Maunagarjana
8th August 2013, 19:58
I had become interested in an e-mail service called Lavabit, once I had read this article that said that Edward Snowden used Lavabit in order to have secured private correspondances.
http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-lavabit-edward-snowdens-email-2013-7
It seemed promising, as all it took was $8 a year for an enhanced account and $16 dollars a year for a premium account, and you would get awesome asymmetric encryption on your e-mails that only could be read by someone with your passphrase.
But yesterday, Lavabit stopped working. They initially had a notice on there that they were doing updates to the site. My initial thought was, "Hmm, is the NSA giving them problems?" Turns out that is exactly what was going on. This is what was posted on their site today.
https://lavabit.com/
My Fellow Users,
I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.
What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.
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.
Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC
Defending the constitution is expensive! Help us by donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7BCR4A5W9PNN4).
Anyway, you can imagine what was going on behind the scenes. But it's just sad, although not all that surprising. If anyone knows of a better, private/encrypted service (preferably not based on US soil), let me know.
And yes, I know that using Lavabit would not guarantee me complete privacy anyway, but it would at least be a bit better than the Gmail account I was using.
http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-lavabit-edward-snowdens-email-2013-7
It seemed promising, as all it took was $8 a year for an enhanced account and $16 dollars a year for a premium account, and you would get awesome asymmetric encryption on your e-mails that only could be read by someone with your passphrase.
But yesterday, Lavabit stopped working. They initially had a notice on there that they were doing updates to the site. My initial thought was, "Hmm, is the NSA giving them problems?" Turns out that is exactly what was going on. This is what was posted on their site today.
https://lavabit.com/
My Fellow Users,
I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.
What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.
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.
Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC
Defending the constitution is expensive! Help us by donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7BCR4A5W9PNN4).
Anyway, you can imagine what was going on behind the scenes. But it's just sad, although not all that surprising. If anyone knows of a better, private/encrypted service (preferably not based on US soil), let me know.
And yes, I know that using Lavabit would not guarantee me complete privacy anyway, but it would at least be a bit better than the Gmail account I was using.