
Russia blocks ProtonMail - tdurden
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/11/russia-blocks-protonmail/
======
PeterZhizhin
This situation really pissed me off. FSB (Russian FBI) had problems with
receiving bomb threats coming from Protonmail addresses. So, they secretly
ordered (with an almost classified order) major ISPs to block Protonmail
bypassing Russian's existing website/IP addresses blocking scheme.

Even worse, they ordered to __BLACKHOLE__ traffic coming to Protonmail. It
means that ISPs were ordered to silently drop all traffic coming to Protonmail
addresses. This raises problems not only for Russians, but for potentially for
other countries as well. So, for example, someone connects from Japan to
Protonmail (server is located in Europe, for instance). So, if traffic decides
to go through Russian channels, for a client in Japan it will be just like
Protonmail is not just responding because a Russian ISP in the chain silently
drops traffic.

Again. I want to repeat this once again. FSB had problems receiving bomb
threats to their addresses. Instead of configuring their mail servers to
ignore Protonmail incoming mail, they ordered major ISPs in Russia to block
Protonmail for EVERYONE in the country. That's so dumb.

Moreover, another recent leak coming from another Russian ISP indicates that
FSB also ordered to block sending and receiving mail for certain mail
addresses regardless of their domain. They ordered an ISP to block Email for
certain addresses. Like, they ordered to ban all Email going from/coming to
Emails starting with "putin666", like putin666@protonmail.com,
puting666@gmail.com, puting666@example.com, any email coming from an email
staring with "putin666".

It's so dumb, oh god. They cannot configure their mail servers, but they have
power to threat ISPs to ban Email for the entire country.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _FSB (Russian FBI) had problems with receiving bomb threats coming from
> Protonmail addresses_

Source?

~~~
PeterZhizhin
The source is in the article, actually. This is the order from FSB that MTS
operator received. They translated this as: “the mass distribution of
obviously false reports of a terrorist act” in January, resulting in “mass
evacuations of schools, administrative buildings and shopping centers.”

Right before the IP addresses list, you can find terms "blackhole", "BGP".

The document has a signature of a head of the FSB center that handles this
types of requests and orders. Also, you can see a stamp in the right bottom
corner on the first page.

Full story, how a Russian internet company has actually found out about
blackholing can be found here (in Russian):
[https://habr.com/ru/company/tm/blog/443222/](https://habr.com/ru/company/tm/blog/443222/)
In the story, you can find that MTS confirmed that they are blocking traffic
and referenced the order in the original article.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
If the CIA said “we got bomb threats from Tor so we need to block it,” I
wouldn’t believe it. This source appears to have a similar level of
corroboration. It looks far more likely that ProtonMail is being blocked to
perpetuate the Russian elites’ control of Russia’s polity and economy. Not for
security reasons.

~~~
ymolodtsov
The sad truth that it isn't. The most of the services they blocked were chosen
for some insignificant reasons. This is what happens when you have a ruined
system where every district judge can order to ban Youtube.

------
vogre
In Russia there is an anonymous network of political Telegram channels which
is read by both citizens and elite. The largest one, @russica2 acquire its
information using protonmail. Looks like these measures are taken to restrict
russian officials to send their information to these accounts.

~~~
SUr3na
They can still encrypt their emails in many other ways Just like people did
before protonmail existed.

~~~
tracker1
Or, since they can still access the web interface, they can still send to
addresses/servers not in russia.

------
SUr3na
I switched to protonmail after losing my gmail password.It was literally
impossible to get my account back thanks to gmail "security features". The
500mb free plan is enough for personal usage. I hope other 3rd world countries
don't block it following Russia.interestingly this happened not long after EU
€2 million award.Probably someone read the news and googled protonmail, saw
"encrypted email" in Wikipedia page and decided to block the whole thing.

~~~
pmlnr
Own domain. That's the most important part of email. If you have that, you can
move to wherever you want.

~~~
aljarry
It's also the weak point - do you trust your domain provider he won't allow a
domain move / access based on parts of your personal information, like here
[0]?

Also is it only domain block and not ip block?

[0] [https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-
username-...](https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-
username-24eb09e026dd)

~~~
Semaphor
You shouldn't use the almost-scammers of GoDaddy as an example. Whenever I
hear any Domain horror story it's about GoDaddy, it seems like a bad idea to
extrapolate from them.

------
Brain_Thief
IMHO, anyone who claims to care about privacy should seriously consider
throwing down the ~$10 a month (I forget exactly how much it costs) to have a
paid PM account. The company isn't perfect, but it's a far sight better than
the majority of other providers out there. Furthermore, by paying for your
account you are not only directly supporting a service that aspires to provide
communications privacy, you're also helping to subsidize said service for
those users who may not be able to afford a paid account (particularly
important in countries where economic and governmental problems overlap).

I pay for my PM account and have had nothing but good experiences with the
company and service so far (including with the VPN and with the mobile app
before I ditched my iPhone). It took me years to migrate off of Gmail but
since I finally managed to do it I've never looked back. Give it a shot.

~~~
jsjsjsjsjsjs
120/year is way too much for receiving spam. They are overcharging so much its
not even funny.

------
cpursley
In Russia now. Just successfully logged into my protonmail account over VPN.
My guess is that if you're a protonmail user in Russia, you're knowledgeable
enough to use a VPN.

~~~
protonmail
We implemented some technical tweaks yesterday so that Russian users will no
longer have any issues. Communications with Russian mail servers are also back
up.

~~~
cpursley
Super! I can confirm that I can use protonmail without VPN in the glorious
Russian Federation.

------
move-on-by
Maybe this will reduce my spam rate. Also, this has increased my trust in
ProtonMail.

------
nukeop
Protonmail is one of the last sane email providers. Gmail is essentially
spyware and they can block your access to your account on a whim, especially
if you refuse to have a phone number connected to it (phone numbers are
commonly used to link your account across many different websites, that's why
many of them force users to hand over their phone numbers under the guise of
"security" or "2fa").

Protonmail has its problems but I hope they get over them as a company.
Personally, so far I've received nothing but great customer support from them.

~~~
cotelletta
Protonmail has been a huge disappointment personally. It took days of trying
to get my email in over the IMAP bridge, and now it still has weird spazzes
where it will suddenly decide to redownload all my 30k emails, effectively
making all inbound mail wait for over a day while my laptop fans fire at full
speed.

On top of that, the mobile app is atrocious. It crashes at a drop of a hat,
doesn't autosave drafts, and doesn't even do threading. It also makes terrible
use of space, and has a permanent upsell ad in the sidebar, pushing my folders
offscreen. Someone actually approved this design...

I guess for those weirdos who can live with a webmail client it's servicable,
but it's an embarrassment that they've been at it this long, and this is the
state of their offering.

~~~
Sir_Substance
>Protonmail has been a huge disappointment personally. It took days of trying
to get my email in over the IMAP bridge, and now it still has weird spazzes
where it will suddenly decide to redownload all my 30k emails

I've never had this problem, but since you mention the IMAP bridge it's worth
noting that a) the linux version of the bridge is still an on-request beta
rather than a freely available download despite working flawlessly for me for
the last year and a half and b) you can only use the IMAP bridge with
subscribed accounts. So if you're using a free account you can't use it at
all, but if you have a mix of paid and free accounts only the paid accounts
can use the bridge.

I find the bridge pretty nice in and of itself, but the way it's managed and
monetized is a bit of a trainwreck.

------
rmujica
Probably a good time to start using ProtonVPN.

------
dwighttk
Does ProtonMail work in China?

~~~
dguo
Yes. I recently went to China, and I set up forwarding from Gmail to
ProtonMail beforehand.

------
MrXOR
For russians:
[https://protonirockerxow.onion/login](https://protonirockerxow.onion/login)

------
betulaq
ProtonMail is a service I fully support, but these sorts of actions only
underscore the importance of decentralized alternatives to email.

~~~
topranks
Email is decentralized.

The only centralized part is the DNS.

------
wpdev_63
ehh... it's been known for awhile that protonmail is in the pockets of the US
government so it's not really a loss for the russian people.

What they should be using is either Streisand[0] email with a server in a
country that respects their privacy(neitherlands, panama, etc) or lavabit
email[1].

[0]:
[https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand](https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand)
[1]: [https://lavabit.com/](https://lavabit.com/)

EDIT --

Sorry streisand doesn't in fact have an e-mail server. I thought it did at one
point. I guess you can use mail-in-a-box([https://github.com/mail-in-a-
box/mailinabox](https://github.com/mail-in-a-box/mailinabox)).

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _it 's been known for awhile that protonmail is in the pockets of the US
> government_

Source? I thought ProtonMail were Swiss and E2E encrypted.

~~~
brokensegue
They have an SF office

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _they have an SF office_

I didn’t know they had “support centers in San Francisco, CA, and Skopje,
Macedonia” [1]. Thank you.

Still a far cry from proof of being “in the pockets of the US government” [2].
Signal, too, has American nexuses. That doesn’t automatically render it
compromised.

[1] [https://protonmail.com/about](https://protonmail.com/about)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368140)

