Slashdot Mirror


After Lavabit Shut-Down, Dotcom's Mega Promises Secure Mail

Lavabit may no longer be an option, but recent events have driven interest in email and other ways to communicate without exposing quite so much, quite so fast, to organizations like the NSA (and DEA, and other agencies). Kim Dotcom as usual enjoys filling the spotlight, when it comes to shuttling bits around in ways that don't please the U.S. government, and Dotcom's privacy-oriented Mega has disclosed plans to serve as an email provider with an emphasis on encryption. ZDNet features an interview with Mega's CEO Vikram Kumar about the complications of keeping email relatively secure; it's not so much the encryption itself, as keeping bits encrypted while still providing the kind of features that users have come to expect from modern webmail providers like Gmail: "'The biggest tech hurdle is providing email functionality that people expect, such as searching emails, that are trivial to provide if emails are stored in plain text (or available in plain text) on the server side,' Kumar said. 'If all the server can see is encrypted text, as is the case with true end-to-end encryption, then all the functionality has to be built client side. [That’s] not quite impossible but very, very hard. That’s why even Silent Circle didn’t go there.'"

1 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Re:As a cloud product manager... by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    A restaurant is one of the most common business to fail, and that's in a good economy. It's hard work to boot.

    Plus now you have to deal with increasing taxes, Obamacare and on top of that you get to be on the top of the list of IRS targets.

    http://rt.com/usa/irs-taxes-small-business-898/

    >

    Yeah, an industry-wide pattern of underreporting wages and tips will do that to you.