Indian court orders blocking of Proton Mail
Indian court orders blocking of Proton Mail
techcrunch.com
Indian court orders blocking of Proton Mail | TechCrunch
22 comments
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following a legal complaint filed by New Delhi-based M Moser Design Associates. The local firm alleged that its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Proton Mail.
in January, the New Delhi-based firm called for the regulation or blocking of Proton Mail in India, as the email service reportedly refused to share details about the sender of the allegedly offensive emails, despite a police complaint.
this has nothing to do with encryption services offered by proton. any email provider could fall into this pitfall.
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Can India even block ProtonMail if the users also have ProtonVPN?
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could they theoretically just block protonvpns ip range at an isp level?
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The article is not very clear, but my interpretation is that this is about the e-mails sent from Proton Mail, not users being able to access the Proton Mail web site.
A VPN won't help you if the server for the recipient of the e-mail drops the e-mail.
So, basically imagine that all Internet service providers in India have to block any e-mail from @proton.me and not deliver them. I think that's the idea.
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India is scaring me
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its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Proton Mail.
the email service reportedly refused to share details about the sender of the allegedly offensive emails, despite a police complaint.
Last year, the police department of the southern state of Tamil Nadu had sought to block Proton Mail after the email service was found to have been used for sending hoax bomb threats to local schools.
Honestly, pretty glowing review of Proton Mail
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Bomb threats to local schools were also being sent via Proton.
If they aren't going to help deal with that then I can understand why turning them off and figuring out is the next best step.
Other services likely engage with local authorities when illegal activity is pursued in their platform.
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I'm not saying "yay, it's morally good to send bomb threats."
Folks who care about privacy don't want their email provider engaging with local authorities.
when tyranny becomes law rebellion becomes duty
"Illegal" is NOT immoral, and when laws are increasingly being passed by right-wing nutjobs, folks doing the right thing will be doing illegal things.
- women getting access to an abortion
- undocumented folks avoiding being sent to El Salvador
- trans folks getting healthcare
Any platform has three options:
- Always comply with law enforcement, and give up vulnerable populations that are targeted by the government
- Never comply with law enforcement, and make law enforcement track down bomb threats some other way
- Sometimes comply with law enforcement, based on... what criteria? where's the line?
3 is obviously the thing we'd like, but no company is going to open itself up to legal threats by doing it.
This article shows that Proton Mail is falling into category 2. I think that category should exist to protect vulnerable populations.
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Honestly this is the text book definition of: "We do not understand anything about the technology so just ban it all together" They are completely missing the point that its a GDPR compliant privacy focused platform, Of course people are going to abuse that.
But to enact such a draconian measure is foolish imho.
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this is effectively an endorsement for the rest of the world
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Last year, the police department of the southern state of Tamil Nadu had sought to block Proton Mail after the email service was found to have been used for sending hoax bomb threats to local schools. The Indian government’s IT ministry reportedly notified internet providers to block Proton Mail at the request of law enforcement. However, the Swiss federal authorities intervened to prevent the blocking of Proton Mail taking effect.
Oh.
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Temporary blocking doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Perhaps even a longer term one if Swiss federal authorities are going to meddle.
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