After a hoax bomb threat was sent via Proton Mail to a school in Chennai, India, police in the state of Tamil Nadu asked the encrypted email service in the region to be blocked because the sender could not be identified. According to Hindustan Times, the request was granted today. From the report: The decision to block Proton Mail was made at a meeting of the 69A Block Committee on Wednesday afternoon. Under Section 69A of the IT Act, the designated personnel shall, with the approval of the IT Secretary and on the recommendations of the Section 69A Blocking Committee, advise intermediaries to block any content in the interest of national security, public order and alliances. or issue orders to government agencies. reason. HT could not confirm whether blocking orders will be issued to Apple and Google to block the Proton Mail app. Although the final order to block the website has not yet been sent to the Ministry of Telecommunications, MeitY has reported the matter to her DoT.
During the meeting, a nodal official representing the Tamil Nadu government submitted that bomb threats were sent to several schools using ProtonMail, HT has learned. Police tried to trace her IP address of the sender, but to no avail. They also tried to seek help from Interpol, but that too failed, police officials said. HT said during the meeting that MeitY representatives said that obtaining information from Proton Mail on other criminal matters, which are not necessarily related to Article 69A-related matters, is a recurring problem. pointed out.
Proton Mail is end-to-end encrypted. This means that the contents of the email cannot be intercepted and can only be seen if both the sender and recipient use her Proton Mail, but its privacy policy states that due to the nature of SMTP, It is stated in The protocol and certain email metadata, such as sender and recipient email addresses, the IP address from which incoming messages originate, attachment names, message subjects, and the times when messages were sent and received, are available to your company. “We condemn the potential block as a misguided measure that will only harm the public. Blocking access to Proton is an ineffective and inappropriate response to the reported threat. It does not prevent cybercriminals from sending threats on another email service and is not effective “if the culprit is located outside India,” Proton Mail said in a statement.
“We are currently working to resolve this situation and are considering how best to work with Indian authorities to do so. We understand the urgency of the situation and our services should not be used for illegal purposes, and we will not allow users who are found to be engaged in such activities and who are willing to cooperate to the extent possible within the scope of international cooperation agreements. Delete regularly.”
