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Encrypted Email Provider Lavabit Shuts Down, Blames US Gov't
clorkster writes to note the following explanation posted to the front page of encrypted email provider Lavabit: "'I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what's going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.' No doubt this has much to do with Snowden's use of the provider."
So it has come to this.
It will be better to purchase from an owner who is a good farmer and a good builder.
I once lived there. I've been a tourist there a couple of times. I don't think I'll ever set mu foot there again. Good luck.
Where at least I know I'm free!
I applaud him for taking a stance against the snooping. Unfortune that he had to shut the service down though. Maybe he can move it offshore.
So when Obama boycotts a meeting with the Russians due to concerns over "human rights", you may now know that this is a lie.
It would probably be worst. Remember who actually enacted these laws.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Anyone know a good freedom dealer? I'm an addict and need my fix of freedom, but I can't seem to find it within the borders of the US at this point.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I once lived there. I've been a tourist there a couple of times. I don't think I'll ever set mu foot there again. Good luck.
There's a great Piroshky stand in the East terminal of the airport, you should try it.
You think Romney or Hillary Clinton or any of the Bushes would have done anything different? Only candidates that would would try to put an end to the corruption and abuse of power in the American system these days would be Ron or Rand Paul. They will never get elected because all the powers that be fear and hate them. If, by some fluke, they did get elected by the actual American voters, inspite of the negative media bombardment aimed at them, they would be assassinated in months.
@de_machina
It would probably be worst. Remember who actually enacted these laws.
And remember who ran under the platform with one of the key points being that he would repeal them.
In my mind, disallowing people from criticizing government actions and government policy is a serious violation of the First Amendment. It is exactly what the First Amendment was written to prevent. I hope someone will challenge this issue in court.
I am surprised the government let him shut down. That action alone probably violated the gag order.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I do not think that, but I do think that the House and Senate are even more to blame. They wrote the laws and passed them, complete with a raft of deal-sweeteners attached, knowing that no sane POTUS would veto something that "protects us from teh terrorists".
That system go shut down by the Church of Scientology. The powers that be fear a populous they can not spy on.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
The operator of Lavabit CAN legally discuss what is happening. He cannot *safely* do so, because our government does not obey the law, and will punish him for exercising his first amendment rights.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Clearly the operator of Lavabit received a national security letter or warrant which he objected to.
Now since Lavabit is based on normal mail protocols, the operator has the ability to see all the data when it comes in, and obviously with a warrant or NSL, the provider can be compelled to provide the information to the feds. But I suspect that the request was not just something mild ("This sleazebag's mail account") but something broader, given the reaction was to close down the service completely.
In any case, this is also a great reminder of why the cloud, especially US cloud providers, can't be trusted. Companies who care about security are going to have to abandon the cloud and go back to insourcing their infrastructure.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Why isn't the entire Republican party standing up for this provider, telling government to get out of the way of business? He built that! Now, if he's been a multi-trillion dollar bank, the government would leave him alone, hell, he'd be telling the government what to do.
This is just another example of "might makes right, we're a bully, and we're going to push the world around, usa #1 F-yeah!"
We are living in a police state; there's no doubt about that at this point.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If you can't smother the shitstorm in the media, you might as well get all your dirty work done in short order so this rash of privacy and human rights abuses can becomes last week's news as soon as possible.
the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise.
Congress does not have the authority to violate the Constitution. They can "pass" all the bullshit "laws" they want, but the fact remains that there is not a soul in the federal government who has the power to supersede our Constitutional Liberties. The only, ONLY legitimate way to alter the content of said document would be via a Constitutional Amendment approved by 2/3 of all state legislatures, or by the formation of a Constitutional Congress. Neither of these events have occurred, therefore your right to tell us that the NSA is trying to force you to turn over your encryption keys stands firm. Fuck you Stasi dogfuckers ('cuz I know you're skimming this).
FYI, by making such a statement, and doing as they tell you, you're only helping them perpetuate the myth that they can do this kind of shit and get away with it.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I think we all lost the 2012 elections.
"Lavabit - an encrypted email service which is used by pedophiles and terrorist networks - was shut down after refusing to give the government access to important data that could have lead to arrests."
What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.
This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.
Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC
Defending the constitution is expensive! Help us by donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here.
He leaves a link to donote to their legal defense fund. In other words, he's still fighting it, but in secret shadow court.
The message here is very clear. You either go along with what the executive branch wants you to do, which is plainly goes against the 4th and 1st amendments or you are a traitor. The stunning lack of previous resistance by corporations that provide internet, phone, and telegraph service to NSA's agenda have created the expectation that corporate "people" are willing to cough up data that lets the US spy on its citizens on a massive scale without any kind of objection.
So, instead of fixing its behavior (or at least make it a bit less visible), US government (and its corporate sponsors) decided to go out and spy+opress its citizens officially. You're at the tipping point, folks. Your lovely government is now switching from covert police state to overt tyranical regime. This process will propably take another year or two until you'll get pretty much where nazi Germany was in 1939. Your favorite TV station will inform you every day how many "enemies of America" were caught/jailed/murdered this week and you'll fear every day if FBI squad will raid your house because of some phony suspicion.
Having said that, I'd recommend Americans, especially young ones to have second passport and be ready to leave this shithole when things go full retard (eg. your fucked up government starts some mega-war and will need as much cannon fodder as possible).
When is FOX news going to come to defend Lavabit against the oppressive Obama regime?
Surely the government violating the constitution to get at Lavabit's data and thus compeling them to shut down is as outrageous as Obamacare and all of the businesses FOX claims it is destroying.
Rand and Ron Paul would not be assassinated. What would happen to them would be far worse.... for us! They would quietly settle into the same patterns that Bush and Obama did. They are politicians, nothing more. They would make grand statements, something large (but not too large) and mostly symbolic would happen ("We're finally closing Gitmo! ....... and shipping all prisoners to a Saudi Torture chamber."), and then when the initial fervor died down, and after a few key meetings, they would realize the "necessity" of surveillance on everyone in America and abroad.
Put simply: we're kind of fucked.
Now, they do have some valid points which I do advocate for, but so many things they want to do would be so terrible, IMHO ( like their laissez faire economics, and lack of support for social programs) I have to vote to keep them out. They would do more harm than good.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Yeah he could give you warning, and then wait for the drone-express or gitmo. Why would you be smart enough to use encrypted email, and dumb enough not to have a backup of your email archive?
If only ALL THIS had come out before the 2012 elections things would be different now !!
They probably would have been a lot like the 2008 elections. A lot of promises about how things need to change and rights need to be preserved followed up with exactly dick to show for any of those promises. This is what happens when you vote a Democrat or a Republican into office. I'd like to comment on what happens when you vote another party into office, but I've never seen that happen.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
We didn't 'lose' it. We gave it up freely of our own volition.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You have got to be shitting me. Ron and Rand Paul are may not be beholden to the status quo, but they are not the libertarians they claim to be. They are theocrats and racists who want to tear down equality and justice in America.
Gary Johnson is a better Libertarian that either Pauls, and he is a god damn supporter of the modern slavery movement (for profit prison industrial work farms).
In the USA we actually pay our taxes so we expect that sort of thing to be included. Reducing our rights does not help fight any enemies.
They will never get elected because, with the possible exception of this issue, most of their positions are considered lunatic fringe. It has nothing to do with fear or hate and everything to do with them simply being unacceptable candidates.
Show me someone whose social and corporate positions are reasonably to Obama's, but with a more reasoned position on domestic spying, the TSA, etc. and I'll show you a candidate I'd vote for. Instead, you're showing me someone whose social positions seem to be reasonably close to Walt Disney's, and whose corporate positions are reasonably close to John D. Rockefeller's.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I think it would be wise to consider that perhaps the reason you had no warning was that Lavabit's operators also had no warning. (That is, no warning of the specific event which caused them to make the decision to shut down. Obviously they knew something was afoot, as we can see by the posted message from them.)
The operators of Lavabit have gone waaaaaay out on a limb for you today. They're risking ten years of work, their livelihood, their finances, and their freedom. I think -- even though this obviously inconveniences you and others -- you might want to give them a little slack. I think it's obvious on inspection that they're doing this on principle, and THAT is worthy of respect -- doubly so when many of their peers have chosen otherwise, as is now becoming more clear every day.
Only candidates that would would try to put an end to the corruption and abuse of power in the American system these days would be Ron or Rand Paul.
Or Gary Johnson, or John Huntsman, or Jill Stein, or several other people who didn't manage to make it onto prime-time national debates.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
We do know that the actions of the government in this case are illegal, because Lavabit's ability to respond to this search has been silenced by the coercive power of the government.
Any judicial programs which are exempted from public oversight are unconstitutional by nature.
After all, if the means used were legal, reasonable, and would be supported by civil society, there would be no reason to hide them from the public. Right?
...and he is a god damn supporter of the modern slavery movement (for profit prison industrial work farms).
He also vetoed more bills as a governor of New Mexico than any other governor, from any other state, in history (if my memory serves me correctly).
Yes, he's a politician like any other, but this single fact alone puts him a bit above the rest. The bureaucratic weight that is crushing this country is generated by endless legislation. We are managing a 21st century nation with 200 year old methods. It's time to modernize and clean house.
Much like cleaning out a garage, we'll have to make a large organized mess in the yard if we intend to get it clean.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
It seems like the EU, and Germany in particular, takes privacy much more seriously then the US. Even without encryption, it seems like it's harder for authorities to do casual snooping on email contents in the EU.
I realize that the NSA is hoovering up all email traffic anyway, so at some level it makes no difference. Still, it seems that there are some usage barriers that keep local law enforcement from getting completely open access to email right now. And there is some security through obscurity. I expect this will get much worse fairly soon, since that's the way we're headed. Email based in the EU might offer some level of protection in that circumstance.
Why is Snark Required?
He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither. Which is what you did: gave up freedoms for perceived economical safety.
If Feingold ran, I'd vote for him in a second. The only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act. He saw this coming and was a lone voice against it.
Are you kidding? He was reelected in 2012, after four years of acting like a GW Bush clone.
We forgot really fucking quickly.
"Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."
-- President Barrack Obama, January 21, 2009
I always assume email encryption only makes sense if it's end-to-end, so what does an "encrypted email provider" do? Conceal sender & receiver addresses? Guarantee encrypted transport?
I think we all lost the last four Presidential elections.
Most anyone using the service as anything but a status symbol probably appreciates if it goes poof rather than being handed over.
He who lives his life by taking famous quotations and applying them to different situations without context, makes trivial points.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Enigmail
GnuPG
A little research and you'll be able to provide yourself reasonable privacy.
It might not stand up to the greatest efforts of the NSA, but it will slow them down some.
Also, disconnect.me because the NSA isn't the only one snooping.
Fuck 'em all.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You might be interested to know that the green party is very much the libertarian-left you're looking for.
My name is Anthony Coulter. I signed up for Lavabit on October 5, 2009 with the address anthonycoulter(at)lavabit.com. I chose Lavabit very consciously. My university email address was about to expire and I had concerns about Google's privacy policies. Lavabit was created specifically for privacy-conscious people. They offered server-side encryption to paying customers; when I became a paying customer a year or two later I decided to check that box because, hell, why not?
[Note that I never did ask how server-side encryption worked. They said that things were rigged up so that they could not decrypt my on-server email even if they were coerced into it. My guess was that they used a hash of your login password to decrypt your email. I didn't know whether it was true or not, but I didn't think it really mattered. Apparently it did matter.]
I use my Lavabit account for everything. My bank statements are mailed to it. Most of my internet login IDs created since 2009 depend on it. All of my friends use it. And now it's gone.
I last checked my email around 9pm on Tuesday, August 6. When I woke up the next morning my connection attempts to the Lavabit server timed out. That was inconvenient; I had to send some information to my parents about an upcoming family reunion, so I sent them a text message promising to email it to them when the service was restored Wednesday night. It wasn't; I finally sent the email from an old family account I used back in the late 1990s. When I woke up *this* morning and Lavabit was still down, I did a couple of Google searches to see if anyone else noticed that an email provider had been gone for twenty-four straight hours. I found this discussion, which I quote for the benefit of people who will read this post long after the forum has ceased to exist:
This was posted at 10:55pm last night; when I saw it this morning I instantly dismissed the poster as a childish Internet revolutionary. The idea that the Federal government would clog up Lavabit for an entire day and a half just to get at Snowden is silly! They can't disrupt business like that!
Then I ran another Google search for "lavabit down" before getting off work today, and... here we are. Emails sent to my lavabit account still don't get bounce warnings, so noone who's emailed me since 9pm on Tuesday will know that I didn't get their email, or that I never will. I also have to go through the long and tedious process of reassociating all of my Internet accounts with a new email address. But which provider will I choose? I still don't trust Google. I don't know what I'll do yet; it was only two hours ago when discovered that my four-year-old email address had been taken down by the Federal government.
I just donated two thousand dollars to Lavabit's legal defense fund. (The confirmation email from Paypal just arrived in my old Cox account.) I cannot prove this to the Internet, and it's debatably silly for someone so privacy-conscious to want to do so. But at some point we will have to take this issue seriously. I watched the Snowden news from a distance; I didn't say or do anything about it because it wasn't really my problem. Now I lost my email, and if I had used IMAP this would have been a tragedy of enormous proportions.
--Anthony Coulter, a.k.a. Red Jesus
"The other candidate would have handled this differently" may be true.
But the differences may well have been superficial. Or the situation might well be worse than it already is.
Swapping candidate B for candidate A isn't a magic wand even in a thought exercise.
Far too many people on Slashdot need to do some foreign travel, or at least a good glass of perspective and soda. The US is far from perfect on, well, all fronts. In terms of privacy there have been some very disturbing developments lately (though anyone who thinks it is the first time needs to learn history). However that does not automatically mean the US is horrible, the worst country in the world, that other countries have no abuses, or at least none worth mentioning.
Russia has real, real problems in terms of human rights, basic freedoms, government control, and so on. They are sliding towards the bad old days of a soviet like system at an alarming rate. It is far worse than anything happening in the US. Now none of that means what is happening in the US is good, but please stop with the bullshit.
Honestly it is a literally childlike view of things where there is only a binary system of morality: good and bad, and they are always opposed. So if the US does something bad they are bad and that means anyone against the US must be good.
Would you have preferred to find out 6 months from now that carnivore had a copy of all of your email?
If you're facing a secret court order to log everything from this point forward, your only ethical option is to make sure there's nothing to log.
I don't fathom why people seem so shocked by this turn of events.
The liberal politician Gore Vidal once remarked that "Now that the Great Red Menace is gone, the government can turn it's attention to the real enemy, which is now, and always has been, The People."
It always impressed me that when the Soviet Union fell apart, a huge number of "security" workers in GDR's Stasi ended up out of work. It seems that similarly to the end of WWII when rocket scientists were looking for a place to ply their trade, the US government stepped in and acquired their talents.
I've always thought that our government - the US government - should have named the agency who handles US security the UStasi. They've learned well from our East German mentors, and are in the process of jailing enemy combatants forever without trial, intercepting everyone's email and phone calls. They don't file body odor samples "for the dogs" yet, but they want to take DNA from everyone that is arrested, conviction or not. They want warrentless searches and that pesky Fourth Amendment is just an inconvenience. Who cares about the right to not self-incriminate, cough up those passwords, or else. General Michael Hayden, former head of UStasi (sorry, NSA) wanted to be able to use "aggressive interrogation."
This seems a sad turn for my country, the land that I love. Jefferson is probably rotating at high speed in his tomb.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
"I'm perfectly happy with free elections, as long as I get to select the nominees!" - Boss Tweed, 1890s.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
I have a hypothesis that it is impossible for anyone who would actually be a good President to get through the nomination process. This hypothesis has proved valid for a couple of decades now.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Disclaimer: I didn't read the article. I call bullshit. If the good ole US of A came knocking on my door threatening me, i'd tell them to stuff it, and alert every major media news outlet in the country to the fiasco. You want my users' info? Sure, get a warrant and get in line pal. Sounds like scaremongering to me. Just wanting to stir up the slashdot crowd. Note that i'm not siding with the government at all, but this scaremongering has to stop if anything is going to get done.
All these do not have to come to pass if not for that "Human Rights Watch"
They are the one who revealed Snowden's use of Lavabit when they intentionally posted Snowden's message along with his email addy, edsnowden@lavabit.com
The "Human Righs Watch" are helping Uncle Sam more than helping Edward Snowden.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
We don't debate their positions. We just say "lunatic fringe". We just say "Walt Disney". Facts? No need for those.
You claimed that you have just moved to US four months ago, and the other fella, four years.
Both of you are so gung ho on the States.
If neither of you are trolls, good for you !
I came from China. In the 1960's I swam to Hong Kong, soldiers were shooting at us back then.
Via Europe I ended up in the Unted States of America in the late 1960's.
When I first landed there, indeed, the States was SUPER WONDERFUL, there were democracy, there were human rights, there were freedom, and people can demonstrate on the street.
It was indeed a very stunning experience for people like me from a communist country.
My happiness in America lasted about 10 years, and then it gradually faded.
Not that I got tired of America, but as I stayed longer there, I get to know America more.
The more I know, the more I understand that the so-called "Freedom", "Democracy", "Human Rights" are mere slogans - as the government of the United States of America does not care one way or another about these things.
The people of America are great, though. But my American Dream was thoroughly disillusioned by the time of Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
By then, America was no longer practice the same thing it preached, and the American press was no longer upholding the same standard as their predecessors in the 1960's and 1970's.
I finally got out of America, back to Asia (but not back to China) in year 2003.
I've had enough of the hypocrisy.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Republicans vs Democrats
Who ever wins, we lose.
Nihil in publicum sputa.