Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester

Re:Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' P... by observationist on Thursday March 05, 2026 @05:31PM (#47268201)

Proton isn't opsec, it's just the best available commercial clearweb host that still has to follow all the laws and comply with warrants, but won't be arbitrarily selling your metadata or engaging in the adtech garbage.

Kagi is to google as proton is to gmail.

You get web mail, custom domains, decent security, decent spam detection, solid features, and no PII being sold. Nice, clean, simple - I like paying them money. I feel good about doing business with them, and I don't run into that often these days.

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Re:Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' P... by rationalist on Thursday March 05, 2026 @06:51PM (#47268862)

Sounds like Fastmail, except Fastmail is less sketchy and has better deliverability.

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Re:Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' P... by wswin on Thursday March 05, 2026 @07:14PM (#47269051)

What's sketchy about proton?

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Re:Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' P... by SoftTalker on Thursday March 05, 2026 @09:22PM (#47270040)

I don't know if sketchy is the right word but every* time I encounter a proton mail user on a mailing list, they are tinfoil-hat paranoid. Like they are a random nobody, but they are convinced that "the Russians" or "the Chinese" are constantly hacking at their laptop and they are constantly trying to harden everything so much one wonders why they even bother using computers at all.

* OK "every" is an exaggeration but enough that the impression has been formed.

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Re:Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' P... by jadbox on Thursday March 05, 2026 @08:37PM (#47269717)

How is Fastmail vs Proton?

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Re:Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' P... by nawtagain on Thursday March 05, 2026 @08:41PM (#47269746)

Fastmail requires payment meaning it is very closely tied to your identity. Proton is one of the very very few who do not tie a new email account to your identity via phone number, payment info or alternative email (which requires phone, payment info etc..).

Even proton only provides webmail free - pop3/imap/smtp require payment. But that's still better than 99.99% of other webmail - everyone verifies via some method that ties to your personal info.

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