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Lavabit Reloaded

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Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#71

Post by BinaryIdiot »

pvg wrote: post #25
codehusker wrote: post #7

Is there any person as trustworthy as Ladar Levison for a service like email or chat? To my knowledge, he is one of the few that has gone to the mat for his users.

A good way to regain and build trust with users would have been to acknowledge his previous mistakes. Then at least you could say "he's been around the block, done it wrong and learned how to do it right". Instead, he writes: "In August 2013, I was forced to make a difficult decision: violate the rights of the American people and my global customers or shut down. I chose Freedom." That isn't what happened. He chose t…

To be fair you have to acknowledge how society is essentially driven through tales of one's bolstered narrative. Many consider us in a "post facts" era given how you can watch almost any politician (some far worse than others) go on live television and say something that is completely untrue but it tells a fantastic story. Elections are won based on being able to sell a narrative.

While I agree with you I think a large amount of people will buy into the narrative of him sticking up for freedom.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#72

Post by HappyTypist »

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…

Adding to the iCloud story, I forgot my security questions and I was able to have the AppleCare agent over the phone reset it for me after talking about what apps I've purchased recently.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#74

Post by amenghra »

FunnyLookinHat wrote: post #38
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…

> > Spam checking on content isn't possible > This is probably your best point. It's definitely harder to do well I think it's possible, just slower and more complex (like search) - and would have to occur upon unlocking your inbox.

You can mostly get rid of spam by requiring the sender to perform a proof of work if they aren't in your contacts list. I.e. whitelist of senders + proof of work or some kind of configurable per domain quota/proof of work.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#75

Post by granda »

HappyTypist wrote: post #72
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…

Adding to the iCloud story, I forgot my security questions and I was able to have the AppleCare agent over the phone reset it for me after talking about what apps I've purchased recently.

I have experience at Apple with Account Security and that's a clear violation of SOP. That's a coaching opportunity for the advisor.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#76

Post by dleslie »

brianpgordon wrote: post #70
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…

> > 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…

> > Encrypted Index

This is not the same as the content.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#77

Post by quanticle »

brianpgordon wrote: post #70
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…

> > 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…

The search doesn't happen on the server. The client (e.g. desktop client) indexes the messages and encrypts the index. Then, when another client (e.g. mobile client) wants to search for a message, it downloads the index, searches it, and then pulls down the appropriate message(s).

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#78

Post by DrJosiah »

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…

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

Not that much slower than email is now. A B+tree index of (for example) 1 gb of total content and index is only about 1-2 gigs in size. You could just store that shit on your phone encrypted. Or 1-5 megs of index on your phone, with 2 round-trips for any email/first page search result per word.

> 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 ?

Overall yes, re-encryption is necessary. But that can be a batch process done while your phone is charging and on wifi over night. Is a drawback, but re-keying always is. But just because you got to change the keys every once in a while, doesn't mean you toss the locks.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#79

Post by KirinDave »

kobeya wrote: post #57
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…

This is all ridiculous. Download, index, and process your mail locally. Problem solved.

If we had more systems capable of resisting a local search and seizure this might be the case but as it stands almost none do.

Re: Lavabit Reloaded

#80

Post by KirinDave »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #71
pvg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good way to regain and build trust with users would have been to acknowledge his previous mistakes. Then at least you could say "he's been around the block, done it wrong and learned how to do it right". Instead, he writes: "In August 2013, I was forced to make a difficult decision: violate the rights of the American people and my global customers or shut down. I chose Freedom." That isn't what happened. He chose t…

To be fair you have to acknowledge how society is essentially driven through tales of one's bolstered narrative. Many consider us in a "post facts" era given how you can watch almost any politician (some far worse than others) go on live television and say something that is completely untrue but it tells a fantastic story. Elections are won based on being able to sell a narrative. While I agree with you I think a lar…

The extent to which these narratives work is proportional to how much we accept them. No one can stop him from telling lies but we can make sure people know they're lies.
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