Re: Protonmail and 'Swiss privacy' remind me of Operation Rubicon.

Edward Teach <hackbeard@linuxmail.org> wrote:

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 07:05:43 -0500
SugarBug <3883@sugar.bug> wrote:
>

@firefly@neon.nightbulb.net
 
Protonmail reminds me of Operation Rubicon.
 
Propagandists and useful idiots routinely pump Proton Mail as a
champion of privacy. They will post links to articles in which some
agency or foreign government has requested Proton Mail to hand over
user data. Then the article will position 'Swiss privacy laws' as
saving the day. This smells of mockingbird media agitprop meant to
generate interest in Protonmail. If enough such articles are
circulated, the gullible will believe they are protected by 'Swiss
privacy' then flock to Protonmail as their 'privacy savior'.
 
Everything you need to know about so-called 'Swiss Privacy' we
learned decades ago from Operation Thesaurus, AKA, Operation Rubicon.
We learned that CIA operations and black budget banking are actually
headquartered in the Swiss underground.
 
Operation Rubicon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rubicon
 
Crypto AG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG
 
If you trust any third-party server to protect your privacy, you're a
rube. If you trust Proton Mail to protect your privacy, you're a rube
getting 'crossed' by the Swiss Rubi-con. Either you own your keys and
your data on your computer or else you have no privacy. Someone
else's promise that your data will be 'encrypted' so they can't
decipher it is a hollow pledge. If you send any form of plaintext to
a remote server, no matter how much they claim to encrypt it, you
have zero assurance of data privacy. If you use an email server, even
if you use end-to-end encryption, you have zero metadata privacy.
Anyone can see WHO you are talking to even if they can't see the talk
itself. Criminals and spooks are generally more interested in _who_
you talk to over _what_ you say. The _who_ is the most important
piece of knowledge for their operations.
 
When using email for encrypted messages is always better for both
parties to use their own email servers. Even better than that is to
use a encrypted messenger through a Tor hidden service. The encrypted
messenger must NOT rely on the Tor keys for the security of the
encryption, but must first encrypt it using secret keys _before_
sending the data over the Tor network. Even with Tor, metadata
unmasking is possible through monitoring and traffic correlation
attacks. If you are a whistleblower or an at-risk person it is still
far safer to send coded messages by other channels.
 
If you rely on Protonmail and similar services for high-risk
communications you are taking a dangerous risk.
 
Watch the phan boiz rage outlet!
 
#Cryptography #Cryptology #Encryption #Crypto #Protonmail #CryptoAG
#Switzerland #CIA
 

>
@SugarBug
Much of what you say is perfectly valid.  That said, there are
intermediate steps that people can take....not getting to complete
anonymity or perfect privacy.....but a step or two better than nothing!
(1) Anonymity.  You can use mail addresses from MAIL.COM.  When you do
this you also need to make sure that these mail addresses are only used
from public places (say internet cafes) so that both the email address
and the IP address are not linked to a single person.  Of course the
RECIPIENT email address(es) might give the game away!

For that purpose we do have nymservers, controlled through anonymous
remailers.

(2) Privacy.  I'm always amused when people talk about "public key
infrastructure", say PGP and the like.  Any group of people can set up
a Diffie/Hellman protocol.  With this in place EVERY MESSAGE gets a
random throwaway shared secret encryption key.  There are no published
keys anywhere....the keys are calculated when needed and then destroyed.

How will you implement DH key negotiations while preserving the
anonymity of both participants?

(3) E2EE.  Any group using items #1 and #2 are giving the snoops MUCH
more work.  Of course, snooping will not be impossible......but it
might be made very difficult, both on the privacy side and on the
anonymity side.....and without huge amounts of heavy lifting for the
users.

Let each participant set up an anonymous mail account at a nymserver,
exchange public keys with the initial mail message and from then on use
Whole-Message-Encryption.  Problem solved.


Have a look at the Wikipedia section about anonymous remailing
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer), which currently is
no more than an empty shell and urgently needs an update adding all the
software projects this still most secure and universally applicable
method of anonymous communication bases on (Mixmaster, YAMN,
Quicksilver, OmniMix).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixmaster_anonymous_remailer

| Original author(s) Lance Cottrell
| Developer(s)       Len Sassaman and Peter Palfrader
| Stable release     3.0 / March 3, 2008
| Type               Anonymous remailer
| Website            http://mixmaster.sourceforge.net/

e.g. makes you think that anonymous remailing is dead, which is dead
wrong.  Mixmaster continues to work great, in addition we now have the
YAMN network, and there's client software, that allows a seamless
integration into your e-mailing workflow.

There's a comprehensive link list at https://danner-net.de/omd.htm#d05.

With these tools at hand implementing the Chaumian Mix network strategy
and onion routing there's no reason to rely on the integrity of any
service provider.  So better stay away from all these dubious con men
and their questionable promises.