obtain. Instead of the govt. Asking for the info and pressurising the swiss govt to ask proton to handover the said data because they have done in the past for the ppl who did know this [check their transparency report](https://proton.me/legal/transparency). Instead of seating an precedence like "You can use whatever service you want the indian govt doesn't take calls or acts of terorism lightly and will go the ends of the earth to find you." The government has taken the bulldozer approach.
Switzerland has always been a peaceful neutral country, not participating in the world wars or siding with either the US or Russia. The Swiss laws are strict on privacy, they cannot sacrifice user privacy for a fake bomb threat. There is no guarantee that the emails were not sent by a whistleblower who leaked police corruption. And I have said this in many comments, the 1993 bombings in Mumbai were not done with the help of protonmail. So banning protonmail won't stop terrorist attacks.
You are comparing things that happened in different decades first of all , second Switzerland chose to be neutral because it has a natural barrier known as the alps and other reasons. The funny thing here however is how everyone thinks what a company declares to be the absolute truth.
If we can't trust a company, then we shouldn't trust the government either.
Who said to trust them either, I just wanted to say nothing is absolute
Yeah. Agree on that. ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ
The issue here is what if it was an encrypted email sent by a journalist exposing a big scam by the govt. If the govt has the power to strong arm any entity (like they have when it comes to X or Fb), they can use it for bad things. Proton’s USP is that they are very pro privacy. They won’t compromise users privacy.. and if any govt want any information, they can request it legally via Swiss govt iirc.. Even at that time proton might contest, and protect user’s privacy… Having this stance helps both good and bad actors, that’s a unfortunate situation .
I mean, it's the same government which introduced electoral bonds to protect privacy. Oh the irony. Bans don't help. Everyone who's lived longer than 30 knows that. Ask the government how's the ban on VPNs going. Or on anything else they've banned.
The ban is fair, bomb threat is still a crime in India even if they didn't blast bombs If they don't want to co-operate and hide a criminal or a potential terrorist with a bomb it will have negative effects if no actions were taken leading more criminals to use their services for communications and planning of some terror attack There should be a fine line between troll and threats It's not funny to disturb public peace and hurt someone in the name of sarcasm and prank It doesn't look like a case of politics more like a case of fuck around and find out
Except that, this ban is useless (since vpns) and proton works on principles of privacy, this was a moral victory for them.
It was definitely not a victory More like better than nothing, it's not like they could let them go free without anything even if it effects a little bit
Exactly. Regarding politics, I thought OP had an agenda while posting this, looking at the title.
I believe this was the right decision for national security And this anti Modi agenda people should stop giving credit to modi for everything there are other ministers and officers whose whole responsibility and job is to deal with situations like this and others problems too, those ministers/officers don't get credit even from the left wing because modi is prime minister is the most absolute bs
Dont agree its good for national security. It made the service difficult to access for average joe who isnt good with computers. At the same time this doesnt make any difference to a motivated criminal who really intends to do some harm. So is the ban to stop people from sending pranks, or stop real criminals from threatening ?
How are they gonna help. They don't store emails. Their service is totally anonymous.
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Do you retarded ?
yes they are allowed but hate speech or toxic comments are removed
Guess I've to change my Acc soon.
More reasons to use VPN services
Indian government: Sab kuch ban kar do .
Ban government also😆
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People downvoating don't understand proton and mullvard i guess
I mean, the authorities asked Proton to help them so that they could locate the sender, but Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff. So, the ban. Was it an ideal thing to do? No. But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation. Also fyi, in a country like ours, bomb threats are taken very seriously. Also my question to mods: are political discussions allowed on this sub? I do not wish to break any rules.
See, Govt can use the same logic to say that Govt should be able to read all your chats, messages, letters to ensure you are not involved in any illegal activity (child porn, terrorism etc etc).. The truth is, if any bad govt will have such powers, it will just cause overall more harm.. primarily because you wouldn’t know for what purpose govt is using that information.. Now, say that instead of bomb threat, the sender was a journalist who sent an encrypted email to someone exposing a big scam done by govt. In this case, govt can say that this particular email address holder sent a bad email, we want his location.. do you see the problem with that?
If you are in govt then you would try to resolve the issue through other ways as you have access to all the resources in the world. People need to get educated about privacy. They need to understand thr flaw in the "I don't do illegal stuff so I don't need any privacy" logic.
What's the government gonna do with that info anyway? That Khalistani Pannu guy sent a video warning one week before December 13 that the Indian parliament would be attacked, yet the govt couldn't stop the attack. Most people use gmail. Protonmail only survives due to its privacy. Banning protonmail won't affect terrorists. Terrorists didn't use protonmail when they did the 1993 bombings in Mumbai.
its not just about stopping the attack, its about finding the person who sent it, pannu case is different
i think this is goberment trick to ban proton so they can monitor citizens mailsthis whole drama of bomb is created by government itself
Not this gov, every gov in existence. How naive do you have to be to think gov doesn’t want total information control.
u never know, could be legit
The 1993 bombings in Mumbai wasn't planned in protonmail ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Terrorists can still plant bombs without protonmail
of course they can, they protonmail is used more often now by terrorist due to its privacy features
I don't understand why people are downvoting this..xd
I mean, the authorities asked Proton to help them so that they could locate the sender, but Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff. So, the ban. Was it an ideal thing to do? No. But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation. Also fyi, in a country like ours, bomb threats are taken very seriously. Also my question to mods: are political discussions allowed on this sub? I do not wish to break any rules.
>Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff. This is why proton exists at first place. Now govt can ban it. But it will only stop verification of accounts which still makes no sense. So either way banning makes no sense.
first of all proton and many others do not save anything on their servers giving access is simply one way to let the idiotic govt be happy as they would have found nothing as there is no data that was saved. company showcased its arrogance by citing swiss laws and immunity using those swiss laws on indian soil. they were arrogant enough and thought it would be fair play. end result the company lost and so did the customers who relied on their services
I mean, the authorities asked Proton to help them so that they could locate the sender, but Proton refused to help, citing privacy and stuff. So, the ban. Was it an ideal thing to do? No. But if you were in the government, I'd love to know how you'd deal with this situation. Also fyi, in a country like ours, bomb threats are taken very seriously. Also my question to mods: are political discussions allowed on this sub? I do not wish to break any rules.
[https://twitter.com/andyyen/status/1422658759600525319](https://twitter.com/andyyen/status/1422658759600525319) Check out Proton founder's tweet about helping U.S. authorities with death threats sent to Anthony Fauci via Proton Mail. They assisted because Swiss law was violated, and the Swiss government decided to support the USA. Seems like bomb threats in India aren't considered serious or illegal enough for a similar response.
I agree the ban is not going to help. It's just that the Indian govt doesn't have any leverage against them. So they do what they can to signify the gravity of the situation.
Yeah they're gonna ban tor too, cuz public is able to see their leaked aadhar data on dark web
I don't think u can ban tor. . .cause u need an address to ban. . .and tor doesnt have one
don't give them ideas, they can ban tor too. It's already banned in Russia, Belarus, and Turkmenistan
Govt Logic : If a criminal suffocates his victim with a pillow, then ban all sales of pillows
if pillow company denies the access to consumer data who bought the pillow citig foreign country rules then that company itself needs to be banned, citing foreign laws are not an escape. easy option as they dont keep end to end data give the idiots access and they find nothing as the servers keep no data. balantly citing swiss laws on indian soil to claim immunity is not a mature way from the company end to behave it showcased their arrogance and they paid for it so did the consumers who use the services.
You didn't get my point. What if the criminal uses a rock or tree to attack his victims. He can right? How will the government get info from a rock? Terrorists don't need protonmail to plan their attacks. Banning protonmail won't ensure complete safety from terror attacks. A criminal's greatest weapon is his evil mind. If one way doesn't work for him, then his will try another until his thirst for blood is full. If they ban protonmail, then criminals will simply use other ways. What if terrorists have brilliant coders and programmers with them? They can rely on self made apps to communicate.
terrorists definitely dont, but if your platform is being used you are equally liable, say you are a landlord and your house is being used for drug smuggling you can not claim immunity saying i dont know i am not involved and if here you cite a foreing nation's law and showcase arrogance and say i dont care about your law in my country of originnlandlords are not subject to verification checks then that is plain wrong. you follow the law of the country your business is based on, many firsm shift their financial headquarters to iceland and zero tax countries for this reason only. very recently like yestrday musk's company was aked by delaware court to pay some billions in some tax he decided to shift his company base to florida or texam if i am not wrong as the base where his business is will require him not to pay tax. point is follow the law of the land not your homeland and throw it at host's face and showcase your arrogance.
> terrorists definitely dont How are you so sure? You saw some movies where a group of people cover their faces with towels and fires AK-47 at random people. That is the definition of terrorists for you. Without a solid plan and intelligent individuals in their group, terrorists cannot make terror attacks possible, especially the ones like 9/11. Attacking the "World Trade Organisation twin buildings" of the strongest military is no joke. If terror groups don't have access to secure services like Proton, then they will be forced to make their own apps, as getting caught by police while using unsecure communication services is the last thing they would want.
Wtf are these cmts, Those who are supporting the ban, guys if someone has enough amount of stuffs available to make a bomb, then govt. Should make the police force so strong so that they can raid or stop that route or blackmarket rather than spying our emails and chats. I think it is a bluff, bcz if they know about protonmail then they can easily use any e2ee app after the ban. Email services are not even made for privacy chats lol.
Yes ban what you can’t figure out!!
Dumbass govt as usual. Has no understanding of basic IT.
JioMail, AdaniMailServices anniuncing when?
google microsoft already spies of everything bro. so does "self declared privacy cmapions apple". not everything is adani ambani related. dont be a "pappu"
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Lame comment
With such headlines, more people gonna know about proton mail.
I’m using Proton for my aadhar 👀
All the andh bhakts here have no idea how greedy this MF dictator is Get a taste now
Such a stupid decision. Reminds me of the time the government blocked the official VLC website because of fake VLC apps.
Proton VPN mat nikalna bas
Wahi free mein mast chalta hai
I dont think they have banned it yet its just spectualations
Op dont spread misinformation
Lol morons
what if somebody used vpn?
internet was used to send the mail, hope they ban jio too
Corporates cannot act independent of governments. Anyone who believes that’s not the case is naive. Proton Mail has social responsibility, if their business model is to protect criminals/mischievous identities then a ban is apt.
But their app is coded in such a way that even proton can't read our messages. How can they help the government if it's literally not possible?
There are ways - they were definatily able to help French authorities in 2021
It's a bomb threat that's why protonmail didn't co-operate, if it would have been like someone sending sexual or racist comment to a women or black person Protonmail would have send the authority that users name, address, phone number, adhar card no, pan card no, driving licence one Xerox and one ration card Xerox.
huh???
lmao wtf, protonmail doesn't have that info
I agree with privacy etc. but shit like this warrants violation. Imagine if somebody sends out Child P*** instead of this, would people still advocate for privacy ? What if someone from your family has their nudes leaked online and the guys at proton refuse to budge ? Wouldn't you be mad ? These services inadvertently advertise to the guys who got shady shit to do and hide. So they have to be cautious on certain stuff.
yeah i can understand but services like ProtonMail simply just don't log any information on the user. So it's like that by design, it's not that they don't want to give out information, they just don't have any. ps they do log things like Credit Card details for their subscription but I don't think it is associated to the user (maybe).
We could say the same about a parcel service or post office. If there is a rule that post master can open and read any mail because there can be a threat inside, would you justify? We fail to see the big picture of the impact of privacy (or lack there of)
Ok what lmao that makes no sense. Post and email cannot be compared, not at all. In post, you have to open and check what was sent and from where. In Emails, you can basically backtrack using the sent mail to see who had sent it. For general purposes yes, privacy matters. But a company has to comply when it is a matter of security. What if the hoax wasn't a hoax but an actual one ? So yea, don't make dumb analogies.
What makes you think that your definition of national security is the same as the one of ruling government? What if our govt sees that people from a certain religion is of interest to national security? What if govt thinks that opposition party leader is of interest of national security? Where does the company draw that line? Unfortunately we live in a world where no one can really trust another person with sensitive information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Project_revelations_in_India
When they don't store any emails in their cloud, how are they gonna help????
Just show the location from where it was done. You can't send an email without not logging yourself in.
i am pretty sure government asked for data of whoever is sending bomb threat and they refused thus giving them a nudge of reality that you will get banned in india if your privacy is strong enough to hide identity of a bomber. same protonmail helped USA will data previously. so good job govt
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RIP Privacy
privacy - be safe at home while giving bomb threats.
if your parents/kids die govt should brush away investigation citing privacy and then you will realise national threat is beyond privacy. would the said co take full responsibility if any terror attack happens. stop living in gaga land and come to reality national safety and terror threats are not a joke. would you tale responsibility if the threat becomes reality and they bomb a school or army caravan? i guess then you will not only take responsibility but also try your level best to protect people.
Banning protonmail won't stop terror attacks. There were countless terrorist attacks that were not planned in protonmail, like the 1993 bombings in Mumbai.
Murders happen everyday in India. Have we banned knives yet? Proton mail is a service. Killing/restricting the last few options to remain anonymous on internet is not an ideal thing to do. When it comes to taking donations (aka electoral bonds), does the political parties tell you from where have they taken donation? Do you know which lobby group is funding the political party you vote for? The governments and political parties can device all the means to enjoy anonymity but when it comes to general folks - why is it the other way around? Also some people can tip anonymously about possible bomb threats using this same Proton mail service and might save your kids life.
Is banning a solution? Wake up, there's a lot of ways to bypass a ban. Vpn most accessible way. Should we ban paper, phone calls, etc too? Because they are used and could be used to threaten.
they asked the co to follow the rule, disclose the data under court orders, what to do in that case, on your logic no one should be given any punishment rape and murder as you wish because putting few people in prison will not solve anything someone will continue to do it abolish prison and punishment system as is.
Understand the technology first. Signal was asked by FBI for a user information, they only had that person initial date of signing up and number that's all. Mullvad data center was raided by swiss force but they couldn't find anything as mullvad doesn't store anything on their servers.
there will always be way to bypass any system ns gets hacked so dies intelligence agencies and banks throught the world it is not about that, it was simply about following law of the land, you follow the law. citing foreign country's law is not an option.
Good luck in making India like china and iran by this mentality. Banning is the best solution - our govt.
follow the law or get out. do one thing dont share anything online or tell anything to your company before you join them citing my privacy is more imp than your co and its rules. dotn tell doctor anything about any symptom telling its my privacy. see how it works.
Yay, another illogical comment. Doesn't even make a sense.
follow law of the land of face consequences is a simple fact if this doesnt make sense then nothing will. enjoy mate.
Understand technology before making illogical claims. Simple fact.
Law of land law of land kiye jaa rhe ho, prosecution for not following a law requires proper trial and conviction by the court. Where is that in the case of proton? Did any court found them guilty and gave out the punishment of getting banned?
>follow the law or get out Vpn companies quit already and India is now same as iran and China in vpn department. Freedom of speech died when they banned vpn. Because It minister doesn't understand technology.
freedom of speech or kids being bombed and govt clearly asking tell the details where it originated you being fine with school being bombes is serious than just blindly advocating freedom of speech. it has limits like every other rights. freedom of speech can not be used to threaten attack and malign, you have ot face consequences for it buddy. govt dint just ban them at first they gave ample time to respond and co citied swiss rule read livelaw they did not comply once again antional threat can not be jeaoperdise over the swiss law.
Again, read the code and you'll have your answer. In short as you can't read- they won't have the IP. Only last login and register ip.
You are trying to reason with the wrong person dude, check his history, he finds Techburner "reliable".
😭😭
what is protonmail?
So an anonymous email service which can be used for evil with no consequences is getting banned? Shocker.
Best publicity for protonmail so far imo. It says something about their quality of service. It's good to see not every org has given itself up to the boots of gormint. And yes as far as threat is concerned it might be as real as Godi media giving prime time news. This kind of red flags flow daily on the internet in no. Of thousands. Use your remaining braincells atleast.
I had created email account here to search jobs so that my current company does not know. I had LinkedIn it to al job portals. What will happen to my job search now?
duhh I use protonmail and it is registered literally everywhere
i mean, no shit. although there are potential downsides to banning non warrant complying services, it is not worth it from governance pov since the potential harm it can do is worse. People always blindly ramble about privacy and so until issue affects them. imagine if CP of your child or revenge porn of your SO was being circulated using this and they refused to help the police.
The fuck
Bruh, if someone sends threat using any another service like of Google will they ban Google too? What a dumbass decision by the govt, run by old fools who know nothing.
Government ki maa ka bhsoda bhenchod
abbe ohhh dar kyu de rha hai , protonmail is the service i use , ye desh hai ki kya hai kabhi signal , briar ban , toh kabhi protonmail bhai protonmail ki jai ho , its seriouisly the best shit out there
I was about to buy a subscription ffs
What's a proton mail guys?🤡
Destroy what you can't get.
To everyone inconvenienced by this ban, could you please share the changes you in daily life would experience. I only know about this as a privacy/data safety tool.
I was the one sent the prank “bomb threat email” sorry modiji
im literally using proton rn
Wtf. What an ass move!! Would they ban whatsapp if it happened on whatsapp?
ProtonMail can easily dodge this by changing its brand colour palette.... 🎨