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Lavabit Reloaded

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Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#61

Post by EdHominem »

mtgx wrote: post #37
unknownsavage wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want encryption, don't use email. That's total nonsense. > Search isn't possible It absolutely is, in both theory and practice. The server stores an encrypted index, and the client walks it (requesting parts as needed). It's going to little slower, and a lot more complex but it's doable. > If you lose your private key, we can't recover your email This is a damn feature. I had my icloud account social enginee…

Also search that only uses email titles is still at least 70% as useful as full title+body search. So I wouldn't count this as such a terrible non-feature of e2e encrypted email.

Only if you leave juicy content in the unencrytped subject.

Also, "What? subjects and recipients are unencrypted!?" -- Every User Ever

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#62

Post by Spone »

pvg wrote: post #45
ycmbntrthrwaway wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The completely pointless escalation forced him to compromise all of his users How has he compromised all of his users? The service was shut down and emails kept encrypted. Am I missing something?

He gave up the cert, there was no PFS-only configuration, plus, presumably the FBI got to do their surveillance except instead of the target's email, they could read everyone's. So no, you are not right.

Do you have a source for these claims?

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#63

Post by pvg »

ycmbntrthrwaway wrote: post #60
pvg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did it protect email contents from the FBI? They got warrants and got the emails.

Well, if you have not logged in since they started recording traffic and until shutdown, chances are your password is not compromised and emails are still encrypted. But no way to be sure.

Before the thing with Snowden and the cert, Lavabit simply complied with warrants, which they could since they could read everyone's email. Fundamentally, Lavabit was not in any way different than Gmail.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#64

Post by cuckcuckspruce »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #42

So they're using a HSM to protect the SSL key this time. Makes me wonder how many HSMs out there are already backdoored.

My mind tells me that it's not a large amount, but given that the USG has a track record of intercepting routers in the mail and installing surveillance software in them, my guts tell me to be very wary.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#65

Post by bigbrooklyn »

unknownsavage wrote: post #35
bigbrooklyn wrote: post #15

If you NEED encryption, don't use email. From: https://blog.fastmail.com/2016/12/10/why-we-dont-offer-pgp/ What's the tradeoff? If the server doesn't have access to the content of emails, then it reverts to a featureless blob store: Search isn't possible Previews can't be calculated If you lose your private key, we can't recover your email Spam checking on content isn't possible To access mail on multiple devices, th…

> If you want encryption, don't use email. That's total nonsense. > Search isn't possible It absolutely is, in both theory and practice. The server stores an encrypted index, and the client walks it (requesting parts as needed). It's going to little slower, and a lot more complex but it's doable. > If you lose your private key, we can't recover your email This is a damn feature. I had my icloud account social enginee…

These are just minor problems. End to end encryption should not be forced upon users, but should be used selectively. You don't want to lose your entire inbox because you wanted to send a few encrypted emails.

> The server stores an encrypted index, and the client walks it (requesting parts as needed). It's going to little slower, and a lot more complex but it's doable.

How slow would this be with thousands of emails on a mobile device ?

> This is a damn feature. I had my icloud account social engineered (someone walked into an apple store claiming to be me and they couldn't get their iphone syncing to "their account"). I'll never again trust another company with my private stuff.

Most email providers don't have retail stores where this type of attack can happen.

> This is a non-issue. It can easily be derived from a password

What happens if this password got into the wrong hands or even lost? Is it possible to change? Must I re-encrypt every single email ?

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#66

Post by MichaelGG »

Last I looked, DIME was just org level trust. That is, your domain determines what level of verification you get as far as knowing you have the right key for the recipient.

So if you used, say Gmail and they did DIME, you'd still be trusting them totally. Am I misunderstanding?

And still no admitting he was selling a fundamentally critically flawed service in the first place. If that's not even being mentioned, it really removes confidence from their new service.

As far as hardware HSM, that's cool. I very much enjoyed reading about how an HSM, the Luna CA3, was cracked:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mkb23/research/Unwrapping-the-Chrys...

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#67

Post by sulam »

bigbrooklyn wrote: post #65
unknownsavage wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want encryption, don't use email. That's total nonsense. > Search isn't possible It absolutely is, in both theory and practice. The server stores an encrypted index, and the client walks it (requesting parts as needed). It's going to little slower, and a lot more complex but it's doable. > If you lose your private key, we can't recover your email This is a damn feature. I had my icloud account social enginee…

These are just minor problems. End to end encryption should not be forced upon users, but should be used selectively. You don't want to lose your entire inbox because you wanted to send a few encrypted emails. > The server stores an encrypted index, and the client walks it (requesting parts as needed). It's going to little slower, and a lot more complex but it's doable. How slow would this be with thousands of emails…

> Most email providers don't have retail stores

Lots do, though, and the ones that don't often offer customer support over the phone. And anyway, social engineering doesn't only happen in stores or when talking to CS.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#68

Post by eternalvision »

unknownsavage wrote: post #35
bigbrooklyn wrote: post #15

If you NEED encryption, don't use email. From: https://blog.fastmail.com/2016/12/10/why-we-dont-offer-pgp/ What's the tradeoff? If the server doesn't have access to the content of emails, then it reverts to a featureless blob store: Search isn't possible Previews can't be calculated If you lose your private key, we can't recover your email Spam checking on content isn't possible To access mail on multiple devices, th…

> If you want encryption, don't use email. That's total nonsense. > Search isn't possible It absolutely is, in both theory and practice. The server stores an encrypted index, and the client walks it (requesting parts as needed). It's going to little slower, and a lot more complex but it's doable. > If you lose your private key, we can't recover your email This is a damn feature. I had my icloud account social enginee…

Regarding Apple and security, their policy via AppleCare seems to be to ASK (over the phone, for instance) for your cleartext computer administrator password before you send in your laptop for repair, without any warning whatsoever of the implications.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#69

Post by ctrl_freak »

Spone wrote: post #62
pvg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He gave up the cert, there was no PFS-only configuration, plus, presumably the FBI got to do their surveillance except instead of the target's email, they could read everyone's. So no, you are not right.

Do you have a source for these claims?

From what I read, he gave up the SSL cert by printing out a hard copy in a tiny font, and when he was ordered to provide a digital copy, he shut down the service.

> At approximately 1:30 p.m. CDT on August 2, 2013, Mr. Levison gave the F.B.I. a printout of what he represented to be the encryption keys needed to operate the pen register. This printout, in what appears to be four-point type, consists of eleven pages of largely illegible characters.

And:

> On August 8th, rather than turning over the master key, Levison shut down Lavabit.

That was according to this article from the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-lavabit-melted-do...

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#70

Post by brianpgordon »

unknownsavage wrote: post #35
bigbrooklyn wrote: post #15

If you NEED encryption, don't use email. From: https://blog.fastmail.com/2016/12/10/why-we-dont-offer-pgp/ What's the tradeoff? If the server doesn't have access to the content of emails, then it reverts to a featureless blob store: Search isn't possible Previews can't be calculated If you lose your private key, we can't recover your email Spam checking on content isn't possible To access mail on multiple devices, th…

> If you want encryption, don't use email. That's total nonsense. > Search isn't possible It absolutely is, in both theory and practice. The server stores an encrypted index, and the client walks it (requesting parts as needed). It's going to little slower, and a lot more complex but it's doable. > If you lose your private key, we can't recover your email This is a damn feature. I had my icloud account social enginee…

> > Search isn't possible

> It absolutely is, in both theory and practice. The server stores an encrypted index, and the client walks it (requesting parts as needed). It's going to little slower, and a lot more complex but it's doable.

Are you suggesting that to search your mailbox, the client should download every single encrypted message in the entire mailbox and decrypt them all locally to search them?

If not, how does the server get this "encrypted index" without having your private key?

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