Protonmail & privacy

zinneken · 26 May 2014, 06:23 PM

I just sent an email today asking the guys at protonmail 3 things:

1. if they are subject to any US inquiries since they have an office there
2. if they foresee servers to be located at some point in the US, which would put them under US un-privacy.
3. if when a court order for information is received they will inform the individual user that information has been given

I'll post back when I hear back, or maybe they can reply here.

Disclaimer: as with most of these threads, complete privacy on the internet doesn't really exist. One can only try to do as good a job as possible. So this thread is not about complete privacy, just about understanding how private protonmail really is.

zinneken · 29 May 2014, 04:42 PM

Just following up on this, there has been no reply from protonmail to my email request, and they don't seem to reply here on the forum either. Have sent them a PM just in case, but looks like their support is iffy.

zinneken · 4 Jun 2014, 09:16 PM

Finally got a reply over the weekend:
1. they don't have offices in the US, they do have a phone number there (could be voip), and developers who are affiliated with MIT. Of course these can be pressured to code backdoors in, especially MIT.
2. "the servers will always be in Switzerland" Of course that doesn't say they won't have servers/equipment in the US as well. In fact, with developers in the US, they kind of have hardware there.
3. they "only have to comply with a swiss court order", which implies that if the court order asks for not telling a user they will do so, and if there is a US court order they might consider it.

Another (swiss) privacy initiative full of (cheese) holes to the US building reputation and customers on (hollow) privacy statements.

zdt · 6 Jun 2014, 02:42 PM

Thank you for your research and for the interesting points you make.

26 May 2014, 06:23 PM	#1
zinneken Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 136	Protonmail & privacy I just sent an email today asking the guys at protonmail 3 things: 1. if they are subject to any US inquiries since they have an office there 2. if they foresee servers to be located at some point in the US, which would put them under US un-privacy. 3. if when a court order for information is received they will inform the individual user that information has been given I'll post back when I hear back, or maybe they can reply here. Disclaimer: as with most of these threads, complete privacy on the internet doesn't really exist. One can only try to do as good a job as possible. So this thread is not about complete privacy, just about understanding how private protonmail really is. Last edited by zinneken : 26 May 2014 at 06:42 PM.

6 Jun 2014, 02:42 PM	#4
zdt Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Posts: 47	thanks Thank you for your research and for the interesting points you make.

29 May 2014, 04:42 PM	#2
zinneken Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 136	Just following up on this, there has been no reply from protonmail to my email request, and they don't seem to reply here on the forum either. Have sent them a PM just in case, but looks like their support is iffy.

4 Jun 2014, 09:16 PM	#3
zinneken Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 136	Finally got a reply over the weekend: 1. they don't have offices in the US, they do have a phone number there (could be voip), and developers who are affiliated with MIT. Of course these can be pressured to code backdoors in, especially MIT. 2. "the servers will always be in Switzerland" Of course that doesn't say they won't have servers/equipment in the US as well. In fact, with developers in the US, they kind of have hardware there. 3. they "only have to comply with a swiss court order", which implies that if the court order asks for not telling a user they will do so, and if there is a US court order they might consider it. Another (swiss) privacy initiative full of (cheese) holes to the US building reputation and customers on (hollow) privacy statements.