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How Lavabit Melted Down

newyorker.com

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Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#131

Post by fastball »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #98

> While he opposes the bulk collection of domestic communications, he has no such strong feelings about the N.S.A.’s foreign-surveillance efforts. As a non-American, I have a problem with this seemingly widespread idea even among privacy advocates in the USA that only Americans are entitled to the protection of their rights from the American government.

It's not a "widespread idea"... it's the legal reality. As a non-American, you do not share the rights of US citizens under the constitution. Period. They are the only people entitled to the protection of their rights from the American government, unless your country has signed some sort of treaty with the US government giving you extended rights from the US, which I doubt it has.

Without such an agreement, this is nothing more than international espionage, which is a natural (and arguably necessary) part of having different nations that don't always see eye-to-eye. Do you take issue with spying in all forms, or only the 21st century brand of spying?

Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#132

Post by CamperBob2 »

jedbrown wrote: post #27

News outlets keep repeating "11 pages of 4-point type totaling 2560 characters", which just doesn't match up since that number of characters fits on one page in a fairly normal font size. Also, RSA keys just aren't that big, so the 11 pages must have either been many keys or some other data. As I understand Lavabit's architecture, there is no "master" key. Instead, incoming mail is encrypted using an asymmetric per-u…

I don't understand why, if he was making a principled stand, he would have bothered with the printout in 4-point type. That was sort of a juvenile move, one that could only serve to justify the government's attitude towards him. Weird.

Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#133

Post by anologwintermut »

angersock wrote: post #127
anologwintermut wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless he actually used properly implemented forward secure SSL for every connection, which I doubt all of either his customers browsers or the SMTP servers he talked to supported, didn't his choices actually put his customers in more danger? He could have complied with one of the several valid court orders that requested he give the FBI data on a specific account but stopped short if installing FBI code or devices o…

According to the article, the FBI jumped straight to "give us all the SSL keys for everything", and would not let him to that selective warrant. He rightly observed that those leaked keys would then get into the hands of God-only-knows-who.

The story, as far as I have read from this article and others, was they asked for data(probably with an NSL), he said no. They got a court order. He said no. At some-point he was willing to cooperate, but by that point, they didn't care because they thought he was jerking them around.They then requested the SSL keys. This article is more clear about the exact sequence of events[0], but the the posted one says so as well. The initial request was not for the SSL keys.

From the newyorker article : "On June 10th, the government secured an order from the Eastern District of Virginia. The order, issued under the Stored Communications Act, required Lavabit to turn over to the F.B.I. retrospective information about one account, widely presumed to be that of Snowden. (The name of the target remains redacted, and Levison could not divulge it.) The order directed Lavabit to surrender names and addresses, Internet Protocol and Media Access Control addresses, the volume of each and every data transfer, the duration of every “session,” and the “source and destination” of all communications associated with the account. It also forbade Levison and Lavabit from discussing the matter with anyone. "

Sometime after his initial refusal and then offer to comply with some caveats that the fed's interpreted as stalling:

"Prior to the hearing on July 16th, the U.S. Attorney filed a motion for civil contempt, requesting that Levison be fined a thousand dollars for every day that he refused to comply with the pen-register order. EARLIER IN THE DAY, Hilton issued a search-and-seizure warrant, authorizing law enforcement to seize from Lavabit “all information necessary to decrypt communications sent to or from [the account], including encryption keys and SSL keys,” and “all information necessary to decrypt data stored in or otherwise associated with [the account].” (emphasis mine)

[O]http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/lavabit_unsealed/

Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#134

Post by CamperBob2 »

65_196_127_226 wrote: post #60

The amount of support for Levison and ire toward the government in this case is absurd. The FBI followed the Constitutional process of obtaining a warrant for the information of the "one user". I suspect that the only reason anyone cares about this case is because Lord Snowden the Infallible deigned to grace Lavabit with his email traffic. Would the internet outrage be the same if the targeted user was found out to b…

The FBI followed the Constitutional process of obtaining a warrant for the information of the "one user".

Not a big fan of reading the article, are you? The government's demand was constitutional for one user, and unconstitutional for 399,999 others.

Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#135

Post by tadfisher »

adolph wrote: post #51
andylei wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what really happened is that the court then ordered him to turn over the key on a CD, or continue to face the $5k / day fine. so he eventually did turn over the key on a CD

Was it a bmp file on the CD? I should read the article...

The order was to supply the key in PEM format.

Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#136

Post by michaelt »

betterunix wrote: post #107
smsm42 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't a handwave. It was the best current technology could offer, but this technology was not meant to deal with the oppressive government that can compel any company to reveal any information. As soon as Ladar realized that, and the fact that he is in the jurisdiction of the oppressive government, Lavabit was done.

"It was the best current technology could offer" Sure, if we ignore the existence of things like PGP, S/MIME, smart cards, and the dozens of other ways we can have secure email without relying on some trusted third party like this. "this technology was not meant to deal with the oppressive government that can compel any company to reveal any information" Then it was not meant to deal with the evil hacker who takes co…

  Sure, if we ignore the existence of things like PGP, 
  S/MIME, smart cards, and the dozens of other ways we can 
  have secure email without relying on some trusted third 
  party like this.
As I understand it Snowden was using Lavabit to communicate with journalists who didn't themselves have/use/understand PGP. Lavabit is technology you can use even if no-one else uses it.

How do PGP and S/MIME solve the bootstrapping problem, where no-one uses them because no-one uses them?

Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#137

Post by manish_gill »

betterunix wrote: post #103
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #98

> While he opposes the bulk collection of domestic communications, he has no such strong feelings about the N.S.A.’s foreign-surveillance efforts. As a non-American, I have a problem with this seemingly widespread idea even among privacy advocates in the USA that only Americans are entitled to the protection of their rights from the American government.

To be fair, your government should be working to protect you from foreign threats like this. You should not rely on foreign powers to protect you.

Yep, because our government basically controls the majority of what goes on the Internet, right?

/s

Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#138

Post by tedunangst »

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #120
jerf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is nothing stopping Google, Facebook or Microsoft to act as Lavabit did. Nothing at all except for their own cowardice, malicious intents and disregard for laws and their customers." Emphasis re-arranged by me. May I remind you that Lavabit was shut down in reaction to actions taken by law enforcement , doing something that is almost certainly actually legal? "Regard for the law" here would seem to entail doin…

The Supreme Law of the Land is the Constitution, right? The Fourth Amendment has a few things to say on this. I'd strongly advise you to actually read it -- it's only a few sentences -- and make your own determination on what you think it actually says. The FISC, authorized under the FISA, goes back to the 70's and was in reaction to the crimes that Nixon committed. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Obama has…

? What does fisa have to do with lavabit?

Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#139

Post by tedunangst »

gknoy wrote: post #96
65_196_127_226 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is insider trading a trumped-up charge? I didn't hear the internet outrage about Enron's CFO being indicted for the same charge.

If I recall right, the reason it was considered insider trading was that he had published numbers expecting a contract from the government. When he chose to stand up for principles, the contact never landed, which made those predictions false. I'd appreciate a clearer explanation of this, but last time I read about it, it really did seem like the loss of the contract was out of revenge, and that his prosecution would…

The problem is he dumped the stock after it became clear (to him) they weren't getting the contracts, but before he told anyone else.

Re: How Lavabit Melted Down

#140

Post by andrewcooke »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #53
wyck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Qwest Communications was a public company when they refused to comply with the NSA.

And if I recall correctly their ex-CEO is now in jail on allegedly trumped up charges. If true this is utterly despicable by the government. Alas, I'm not surprised.

he was recently released.
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