Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester

[PurpleDime]

@Valynor

@PurpleDime

B) Proton Cash Payments are not anonymous

Proton cash payments require that you declare your Proton username, which compromises your privacy.

How does sending some bills + your account name in an envelope with no return address compromise your privacy?

I’ve discussed this before.

@PurpleDime

For many Proton Mail users, if not the overwhelming majority, your Proton username is linked to your real identity. It’s probably your real name. Even if you used any of your secondary pseudonymous Proton Mail addresses, they are still linked with the one with your real name, which reveals your identity.

This means that if my Proton username is: jordan.smith@pm.me, I am revealing my identity to Proton. Moreover, if I use any of my pseudonymous addresses that are linked to the same acccount (fresh.cow@pm.me), I am still revealing my identity to Proton because hey can see it is owned by Jordan Smith. That is not anonymous.

As I have explained, other privacy services do not require you declare your username for cash payments, so why can’t Proton follow that model? Why the need for them to manually link my cash payment to my account? Why the need for a real person to manually add the payment to my account? Why does a human person need to see my Proton profile? I don’t want that.

There is value in hiding in plain sight, in a sea of millions of people, undistinguished.

If I desposit cash in my bank account via an ATM, no person who works at the bank knows that I made a payment that day. The bank’s system knows, but no actual human being knows that Jordan Smith deposited $100 into their account. Especially when millions of people make ATM deposits eveyr day.

That is very different from me physically going to the bank, speaking to a teller, and telling them I want to desposite $100 in my account. At that point, the bank teller, who is a real person, is aware that I, Jordan Smith, made a payment that day.

And when the teller performs this transaction for me, they can see my bank profile. Maybe they see that I received $20 000 from abroad and want to ask me about it. Maybe they see that they haven’t verified my address in 5 years and want to confirm it’s still the same. Maybe they see that I have $100 000 sitting in my savings account and am not making much profit from it, and they want to advise me on how to invest it. I don’t care. That is not why I came to the bank and I don’t want them snooping around.

Can you see the difference between the two? It’s the same with Proton.

@PurpleDime

Moreover, you can’t make a Proton cash payment for a third party (friend, family, stranger) without them sharing their username with you and compromising their privacy.

In addition, when Proton receives you mail they will know which country it came from. That is something you cannot hide. They can link that information with your username, which gives you even less privacy. Proton cash payments also require that you write the company’s name on the envelope. Given how widely known Proton is, that could one day trigger red flags at the post office.