A court record reviewed by 404 Media shows privacy-focused email provider Proton Mail handed over payment data related to a Stop Cop City email account to the Swiss government, which handed it to the FBI.
Well I think the problem is less about the product being unsafe and more so that this person wasn’t careful enough to avoid exposing themselves. Pretty much any form of communication is going to carry the risk of information falling into the wrong hands. In this case, it seems they were caught because they had paid with a card, which gave up enough identifying information to tie the account to them. If they had paid in cash or crypto then Proton wouldn’t have as much information to begin with, and so even when they are forced to comply with government orders it doesn’t mean as much. Whether it would have been enough to save them I don’t know.
Since banks and such track where individual bills go, in some cases it’ll lead very directly to you depending on how many hands it changed first. How long ago it was beyond maybe a week to a month (for security footage) isn’t that significant afaik.
Spending bills at stores to get change for them would break this method of tracking trivially, since stores generally don’t keep track of serial numbers.
Well I think the problem is less about the product being unsafe and more so that this person wasn’t careful enough to avoid exposing themselves. Pretty much any form of communication is going to carry the risk of information falling into the wrong hands. In this case, it seems they were caught because they had paid with a card, which gave up enough identifying information to tie the account to them. If they had paid in cash or crypto then Proton wouldn’t have as much information to begin with, and so even when they are forced to comply with government orders it doesn’t mean as much. Whether it would have been enough to save them I don’t know.
I think this being relatively safe depends on a few other factors, because individual bills have unique serial numbers.
Being able to trace the specific bills of a transaction done months ago seems much more complicated than just giving your details to the company.
Since banks and such track where individual bills go, in some cases it’ll lead very directly to you depending on how many hands it changed first. How long ago it was beyond maybe a week to a month (for security footage) isn’t that significant afaik.
Spending bills at stores to get change for them would break this method of tracking trivially, since stores generally don’t keep track of serial numbers.