Can we get a list going of non-US alternatives of popular apps most of us use? Let's start with Dropbox. What's the alternative?
What's wrong with rsync or Coda or Intermezzo?
Lavabit abruptly shuts down
641–650 of 671 posts
Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
As Goebbels pointed out, all it takes is the right kind of threat, either real or manufactured ("Think of the children!"), and those "transparency movements" you speak of will fade out more rapidly than the grandparent post.
That doesn't work as well if the culture has been inocculated. How does one do that? Well, I don't know if this is still done today, but when I was in 7th or 8th grade, they (school) drove us, by the busload, to visit a concentration camp. We were shown the lampshades and wallets made of human skin. The place to stand where inmates would be executed during what they thought were medical examinations. And so on and so…
I have to agree. I spent two days in Berlin this week and went to the Holocaust memorial, etc. I was impressed with the way these things are talked about with such openness - to make sure that this stuff never happens again. Also, I've traveled to several european countries and found Germans to be quite open minded regarding race, religion, etc. since I think the past has a lot to do with that. Happy that the german education system and culture appears to have a strong culture of 'learning from mistakes'. Clearly that isn't the case for the US with Vietnam, Afghanistan and now Iraq.
Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down
#643I just don't get it. Why not create and store the encryption keys client side? That way, even Lavabit would not have any keys to hand over. Just like Mega does.
Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down
#644Earlier quoted context omitted.
"It was recommended you do not do that, and use the provided Java applet" Which is equally insecure, as the company could easily insert a back door the next time you load the applet. Hushmail was and is snake oil.
I think Hushmail are pretty up front about being no protection if the person who wants access has a court order. I would not go so far as to say 'snake oil'. From wikipedia: "The issue originally revolved around the use of the non-Java version of the Hush system. It performed the encrypt and decrypt steps on Hush's servers and then used SSL to transmit the data to the user. The data is available as cleartext during t…
"I think Hushmail are pretty up front about being no protection if the person who wants access has a court order"
It is not just about having a court order. The court order is not some kind of secret key that decrypts messages, it is just a way to compel Hushmail to decrypt those messages. Pointing a gun at a sysadmin would work just as well. Paying a sysadmin would also work. Getting a spy to work for Hushmail would also work.
Let's say you are trying to protect the names of activists in China. There is no reason to think that the Chinese government could not find a sympathetic Chinese immigrant / national with an IT background who is willing to pass on some messages every so often. You can imagine other scenarios -- maybe you have highly valuable business secrets, maybe you are running a political campaign, etc.
Snake oil is the right term for Hushmail, because that is what they deliver. The only term that is more polite than snake oil is "key escrow," but why should we be polite here?
Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down
#645Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if there is some historical regularity here. After all, my own country, "Das Land der Dichter und Denker" turned on its "Dichter und Denker" when it was at (or close to) the apex of intellectual achievement.
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…
Also see "Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany" http://www.amazon.com/Three-New-Deals-Reflections-Roosevelts...
hattip: Moldbug
Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down
#646As a user I'm essentially fucked. I can't change emails since the service is shut down... and the money I paid is now gone.
I'm guessing that you will receive some sort of notice on your data.
You should reconsider foreign hosting the next time, this sucks.
Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down
#647Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never suggested that it was feasible for Google to shut down, but that doesn't mean that I have to just accept what they are complicit in. I no longer choose to do business with them. That hardly makes me a deluded moron.
The burden isn't on Google (I'm not sure why you are singling out Google) their hands are tied from a legal and practical standpoints. They receive warrants and subpoenas with which they have to comply to keep doing business, if you don't care for that blame the politician and the legal system, focusing on Google is not only missing the point, it's unfair
I'm only "singling out" Google, because it's something I had paid for online, that I no longer pay for. I don't subscribe to anything else online.
Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down
#648Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If true, you probably shouldn't put these details here (especially mentioning that he's one of your best friends).
I was curious to know, of course, but I'm afraid that this could somehow be used against him later.
Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down
#649Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think canaries are effective. You can't get around a court order just by mental gymnastics, they'll hold you in contempt. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I suspect that they'd simply order you to keep updating the canary.
This would imply that the court can order you to lie to your customers. I think this is not the case. If there is any precedence for any US court requiring public citizen to lie I definitely want to know about it. If the courts are acting like they have this power then it will greatly change my perception of how the courts, NSA, and congress are currently acting.
Well, there is one last piece, and that is the geographically disparate canaries that we maintain.
The question is not "can a US court compel XYZ US citizen to lie", it is "can a US court compel XYZ swiss citizen to lie".
So you should take note, of course, if our warrant canary ceases to update. You should also take note if the US one updates but the swiss (or Hong Kong) one does not ...
This is made easier as a local warrant canary is available to all account holders in their /tmp dir ...
ssh username@rsync.net tail -200 /tmp/canary.txt
Cheers!
Re: Lavabit abruptly shuts down
#650Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have in the past - there are definitely situations where you are required to lie, for example, when working on classified materials or covert operations.
You could choose to take a job where you are required to lie, but no-one can force you to take such a job.
The Military Selective Service Act disagrees with you.