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Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

silentcircle.wordpress.com

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Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#83
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hobbes Mail makes no sense; either you're in the condition of the war of all against all (no thanks) or you've surrendered everything to a single sovereign (no thanks).

>or you've surrendered everything to a single sovereign Well, Bruce Schneier has argued that that's what security is becoming today: feudal ( https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht... ). If you wanted to, you could instead call most if not all currently existing email services "Hobbes mail".

Yes, but it would seem that a system like this is intended to work counter that, by keeping your communications secure from all.

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#84
post #73
post #56

To everyone complaining about the name: it is just the name of the advocacy/development group. You don't call SMTP mail 'IETF mail', nor should you call call whatever they come up "dark mail alliance mail".

"Well, Bob, as your viewers may know, 'Smith Mail' came out of a group that calls themselves 'The Dark Mail Alliance'. This is a group of anti-government hackers that..."

"... keep their software in a so called 'subversion' repository, clearly for nefarious ends."

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#85
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree, I really think you should change the name. Some suggestions: - Locke Mail [from John Locke] - Mill Mail [from John Stuart Mill] - Hobbes Mail - Liberty Mail

Hobbes Mail makes no sense; either you're in the condition of the war of all against all (no thanks) or you've surrendered everything to a single sovereign (no thanks).

Haha, a valid point! :) I wasn't thinking of Leviathan, rather some of his thoughts on liberalism[1]. The right of the individual, that political power should represent the people etc.

[1] Liberalism in it's classic and original sense (not the skewed meaning that it somehow has gotten here in the US).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United...

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#86
post #60

I appreciate the cheekiness of calling it the "Dark Mail Alliance", but from a purely PR perspective, it would make sense to reconsider your name if you are taking the position that encrypted end-to-end email is not solely an interest of those pursuing shady or deviant activities.

I think it implies "hidden". As in "Dark Matter" or not having light shone on your work. I didn't think of it as "the Dark Side" or anything.

I am willing to bet you are in the minority though. :)

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#87

I appreciate the cheekiness of calling it the "Dark Mail Alliance", but from a purely PR perspective, it would make sense to reconsider your name if you are taking the position that encrypted end-to-end email is not solely an interest of those pursuing shady or deviant activities.

Came to say the exact same thing, I can't upvote this enough. It makes it sound negative, similar to the phrase "black hat".

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#88

Has anyone actually confirmed that Ladar Levison is behind this?

Here he is on video discussing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgV_Z6V_llk

I guess I wasn't actually there in person to witness it so I can't confirm he wasn't one of those Tupac holograms[1].

1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGbrFmPBV0Y

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#89

I appreciate the cheekiness of calling it the "Dark Mail Alliance", but from a purely PR perspective, it would make sense to reconsider your name if you are taking the position that encrypted end-to-end email is not solely an interest of those pursuing shady or deviant activities.

I totally agree, I really think you should change the name. Some suggestions: - Locke Mail [from John Locke] - Mill Mail [from John Stuart Mill] - Hobbes Mail - Liberty Mail

Freedom \ Liberty \ Patriot \ Constitution Mail would be very effective in blocking political speeches and biased headlines from cheap attacks. My personal favorite is Lincoln Mail... Seems highly appropriate on many levels and should be FOX News proof.

Re: Announcing The Dark Mail Alliance – Founded by Silent Circle and Lavabit

#90
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you go through the trouble of reinventing email to provide proper security, you should also solve the spam problem as part of the protocol. It would be great if the recipient could specify the amount of proof of work required for example. Or ask for a certain amount of bitcoin in exchange for accepting promotional material. Or a mail attribute that indicates it's a newsletter. Lots of interesting possibilities.

> you should also solve the spam problem as part of the protocol. I disagree. Different problems sometimes require mutually exclusive solutions. In fact, receiving lots of unsolicited mail provides some plausible deniability. So a spam free-for-all might actually be a useful part of the new network.

Or you know, renders the system completely worthless because no one can sort through that much spam.

Which also makes it completely trivial to DDoS into oblivion. And the problem gets worse then that: the more anonymous it is, the less it's possible to stop someone from spamming.

Though I suppose you could attack this problem from the email address side: make it computationally expensive to general an email address, to make address-hopping as a spammer more difficult.

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