
Mail provider allegedly used by Snowden suspending operations - subsystem
http://72.249.41.52
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plainOldText
I believe donating to their Legal Defense Fund is a sensible thing to do if
you care about your rights. Link: [https://www.paypal.com/cgi-
bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_b...](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-
bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7BCR4A5W9PNN4)

~~~
GigabyteCoin
Sensitive? think you meant sensible?

~~~
bitwize
In French, _sensible_ means both "sensible" and "sensitive".

~~~
GigabyteCoin
Merci pour ca.

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junto
That is crazy. I've recently signed up for an account. How annoying. I hope he
wins his fight.

Talk about slapping down on the little guy.

His choice was a noble one. How many others would walk away from their
business rather than be complicit in crimes of the state against it's own
people? Few I imagine.

~~~
drcube
Funny, I was just told a company could be charged with obstructing justice if
they shut down in the face of NSA requests[1].

I too, obviously, believe Lavabit's choice was noble and to be emulated. If
every company did this, we'd all be vastly better off.

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6104229](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6104229)

~~~
davorak
I asked in the referenced thread for any US precedence of forcing an innocent
to work against their will. I do not know of any.

If the courts, NSA, congress has been forcing innoscents to work against their
will then it will greatly change my view/ understanding of the US government,
the problems faced by the american people and the world.

~~~
VladRussian2
>If the courts, NSA, congress has been forcing innoscents to work against
their will

basic subpoena forces one to provide the required info. With a little bit of a
stretch we can see how a subpoena can be issued for the [future] clear texts
that "your webpage" ( an applet downloaded as part of the web page ) will
"contain" before sending encrypted version back to your server - in short it
means forcing to implement backdoor.

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davorak
> will "contain" before sending encrypted version back to your server - in
> short it means forcing to implement backdoor.

Oh sure, definitely, that seems like that is within the scope of the currently
claimed power. As far as I know though the operator has the option of closing
up shop however and therefore is not being forced to work against their will,
but not a fun choice though.

I am interested in any case law that disallows the operator the option of
shutting down rather then implement a back door or anything similar.

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peterjancelis
So the US government will order you to suspend the privacy of your users,
after which they turn around and intimidate you in not violating their privacy
in what they are doing.

Got it.

~~~
ihsw
American jurisprudence has never been free of bias or prejudice, especially
the Federal government. It's a matter of official policy to arrange for
arbitrary assertion of power.

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sbenfsck
Donate! Ladar is fighting for your rights too.

~~~
plainOldText
Only after seeing your comment I realized there is a link to donate to the
their legal fund.

Thanks.

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WestCoastJustin
Lavabit is totally unknown to me. Did it offer some special security features?
Anyone have any insights?

UPDATE: I'll answer my own question with a google cache of Lavabit's feature
list @
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:A6bRHXt...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:A6bRHXto3b8J:lavabit.com/features.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

~~~
dnskw
More info:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6181081](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6181081)

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clicks
So now we know of one model of e-mail systems that's secure. I hope more
e-mail service startups pop up that use similar techniques of managing
e-mails.

Are there any more like it right now out there?

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themckman
Wow, someone mentioned these guys yesterday in some thread and I went to take
a look. I was pretty interested, however, I noticed that some critical links
were broken (e.g. login and sign up), so I wandered away. I guess I know why
those links were broken...

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malandrew
Can't they just changes jurisdictions? It's not like the US is the only place
to incorporate and host servers.

It's be awesome if we could invent the legal equivalent of a vagrant box for
corporate personhood. How cool would it be if you could easily transfer your
company between countries, choosing the jurisdiction most convenient for the
moment.

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Sonicmouse
If it move overseas, then the gov has 100% rights to store and search your
traffic if you connect to said service.

Everyone overseas are terrorists, after all.

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junto
Other story that links directly to the Lavabit website, rather than
boingboing:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6180846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6180846)

Notably to his IP address rather than the domain itself. Maybe there is an
expectancy that he will have the domain removed by the FBI?

~~~
raganwald
I tried submitting lavabit.com and the server responded by telling me not to
submit spam. Perhaps the domain is blacklisted?

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rdl
Someone really should implement the third party legal notification address cc
which publishes all, and particularly interesting, mail. If your NSL comes in
on a published address ("for quality control and screening purposes"), and
gets published as a matter of routine ops, it is out of your hands, and fuck
them.

~~~
malandrew
It's probably served the same way subpeona's are, in person.

~~~
rdl
I didn't think nonparty federal subpoenas were served in person. It apparently
varies by district.

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orestmayski
So what mail provided should we now be using?..

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DanBC
Use any mail provider, but encrypt all your email.

This has the unfortunate effect of providing plenty of meta data, and a tool
for Them to lock you up until you decrypt your communications.

Or you encrypt the communication and use some form of anonymous remailer,
hoping that these haven't been compromised by Them.

Another disadvantage of both methods is getting more people using good
encryption, and making sure they do so correctly.

