Likely law enforcement found out about it being used to distribute illegal content and then applied pressure. Companies don’t have a strong history of successfully resisting that pressure.
law enforcement is so bass-ackward on privacy/security tools
Of course, if a hammer is for sale, some will use it to build houses and a subset will use it to hurt people. Just because something can possibly be bad doesn't mean we shouldn't have it
But if law enforcement’s data suggests to Mozilla that something like 60%+ of Send’s uses are for malicious purposes, what benefit do they have in continuing to make it available?
I’m all for privacy, but I wouldn’t support my tool being used predominantly for criminal activity, no matter how good I feel about it as a security/privacy tool.
Take down requests for DMCA and/or LEO for CSAM. Even though it is impossible for the server operator to know that material is on the server, the URLs + decryption passwords are shared with someone or a group -- if that is discovered by law enforcement or rights holders, they will issue takedowns.
It's not uncommon for forums to share links to resources, along with the password to decrypt them. And FF Send had a nice API for uploading material. It'd be an afternoon coding project to build a tool to re-upload material every 7 days, and update forum posts automatically so it could be available long term, beyond the max expiration time for anonymous uploads.
I just discovered this TH feature the other day when attaching a file to a mail but it looks like it works with plugins now, so you can use different providers.
Actually I came here to ask if Gokapi works with that Thunderbird feature.
Overall Thunderbird seem to be doing white well from themselves since rejoining Mozilla: >$8m in donations last year I think.