291–300 of 671 posts
> 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. Anyone know what happens if he just says "F it" and writes a massive blog post on what exactly happened or what exactly they said to him?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are multiple overreaches. In this case the government is probably trying to pull a hushmail: getting the service provider to install spying equipment targeted at their users, and then sharing the spy data with the government. 1. The government should not be able to force this kind of spy equipment to be installed. 2. If we had good privacy laws it would be illegal for the company to even willingly share this da…
I think the trick here is that lavabit can't share data even with a warrant. Their inability to do so is pretty much their entire business model. That protects people from unwarranted intrusions, but it also insulates people from legitimate investigation. If they build a backdoor for only duly authorized warrants, they are no more or less obligated to comply with an NSL.
But some people do strongly believe in throwing out the whole bathtub if that's what it takes to keep the data safe, and to those people I will certainly tip my hat, even if I disagree myself.
I really would want to donate to them. But you know I kind of feel weary now connecting my PayPal Account with them. I hope some kind of organisation is standing up for them. Like EFF or something. Not because I don't trust them. But because I don't trust the NSA. They might flag me as a terrorist or something. Then again I'm probably already on this list for having some technical involvment with something the US gov…
If you're so easily intimidated why do you still post comments about the NSA on the internet?
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Don't choose Germany. We may have strict privacy laws here, but we also have the BND cooperating with the NSA, tapping directly into the main internet nodes (Frankfurt). And don't forget that part of the method of the NSA is to use a mule inside the target company, which would be very easy in Germany given its status of being a wannabe ally of the USA and the longstanding sympathy of the german public for the USA. An…
"And Germany has also laws which force every mail provider to install an access point to the German authorities and intelligence agencies. I am not sure if also a generic saas platform would have to do it, but it is quite possible." Thanks for the heads up - as I said in the OP, it really is a difficult task. Those kind of laws are exactly what need to be avoided when choosing a country to host in. I don't believe th…
So.... what should we use now?
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Accountability and culture. German intelligence services are "weaker" in the sense that they (seemlingly) still are under the control of the legislative body (secret contracts with the Western Allies sadly nonwithstanding). They are also regarded with deep distrust by large parts of the populace and by a significant segment of the legislature. It is quite possbible that, come September, some of the government parties…
>Accountability and culture The culture that brought us the SS and the Stasi.
Current German culture is equivalent to German culture under the Third Reich? Really?
Is current American culture equivalent to early-through-mid 19th century American culture? Should we discount everything the USA does because you once kept/traded/abused black people as property? Then continued to legislate such thinking via Jim Crow well into the 20th century?
Now that I look, I notice your post history is littered with anti-German racism rooted in complete historical ignorance. I'm wondering what your angle is.
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Well, he may not have been able to hand over the old data, but he may have been asked to include an exploit for all mail going forward. That could have been as simple as the authorities inserting some middleware.
This actually did happen with hushmail. It's hosted in Canada, but the US leaned on them hard enough that they ended up backdooring the client to let the feds snoop on the targeted user.
Not that defend Hushmail. I do not, fuck 'em for that. There are plenty of services like Lavabit that avoid that problem, but that requires intelligent users/criminals/what-have-you.
What really have we come to?
Reminds me of Nazis Germany, except replace communist and socialist with Free Thinkers, The Innovators.
First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
I really don't want to use gmail or hotmail, so what other service can I use? Ugh. It might be time to get back to the roots and invest more time and effort in decentralized services instead of relying on centralized services.