RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: PRINCIPLED: Encrypted email service Lavabit linked to Edward Snowden shuts down rather than comply with a government request for information  Fri Aug 09, 2013 1:20 am | |
| An encrypted email service believed to have been used by Edward Snowden has shut down amid a legal fight that appeared to involve US government attempts to win access to customer information.
"I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people, or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit," Lavabit owner Ladar Levison wrote in a letter that was posted on the Texas-based company's website.
Levison said he has decided to "suspend operations" but was barred from discussing the events over the past six weeks that led to his decision.
Advertisement
That matches the period since Snowden went public as the source of media reports detailing secret electronic spying operations by the US National Security Agency.
"This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States," Levison wrote.
The US Department of Justice had no immediate comment.
At a Moscow news conference four weeks ago, a Human Rights Watch representative said she had been contacted by Snowden from a Lavabit email address, according to news website GlobalPost.com.
Use of effective encryption by regular email users is rare. Some of Snowden's leaked documents show that Google, Microsoft and other large providers have been compelled to help intelligence authorities gather email and other data on their users.
The big providers and other companies typically offer encryption but said they co-operate with legal requests, including those by intelligence officials.
'Pretty extraordinary'
Lavabit was something of an outlier, in part because it had said email was encrypted on its servers and could only be accessed with the user's password.
Snowden has been charged with espionage but was granted asylum by Russia, prompting US President Barack Obama to scrap a planned meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Lavabit's statement suggested a gag order was in place, and lawyers said that could accompany any one of a wide range of demands for information. The government could be seeking unencrypted versions of Snowden's email correspondence, other information about him, the technical means to decrypt his future emails or those of other customers, or basic information on all of Lavabit's hundreds of thousands of users.
It is rare and perhaps unprecedented for a legitimate US business to shut down rather than comply with a government request for information, said Kurt Opsahl, an attorney with the Electronic Freedom Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco that is not involved in the case.
"This is a pretty extraordinary thing," Opsahl said. "I'm not aware of another case where a service provider elected to shut down under these kinds of circumstances."
Levison said the company has started preparing the paperwork needed to fight in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Richmond, Virginia. He could not be reached for comment.
"All of this tells us the same lesson: almost nothing we do on the internet can be protected from government prying and spying," said Michael Ratner, a US lawyer who has worked for anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, a Snowden ally. "To talk privately, meetings will need to take place in large parks with plenty of tree cover."
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/security-it/encrypted-email-service-lavabit-linked-to-edward-snowden-shuts-down-20130809-hv1d6.html |
|
CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
Humor : Über Serious
| | Subject: Re: PRINCIPLED: Encrypted email service Lavabit linked to Edward Snowden shuts down rather than comply with a government request for information Fri Aug 09, 2013 3:27 am | |
| FUCK:
Silent Circle follows Lavabit in shuttering encrypted e-mail
Provider of software that encrypts communications says it "sees the writing on the wall," citing Lavabit closure in confirming a decision it had been mulling for weeks.
Silent Circle shuttered its encrypted e-mail service on Thursday, the second such closure in just a few hours in an apparent attempt to avoid government scrutiny that may threaten its customers' privacy.
Silent Circle, which makes software that encrypts phone calls and other communications, announced in a company blog post that it could "see the writing on the wall" and decided it best to shut down its Silent Mail feature. The company said it was inspired by the closure earlier Thursday of Lavabit, another encrypted e-mail service provider that alluded to a possible national security investigation.
"We have not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government, and this is why we are acting now," the company explained in its post. "We'd considered phasing the service out, continuing service for existing customers, and a variety of other things up until today. It is always better to be safe than sorry, and with your safety we decided that the worst decision is always no decision."
The company said it would continue to support its Silent Phone, Silent Text, and its Silent Eyes teleconferencing platform, assuring users it collects no encrypted data or metadata about conversations.
"Silent Mail was a good idea at the time, and that time is past," the company said.
Earlier Thursday, Lavabit, an encrypted e-mail service linked to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, hinted at a U.S. government investigation as the reason for its closure. Ladar Levison, the owner of Lavabit, said he was "forced to make a difficult decision" and that he would like to discuss the circumstances but was prevented from doing so because "Congress has passed laws that say otherwise."
Lavabit, which uses encryption to prevent messages from being read by anyone other the sender or recipient, was the service Snowden allegedly used to send a message to a Human Rights Watch representative in July.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57597726-38/silent-circle-follows-lavabit-in-shuttering-encrypted-e-mail/ |
|
