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Lavabit abruptly shuts down

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Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#501

Post by prawn »

rayiner wrote: post #352
unimpressive wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you'd probably prefer people stay in the US, but would you like to make a recommendation for our viewers at home looking to get away?

Where are you going to go? People playing up third world countries don't know shit. The day-to-day corruption in nearly every such country is so bad that after awhile you'd rather have someone reading your e-mail but otherwise leaving you alone. And let me tell you from first hand experience--it is soul sucking to live in a country like that where you're constantly surrounded by people living on the edge of subsisten…

The Australian internet wall is a virtual non-issue compared to the US spy bases here and that we're essentially a lap dog for the US.

Scandinavia. Maybe Slovenia? New Zealand? Slim pickings.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#502

Post by infinii »

laureny wrote: post #383

Doesn't the fact that Snowden was using Lavabit lend credence to the allegation that he has been leaking information? If you're just a regular joe who, one day, realizes that what he's working on is bad for the public and decides to release it to the public, surely you have had no reason to use an encrypted email service before this realization dawned on you.

Are you implying there is debate on whether he "leaked" info? It's obvious he did. The real issue is that he revealed what the NSA was doing.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#503

Post by ck2 »

diminoten wrote: post #141
ihsw wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He may not have been in charge of anything for four years, but it would be nice to see General Alexander condemning such specious reasoning and fear-mongering.

It'd be nice to see Obama pardon Snowden, too.

Pretty sure we are going to be into at least two or three presidents trying to hang Snowden from the flagpole. They will never pardon him because of their fear of the next sysadmin exposing crimes of the state.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#504

Post by vincentstorme »

vincentstorme wrote: post #113
Glyptodon wrote: post #77

I've had a lavabit email as one of my main emails for years (close to when they first started) and this is a major inconvenience. I'm not sure I'll be able to change the email address associated with a lot of my various accounts now that they're offline.

I'm in the same boat. Anyone know of other services similar to Lavabit?

Switched to runbox: https://runbox.com/

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#505

Post by dsuth »

jlgreco wrote: post #258
photorized wrote: post #151

Host in Russia. You all saw how the Snowden issue was handled. Just don't do anything that would attract FSB's attention.

Snowden isn't a general purpose tool. As far as Russia is concerned, he presents no threat to them; it's not like they are going to let him pursue a career in the FSB. This service however is a general purpose tool. It would attract the attention of the FSB immediately.

Exactly. A lot of the fallout from this seems to be revolving around the idea of getting a service in 'not the USA'. Never mind the fact that: a) The US has been shown to actively compromise targets in their ally's jurisdictions and then share that information. We can assume allies are doing similar. b) Countries not allied to the US are not necessarily your friends either.

Odd times, when the data havens proposed by Neal Stephenson in his sci-fi books start to look more and more important... to the citizens of (supposedly) the most freedom-loving country in the world.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#506

Post by icelancer »

rayiner wrote: post #352
unimpressive wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you'd probably prefer people stay in the US, but would you like to make a recommendation for our viewers at home looking to get away?

Where are you going to go? People playing up third world countries don't know shit. The day-to-day corruption in nearly every such country is so bad that after awhile you'd rather have someone reading your e-mail but otherwise leaving you alone. And let me tell you from first hand experience--it is soul sucking to live in a country like that where you're constantly surrounded by people living on the edge of subsisten…

> That leaves the Scandinavian countries, I suppose, but I have a hard time seeing a lot of libertarian-minded people fleeing the U.S. for that collectivist utopia.

As a pragmatic libertarian, I am willing to pay many more dollars in taxes to provide services I don't agree with so long as little to none of my tax dollars go towards bombing brown people and spying on citizens.

Some things are worth compromising over.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#507

Post by MagicWishMonkey »

raganwald wrote: post #27
lmkg wrote: post #15

For the unfamiliar: Lavabit was a webmail service, that (claimed to) encrypt emails in such a way that they literally did not have access to the content stored on their own servers. The linked email would lend some credence to those claims. It was originally designed in contrast to gmail scanning your email for targeted advertising, but my imperfect memory says that their system should also have been resilient to "we…

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.

The feds wanted to install a prism device on his network, not sure if he shut everything down to prevent that from happening or if there are other factors at play.

The guy who runs the service is one of my best friends. He's the kind of guy who would burn the server farm to the ground before he did something that violated the terms dictated in his privacy policy.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#508

Post by MagicWishMonkey »

onli wrote: post #28
lmkg wrote: post #15

For the unfamiliar: Lavabit was a webmail service, that (claimed to) encrypt emails in such a way that they literally did not have access to the content stored on their own servers. The linked email would lend some credence to those claims. It was originally designed in contrast to gmail scanning your email for targeted advertising, but my imperfect memory says that their system should also have been resilient to "we…

And this reads as if someone was trying to force him to install means to spy on his users, and it wouldn't be surprising if the aim was to spy on Snowden directly (if he really used this service).

That's exactly what happened. He can't afford to continue fighting the feds in court, so he's shutting everything down. His lawyer is expensive and he will go bankrupt if he stays the course.

If anyone can recommend someone who can provide counsel pro-bono let me know and I'll forward the message along.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#509

Post by iamjustin »

guelo wrote: post #183

The US government is destroying one of the few bright spots in the American economy with its out of control military. It is unconscionable. And the sad thing is it has been enabled by the betrayal by many of the web 2.0 giants, Facebook, Google etc. Google especially is sad to see since they were willing to forgo the Chinese market on principle, but then decided that taking on the authoritarian US government was too…

The actions of Lavabit actually caused me to cancel my account with Google Play All Access today (proof: http://i.imgur.com/KbmaBnS.png, if anyone cares), that I've had since day one.

It's not that I didn't know that Google was ok with the spying before, but seeing the difference between the reaction of Lavabit, to the non-reaction from Google -- well THAT gave me the final push to stop doing business with the company.

I really like Google's products. I really like All Access, but I don't think I'll be supporting the company financially anymore.

It probably won't matter much, but it's still something.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#510

Post by javert »

butterbeans wrote: post #434
javert wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is a strong parallel between pre-Nazi Germany and current USA. Of course, Americans will not literally follow Nazi ideology. What we see in America is an increasing merger between industry and government. Finance is the most regulated sector; hence "too big to fail" and all the exploits pulled by big banks. Telecom is almost completely government controlled (through the graning of regulatory monopolies). T…

"Finance is the most regulated sector; hence "too big to fail" and all the exploits pulled by big banks." The problem with finance is that we didn't have the right regulations in place because big banks lobbied to get them taken off the books. Canada's financial industry is heavily regulated and they haven't had a banking crisis in 150 years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a21n_VzHI_o "American Progressive movement o…

> The problem with finance is that we didn't have the right regulations in place because big banks lobbied to get them taken off the books

But they have lobbied to keep all kinds of regulations that they benefit from. A half-regulated industry is likely to be worse than either a fully public or fully private one (especially if we take American insurance/healthcare as an example).

A good example is Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, which were implicitly guaranteeing financially irresponsible mortgages, and various home ownership encouragement policies pushed by the US federal government for decades.

> Progressivism and fascism are on the opposite sides of the political spectrum

They're both fundamentally moved by the idea that we need big government to get to some kind of "better" society, which is anathema to freedom and individual rights. They just disagree about the specifics of that "better" society.

Technically, you're right to call me out, because I shouldn't call the entire thing "Progressive," as that's just a a part of it. The whole intellectual trend actually comes from the anti-Englightenment German philosophers who taught that individuals are unimportant, and only society and duty matter.

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