this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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Privacy

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If you're not familiar with the LEGO scandal, the tl;dw is that this YouTuber Reckless Ben (Ben Schneider) has been investigating a stolen set of LEGO worth ~$100-200k (depending on who you ask) and the local police dept and criminal justice system has been colluding with the criminals (all members of the local Mormon church) to get him to STFU. The long version is, very long. You can check his channel for more.

Previously the local police dept managed to get a warrant to raid Ben's rental home with guns drawn and arrest him, based on what is clearly fabricated evidence. Here they appear to have done it again to get access to his Google account.

The linked video is mirrored on Peertube and timestamped to the relevant section.

Ben does also provide a copy of the subpoena in the video but I cannot vouch for its' validity, and he has used placeholder evidence before, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, the part that was relevant to this community was that in the course of their investigation they subpoenaed Google, and Google handed over basically his entire life to them. I'm sure this was very useful in their investigation.

I don't necessarily blame Google here for complying with a subpoena, but the moral of the story is to stop giving Google your data, because everything you say and do can and will be used against you in a court of law, with or without legitimate justification, and the more stuff you give them, the more ammunition you're providing the prosecutor.

This is also not exclusive to Google. Anything not local, self-hosted or encrypted a la Proton can be subpoenaed and the provider will have to comply. It just so happens that Google probably has more information about literally everyone in the world than any other particular entity.

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[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 8 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

I mean, Proton has a long history of quietly complying with subpoenas

I think Hetzner+Tailscale+Nextcloud might be a better solution

[–] Cornballer@lemmy.zip 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Proton doesn’t have anything to hand over except maybe an ip and billing info. That’s why design matters.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

What makes you think a court can't order them to modify the site/client to capture your key and send it home?

[–] aspensmonster@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

What makes you think a court can’t order them to modify the site/client to capture your key and send it home?

There's already precedent for this. The FBI leaned on Lavabit to serve compromised code to Edward Snowden. Lavabit closed up shop instead.

Can read more here, which makes the case that "web-based cryptography is always snake oil": https://www.devever.net/~hl/webcrypto

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 hours ago

I'm pretty sure proton has already gone on record stating that if a court ordered them to start keeping logs for a specific account then they have to comply.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 14 hours ago

Lavabit closed up shop instead.

Surely proton would do the same... /s

You can't trust a corporation to keep your data secure. They can hide it from your ISP at best.

Crypt your stuff with your own keys and store it in places where you own the client. Convenient security is rarely secure

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Hetzner blocks outgoing ports for emails

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 14 hours ago

Not email, storage, nextcloud. If they requested my emails for anything, they'd be horrified how boring they'd be. it's literally just spam