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Lavabit abruptly shuts down

lavabit.com

511–520 of 671 posts

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#511

When the FUCK did we become a nation that starts shutting things down that don't comply with the government? 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. T…

> When the FUCK did we become a nation that starts shutting things down that don't comply with the government?

This is not new. When a company doesn't comply with fire code, the business is shut down. When a company doesn't comply with law enforcement, it's shut down. This is the case when the law is just or not (until the courts rule it unjust, best case.)

But to your actual point: we've been a nation that enslaved an entire race, locked up another one because of war, genocided yet another, banned speech against the government, ruined careers of famous scientists and actors because of political affiliations, passed laws against sex acts, shot water cannons and unleashed dogs at protesters, shot others, tore up the shanty towns of veterans, trained our soldiers to be racist so they'd be more effective, classified encryption as munitions, and on and on and on and on.

This NSA crap is infuriating, but pretending that we've suddenly turned into Nazi Germany (and conveniently ignoring our history, such as J. Edgar Hoover,) turns a complete blind eye to the fact that we've dealt with this before. We need to tell our representatives that this is not okay -- not hyperbolize it.

Also, and most importantly, quoting things from the Holocaust is absolutely disrespectful to the survivors of the Holocaust and the millions who died. Not only is that poem diluted by it being towed out whenever a government does something that someone doesn't like, but your argument is better served by coming up with something original.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#513
Wired says "Court records show that, in June, Lavabit complied with a routine search warrant targeting a child pornography suspect in a federal case in Maryland. That suggests that Levison isn’t a privacy absolutist."

Can anyone find me a primary source on this document? It is from http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/lavabit-snowden/

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#514
post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so no matter how good encryption gets, government will simply ratchet up the penalties; financial and/or prison time; to keep pace. we simply can be guilty hiding the nothing we have to hide

Don't be so bleak. If you're going to do something that will get the attention of any government, here's a simple rule to follow. Don't use 3rd parties. And if you must, do it in a way that can never be traced back to you in the "real world". It isn't hard and it isn't even illegal. http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Invisible-Protect-Children/dp/1...

[deleted]

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Participates" is the wrong characterisation, they are under the jurisdiction of FISA orders, if the NSA wants to call that PRISM, it's their business. Also worth mentioning is that providers in non-US countries are subject to their respective country's surveillance efforts, so either way it's a red herring argument.

"Participates" is a perfectly acceptable word for silently complying with a law. Especially for an international company that could have changed jurisdiction of the relevant servers.

"Participates" is not at all an acceptable word for actions taken under duress, and for an international company, changing jurisdiction of the relevant servers would have made no difference whatsoever. As long as your flesh-and-blood body is located in the US, or in a country that chooses to enforce US law in such matters (or will ever be so located in the future, even for a stopover on an international flight), your servers could be on the moon for all it matters; you still have to obey the government.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#516
Would it be naive for me to ask if the private key can also be encrypted?

User logs in, password is used to decrypt the private key which is used to decrypt the emails.

I guess this method would mean that the password is not stored as such. Perhaps there is a method of encryption that you could use that generates different sentence structures and word choices instead of obfuscation. So even if a user tried to bruteforce the login, they would always get a message back in the language it was written with no idea if it was the correct message unless they demand the password from the user.

Therefore, all the 'keys' can be handed over but it's all meaningless.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#518
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The political backlash attached to slapping an NSL on "Snowden's email provider" would have looked obvious to a 5-year-old, and any real player worth its salt would have run from Lavabit as soon as it hit the news. No, this has nothing to do with common criminals and everything to do with Snowden.

NSL's come with a gag order. There wouldn't have been any backlash as no one would have known about it. He shut it down because that was the only way to legally prevent the government from spying on his users.

Somebody running a service like Lavabit woild be a very motivated individual, civil disobedience was a real risk.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#519
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nails are already in the coffin for US internet behemoths. Any non-NSA cooperating country has strong interests in keeping their search engines, social networks, and cloud software internal to their country. Google, Microsoft, and Facebook basically have had billions of dollars shaved off of their future market capitalization -- though I have not seen anyone say this yet. For everyone abroad who is technically ad…

Agreed. The nails are in for the current system, but that is not The System, just one of many potential ones. If you are non-US citizen and your customers request a product similar to US product please do exactly as AJ007 says. It will help you, the world, and the US long term. I say this as US citizen and SW dev. Please take our jobs and customers! We don't deserve those customers if we can't protect them and their…

Caveat: If you are planning to follow the above advice, and you think your country will not enforce the wishes of the US government on such matters, check that assumption carefully before you bet your fortune and your life on it.

Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down

#520

This is infuriating, and the worst part is that a clear solution isn't in sight. Sure, we can fight this in the courts, and a few secret programs might get shut down, but operations will just continue under a different name. We can encrypt our data, move our services and data offshore, but that just paints a big target on our heads - doesn't actually address the fundamental issue. This is supposed to be a democracy,…

I have a theory that actually They don't care about surveillance, They don't care about a few measly terrorists or dissenters. It's all about the massive federal money to implement these surveillance systems. They are just doing their jobs because its profitable. It's the new Military Industrial Complex. War is profitable. So we have to disrupt and eradicate that as an incentive. Encryption and political solutions ar…

Dont forget the political power all this information gives to whoever is in charge at the white house..

even if you guys do manage to elect a guy sensitive to privacy.. in the minute he see all the information provided to him about all his adversaries.. and all the other players around the world.. this guy will be converted instantly to the mass data surveilance state "cult"

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