Encrypted Email Service Tuta Denies It's a 'Honeypot' for Five Eyes Intelligence
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https://gizmodo.com/tuta-email-denies-connection-to-intelligence-services-1851022465
There are only a handful of trusted end-to-end encrypted email providers. Of those, Tuta (which has long been known as "Tutanota" but recently rebranded ) is one of the more well-known. This week, the company found itself on the defensive after being labeled a "front" for law enforcement and intelligence services. In an attempt to clear its name, the company released a statement denying that it's a honeypot operation, after a former, highly placed Canadian intelligence official alleged in court that was the case.
The cop in question, Cameron Ortis, formerly ran a "highly secret unit" within the Royal Canadian Mountain Police, but is now on trial for allegedly having attempted to sell government intelligence to criminals, CBC reports.
Ortis has denied that he was actually attempting to sell state secrets. In his testimony, which was made public this week, Ortis instead said that he was involved in a special operation. As part of that operation, agents used Tuta, which he described as a "storefront"-or a kind of honeypot-to lure in prospective criminals for surveillance, he said. CBC describes the former government official's allegations like this:
...according to Ortis, [another agent] briefed him about a "storefront" that was being created to attract criminal targets to an online encryption service. A storefront, said Ortis, is a fake business or entity, either online or bricks-and-mortar, set up by police or intelligence agencies. The plan, he said, was to have criminals use the storefront - an online end-to-end encryption service called Tutanota - to allow authorities to collect intelligence about them.
"So if targets begin to use that service, the agency that's collecting that information would be able to feed it back, that information, into the Five Eyes system, and then back into the RCMP," Ortis claimed, in reference to the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, of which Canada is a prominent member. Ortis has claimed that some unnamed Five Eyes foreign agent introduced him to the honeypot operation and that he didn't notify his superiors at the RCMP about it. Follow-up questions about the whole thing have mostly led him to say things like "I don't recall," and "that's something I can't talk about."
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