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Why onion with protonmail?

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J.B. Wood

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Oct 10, 2021, 9:11:44 PM10/10/21
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[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10078359/U-S-Navy-engineer-wife-charged-selling-submarine-secrets-smuggling-sandwich.html]

Please look at this sentence: "I will continue to use public WiFi and the
TOR .onion connection to Proton to prevent an adversary from watching TOR
entrance/exit nodes."

Do you know what a "proton" is in that context?
"I suggest a simple code sent through Proton: email me the number of
packages you want at the next drop."

That's from a spy, who used what he called "Proton" on a Mac to establish
communications with what he assumed was an agent of an unnamed country (in
actuality, an FBI agent).

He keeps talking about a "Proton" as in: "My new Proton is actually an old
one I established quietly with a cash only burner phone while on vacation
several years ago. My original contact plan was to give the login details to
you, but I abandoned it as needlessly complicated. So it has been unused
ever since for any purpose except to sign up for a few innocent, randomly
chosen mailing lists to generate regular uninteresting traffic."

Obviously, if this is proton mail (further information in that news report
indicates it probably was) then they are using the onion address for a
reason that seemed good to them.

But what is that reason for the .onion address to proton mail?
What did the .onion address to proton mail gain this spy?
--
J. B. Wood e-mail: arl_1...@hotmail.com

Jeff Liebermann

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Oct 10, 2021, 10:40:35 PM10/10/21
to
On Sun, 10 Oct 2021 20:11:53 -0500, "J.B. Wood"
<arl_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10078359/U-S-Navy-engineer-wife-charged-selling-submarine-secrets-smuggling-sandwich.html]
>
>Please look at this sentence: "I will continue to use public WiFi and the
>TOR .onion connection to Proton to prevent an adversary from watching TOR
>entrance/exit nodes."
>
>Do you know what a "proton" is in that context?
>"I suggest a simple code sent through Proton: email me the number of
>packages you want at the next drop."

Welcome to fixation, where your definition of "Proton" is colored by
your past experience with the word. Instead, I suggest that Proton
has nothing to do with Proton Mail. This sentence from the article:
"My new Proton is actually an old one I established
quietly with a cash only burner phone while on
vacation several years ago."
which suggests to me that Proton is an account on some public free
email system. Try to substitute "xxx account" for "proton", where xxx
can be AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc and see how it fits. For
example, this sentence from the article matches quite well:
"I will continue to use public WiFi and the TOR
.onion connection to Proton to prevent an adversary
from watching TOR entrance/exit nodes."
As to which online email service, it would need to be an online
service that used mobile phone numbers for authentication many years
ago but does not continue to verify the mobile number because Toebbe
switched to email for authentication or removed 2FA authentication
relying on a single login password. Methinks Yahoo or Gmail, from
about 12 years ago, might fit the description, but I'm not sure.

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-toebbe-99507b150/>

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
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