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CryptoSeal Shuts Down Consumer VPN Service To Avoid Fighting NSA
sl4shd0rk writes "CryptoSeal Privacy, a VPN provider, has closed down its consumer VPN service. The company says it has zeroed its crypto keys, adding, 'Essentially, the service was created and operated under a certain understanding of current U.S. law, and that understanding may not currently be valid. As we are a US company and comply fully with U.S. law, but wish to protect the privacy of our users, it is impossible for us to continue offering the CryptoSeal Privacy consumer VPN product.' The announcement ends with a warning: 'For anyone operating a VPN, mail, or other communications provider in the U.S., we believe it would be prudent to evaluate whether a pen register order could be used to compel you to divulge SSL keys protecting message contents, and if so, to take appropriate action.' Sounds like another victim of FISA-endorsed NSA activity."
Back in the old spy days, the gentlemanly thing to do was crack the other guy's encryption, NOT beat his keys out of him. This is just cheating, pure and simple.
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
Sounds like it's high time time to start a VPN provider in SeaLand (or what do we have left that's not firmly in jurisdiction of governments with grubby hands and long noses)?
You are not going to have much advanced IT business left over there soon if this goes on.
I hope that when american corporations start seeing their customers scared away by this 1984 crap they'll turn their lobbying powers to reverse the trend.
Isn't this how politics work in the US, the country that legalized bribery?
I wonder what the public reaction would be if some pro-democracy dissident who is operating covertly in their own hostile country is murdered and the country gives a press release saying that they couldn't have found their criminal if it wasn't for the help of the NSA compromising internet security...
Does that put the NSA/FISA on the side of dictatorships and other anti-freedom nations?
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
What is to stop the NSA doing a form of DoS attack on these types of services by demanding keys, and giving the services little option but to shut down?
The effect of this is to remove secure competitors from the market and force users onto pre-compromised services.
We've got technology businesses shutting down their services because they are now afraid of (i.e.: terrorized by) their own government?
Did the terrorists actually win this war on terror?
This is why I always clear communication with my family and the world with the NSA first.
It's time for a new internet, with strong anonymity and encryption built in at a very low level, resistant to subversion, censorship, and snooping. Identity should be disclosed only voluntarily, and not easily "leaked" by things like panotoclick attacks.
I believe it's technically possible. The question is whether we have the will.
>NOT beat his keys out of him
Are you telling me TV has lied to me ALL this time?
This... this changes everything. My entire life needs to be re-evaluated.
For anyone operating a VPN mail or other communications in any country you should consider that your government can compel you to produce information.
This intellectual exercise has been done a long time ago by those who looked a little deeper than you. It's why there were crazy ideas such as offshore data havens.
In the end, you can't really do anything about it. The government your company is under (at the very least, maybe other entities too) can compel you. So now it's just a matter of which government you're least worried about.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Until a libertarian is in office, we may never see encrypted boobies on the internet ever again. That's a real shame since seeing a libertarian in office is as likely as us going to the moon again. :(
Isn't free trade the mantra of our political system? Seems all this NSA information gathering is actually causing restrictions to free trade. Could be a problem for the corporate cronies in DC and then ultimately a problem for the NSA.
I suspect that no significant change is likely to occur until many of the the recipients of the USA's totalitarianly named 'National Security Letters', instead of merely shutting down amid elliptical comments, defy their local laws and issue press releases stating clearly and in full what the government of the Land of The Free is attempting to coerce them into doing, and until they include in full the NSL and any other documents, etc., that were served upon them, in the dossier that is released to the world.
Of course, any such heros would need to be sure there was NOTHING in their backgrounds, hard drives, or acquaintances to the n'th degree that could allow the Home of The Brave to paint them to Fox News as a paedo, druggie, terrorist, commie, and so forth; and, even then, be prepared to go through the court system the hard way for their principles.
Shutting down small, random services that few have heard of, is little more than a real-life parody of the 'Suicide Squad' in the last scene of 'Life of Brian': "That showed 'em, eh?"
Would the real Samuel Goldstein, please stand up.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It seems all very fishy. Shut down your end user service, but keep corporate service going?
Legal fees? You need not be a lawyer to write a letter (or not write a letter) or better yet, not sign for any Certified Return receipt mail.
Most of these companies are leasing hardware...without any real office space. Let Uncle Sam do the leg work, find the data center; subpoena the data centers, so on and so forth.
This reads to be...we aren't returning enough profit for our non-business class players, let's switch to corporate pricing and take it from there.
It is very easy to say "No" to the government, the fight may be long and arduous but an attorney is not needed every step of the way.
Hell, some 1 or 2L's would probably eat this sort of pro-bono work up to get written up in a law review.
Better honey than vinegar.
Dear NSA,
Thank you for your correspondence. It is my understanding sitesomelegalprecident.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me at this email address; I do not accept US mail.
I don't know? This all reads as profit farse.
$.02
So the NSA is supposed to be covertly gathering intelligence. Yet they use high pressure tactics that force these sites to shut down therefore tipping off their users that something may be amiss. Leading them to change their procedures there by wasting all the time an effort the NSA put into thin initial investigation.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Tea Party-ers describe themselves as "libertarian".
The end result seems to be in line with general terrorism. Cause enough fear and confusion in your enemy until they change or give up.
Maybe the US Government's objective here is not collect data from these types of services like LavaBit, SilentCircle or whoever else has shuttered in fears (or actual) of being tapped by the NSA.
It's starting to feel like to me the objective isn't the data, the objective is the services. This is denial of service. Denial of crypto services by the US Govt.
I just can't really see why they would put the pressure on so blatantly. It's like they're sending a clear message to all of us, no more crypto services, we're going to find you and tap you so you're are ineffective, or shut down.
scare u.s. based companies into closing up shop or at least dropping products the gov't can't easily hack into.... which creates a void in the marketplace to be filled by overseas companies and services..... then the agencies with (u.s. granted) authorization for overseas operations can do whatever the fuck they want on foreign soil, and to those overseas companies and their services, out of the reach of the u.s. courts and scrutiny......
And any of them who are socially conservative or who believe corporations have rights are not actually libertarian, much like Christians for War are not actually Christians.
Except Snowden - a true hero and patriot.
Every single NSA worker has committed treason against the American people. I hope to see the day every single one of these individuals are exposed as traitors, for not only furthering a tyranny that is backed by big money , but totally subverting the constitution. Remember, your oath is to protect the constitution, not the federal government, or military industrial complex, or corporations.
So collect your nice paycheck, but be a banker's bitch, you little little bitch. you spineless little coward bitch. I hope none of you can ever sleep at night.
Donate to Lavabit legal fund
The legal briefs filed so far look like they are about to hand the government its own ass in respect to seizing SSL keys.
Old spies were Sean Connery. New spies are Daniel Craig.
Tea Party-ers describe themselves as "libertarian".
That Sarah Palin sure makes one sexy librarian though
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Back in the old spy days, the gentlemanly thing to do was crack the other guy's encryption, NOT beat his keys out of him. This is just cheating, pure and simple.
Ah, since when is the NSA doing anything more than lifting a pen to impose a threat?
And it's hardly a beating when providers are throwing their gloves down and walking out before the bell rings.
And sure it's completely illegal under the Constitution. However, it's only cheating or illegal if you've actually got the power to stop it. Otherwise, their house, their rules.
Okay, this whole synopsis is off base here. While CryptoSeal is shutting down it's over the ramifications of the Lavabit case...
With immediate effect as of this notice, CryptoSeal Privacy, our consumer VPN service, is terminated. All cryptographic keys used in the operation of the service have been zerofilled, and while no logs were produced (by design) during operation of the service, all records created incidental to the operation of the service have been deleted to the best of our ability.
Essentially, the service was created and operated under a certain understanding of current US law, and that understanding may not currently be valid. As we are a US company and comply fully with US law, but wish to protect the privacy of our users, it is impossible for us to continue offering the CryptoSeal Privacy consumer VPN product.
Specifically, the Lavabit case, with filings released by Kevin Poulsen of Wired.com (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/801182-redacted-pleadings-exhibits-1-23.html) reveals a Government theory that if a pen register order is made on a provider, and the provider's systems do not readily facilitate full monitoring of pen register information and delivery to the Government in realtime, the Government can compel production of cryptographic keys via a warrant to support a government-provided pen trap device. Our system does not support recording any of the information commonly requested in a pen register order, and it would be technically infeasible for us to add this in a prompt manner. The consequence, being forced to turn over cryptographic keys to our entire system on the strength of a pen register order, is unreasonable in our opinion, and likely unconstitutional, but until this matter is settled, we are unable to proceed with our service.
We encourage anyone interested in this issue to support Ladar Levison and Lavabit in their ongoing legal battle. Donations can be made at https://rally.org/lavabit We believe Lavabit is an excellent test case for this issue.
We are actively investigating alternative technical ways to provide a consumer privacy VPN service in the future, in compliance with the law (even the Government's current interpretation of pen register orders and compelled key disclosure) without compromising user privacy, but do not have an estimated release date at this time.
To our affected users: we are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience. For any users with positive account balances at the time of this action, we will provide 1 year subscriptions to a non-US VPN service of mutual selection, as well as a refund of your service balance, and free service for 1 year if/when we relaunch a consumer privacy VPN service. Thank you for your support, and we hope this will ease the inconvenience of our service terminating.
For anyone operating a VPN, mail, or other communications provider in the US, we believe it would be prudent to evaluate whether a pen register order could be used to compel you to divulge SSL keys protecting message contents, and if so, to take appropriate action.
What you have is a Federal Judge, the regular unleaded variety not the leaded FISA guys ordering that since Lavabit can't give the government what they're asking for, give us your SSL keys so we can go ahead and dig however we want with whatever traffic we choose to monitor or have already stored. It's an interesting legal theory and there's probably no precedent that the judge is going on, fully expecting an appeal to the decision to be made. Now, if only Groklaw were still around maybe we could get some better insight into this, but what you have here is an over-reaching federal, non FISA judge, using the powers that have been granted to compel for whatever information, property or testimony that is necessary to conduct the business of the court. In this case, Lavabit is what Cryptoseal is pointing to, not the fact that they're in a legal situation already but they believe that th
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Right, now just wait until as a cost saving measure the NSA starts using 'advanced' software analysis programs to not only tag but also to vet all your emails and chats instead of people and then you end up automatically being put on a watch list.
Now try to get off of it.
That is the problem.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Not that many customers are going to be scared off. ...
Businesses care about competitors reading their data, not the NSA.
So customers aren't being scared off, but this business and other vpn providers are still shuttering their shops?
I really don't understand why any of these companies are shutting their doors. They should just release a new statement, allow current members to get a refund on their remaining subscription if they want to leave, and acknowledge what has always been in their contract - they will comply with law enforcement demands and warrents as do all companies in the US that want to stay in business.
This really sucks, and it should be more public**, and more people need to know about it, but boycotting in this fasion isn't going to help. If anything , it reduces the amount of money going into the hands of businesses that are on our side and could lobby.
On top of it all, while I understand there is the threat of arrest, they DO have the option of not complying and not turning over the keys. They could even make it a well known statement that, if they are asked to do so, they'll destroy the related private keys and simply tell those asking that they no longer exist. Yes, that would be in violation of what they are supposedly maybe possibly going to be asked someday, but they can cross that bridge when they come to it. It does seem like a convenient exit plan if they've wanted to get out of the VPN business and existing contracts.
I don't know what their usage stats are, but I wouldn't be surprised if the bulk of the traffic transitting their VPN service is for streaming video from sites that detect country of origin based on IP (ex. non-UK to UK BBC, non-US to US Hulu/Netflix, other provides like HBOgo etc), and for downloading stuffs from bittorrent and friends. That's probably expensive, and probably degrades the QoS of those that really need the service. The relevence of this is that it wouldn't shock me if the opperators were just tired of running it, and this was just the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak.
AFAICT (please correct me if I'm wrong):
* They weren't forced to shut down.
* They didn't shut down because of an actual incident.
* They supposedly shut down based on the idea that they may be threatened with such a demand in the future. (and it is a threat - comply and keep your mouth shut, or we'll put you in jail... has anyone called them on it, or even had a legit reason to do so?)
** or much much more private, like a spy org should be, with no info getting out, not even to other law enforcement agencies, much like I imagine they were before "NSA" was a well known acronym.
and what happen if you don't comply with a National Security Letter? How long can you disobey and defy the government before you are curbs stomped by the swat if your lucky or feds not read your Miranda rights and marched off to gitmo for enhanced torture^H^H^H^H^H^H^H I mean interrogation techniques and accused of aiding and abating the enemy and thrown in a government holding cell and if your lucky sentenced before a secret kangaroo court without legal representations.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
In a short time frame we have seen at least 3 security oriented communication sites voluntarily shut down rather than give customer data to the NSA. These are the good guys.
What about the ones that are still open. My bet is that a significant number decided to bend over the barrel and let NSA drive.
There is a significant chance that posting to this Slashdot topic is noticed by some bit of NSA code or other.
What countries can the NSA not order you to hand over the keys to your encrypted files or servers? Is there a list?
Just seems you just move your content to a server not residing in North America.
Just asking cause everyone is discussing this but no one is posting good solutions.
http://xkcd.com/538/
Only works if you actually know the password.
Don't remember the password, use a token like a USB flash key. If they take the laptop without the key then it's useless, if you smash the key then it's also useless.
No, this won't stop them from torturing you anyway, but on the other hand, they might pick up the wrong person who didn't actually own the laptop and torture them instead. This is the great thing about torture: it's only useful to confirm what you already know, not to extract anything new; there's no way to tell if someone is lying because you haven't broken them yet or lying because they don't know anything but really want the pain to stop.
"This is just cheating, pure and simple."
It is illegal, pure and simple.
Since several crypto companies have in fact closed down, affecting thousands (at least) of people, we can come to some basic conclusions.
First, we have proof that the NSA spying has had the effect of chilling otherwise legal, free speech.
Second: we now have thousands of people who have provable legal standing to sue the government over it.
The NSA is operating outside of its charter and heads need to roll. What's is really embarrasing about this mess is that other countries are (properly) telling the U.S. to knock it the fuck off. We need to go back to 9/12/2001 and restore the privacy and freedom portions of The Constitution before this country evolves into the most dangerous police state ever.
You only submit your public key to the certificate authority (CA) to be signed. Your private key, required to decode the signal, never leaves your server.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
You have lost, because there is no benefit whatsoever to doing all this. The terrorists still attack all over the place and all these measures taken "to guard against terrorism" have zero net results. Sure, some incidental victories have been made, but nothing structurally beneficial has been achieved. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt have been controlling the USA and 99% of all the money and trouble they have been going through, have been wasted on chasing ghosts. It's time to stop this, accept the fact that some religious idiots will sometimes manage to kill a few people every now and then. Staying out of trouble has proven far more effective to over 90% of countries than the USA way of dealing with this, maybe the USA should try that approach for a while. It's a whole lot cheaper and it hardly can be less effective than the current policy.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
First Lavabit.
Then Groklaw.
Now CryptoSeal.
Who's next?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
#1 prison population in the world; and with a moderate population density too!
#1 military, #1 spy system (by size) and both are actively used.
Secret tapping of citizens phones,etc with a massive cover up (seriously, does anybody believe them after all that they did when they say "it's only meta data?") Almost more surveillance than a classic police state (it's just missing your neighbors turning against you.)
Uncivilized prison system (many but not all; but the society is taught to believe and accept the known conditions. The system keeps the public from knowing about the horrible things... such as 12 year olds in adult prison with their rapist's name carved into their skin, for example.)
Self exempted from most international laws. Pre-emptive wars, bribing, blackmailing corrupting foreign governments...(wikileaks put that stuff on paper) Killing or arresting or persecuting anybody on earth without respect for laws / jurisdictions (doesn't matter what you do, if you go to a safe nation the idea was you were safe when sovereignty was respected... not that it was all that highly regarded; but it's just openly dismissed today.)
Police in most schools; more coming. Children arrested and processed as criminals for being children --in school; handcuffs on 8 year olds. Teens executed as adults. Adults executed... just like in China and Iran do. Teens tweeting being prosecuted for bullying outside of school...
People generally afraid to express a wide range of "controversial" opinions not on the unofficial acceptability list. Obama a Muslim? that is ok. Telling on the bankers? nothing, if you harm them, jail time (but perhaps a big IRS reward...for afterwards...)
Every police state has two systems-- one to go soft on the elite and one for everybody else. We have that situation too.
Right to Peaceable Assemble? Result? Beat downs, false incrimination and nobody really cares; you'd think nobody ever reads past "free press" and that the other one "bear arms"... whatever, pass me a beer.
Free speech and free press? Allowed but rendered nearly ineffectual which is why those are allowed.
I question his judgement because he talks about Europe as if it's one entity. He talks about Europe like it has a single communist government, when its member states have a large range of political leanings.
Well, there's a bit of a conundrum right there: in a sensitive position like the top of a spy agency, you'd want a person with American values that come with an American education. How are you going to share American values if you can tell apart Newzealand and Turkey on a map of Europe?
Democracy always falls to Despotism. History. learn it.
This is joke, right?
Cracking is the last resort. If there is an easier method to compromise a system then that is the path to take.
I read an interview w/the head of the GRU who flatly admitted they never cracked a high level US system. It wasn't necessary since they were able to purchase solutions.
And especially, it was against other countries, not against your own citizens.
We hear you loud and clear NSA, thank you.
By using 1) open services (that are intercepted!), 2) protocols like pop/imap/smtp and 3) custom client programs - users can embed strong encrypted content as normal payload themselves, embed encrypted messages in embedded pictures etc. NSA can work as much they wish on this payload, there is no chance for them to get hold of the encryption keys users keep secret. They do not know the methods used, they do not know the keys. Sorry NSA, this is a loosing battle, you may catch a few dummies, the smart guys will always be ahead of you. Terrorist organisations that we would like to catch have resources to do this, the dummies don't. The dummies we can live with. NSA = Not Smart use of tAxpayers money? Klaus
* They weren't forced to shut down.
* They didn't shut down because of an actual incident.
* They supposedly shut down based on the idea that they may be threatened with such a demand in the future. (and it is a threat - comply and keep your mouth shut, or we'll put you in jail... has anyone called them on it, or even had a legit reason to do so?)
That's one of the big problems. Because thay can't tell you don't know if they were served a gag order or not. If they were, their only two options are to comply or shut down. If they comply, you won't know. If they shut down, there is no way to know what reason they did it for. So it might be because of an actual incident.
This, though maybe not in SeaLand.
The first country that offers verifiably secure email and VPN services to the world will enjoy an economic boom and the love of billions. And if it's a country like Iceland, it could go a long way toward making them wealthy.
It would go a long way into getting the country declared a terrorist state, and having it taken over by the US.
In the case of SeaLand, they'd get boarded in the dead of night and people would be speculating for decades about whether they were taken by a rogue wave.
But hey, then don't expect me to feel guilty if I download a movie!
That isn't really true [that data stolen by the NSA was used for commercial advantage of US companies.].
I have noticed Cold Fjord and other related accounts jumping on this issue a few times now it must be a high priority agenda talking point: "Play down the industrial espionage implications of NSA spying scandal".
Astroturfer Cold Fjord is well aware and has been repeatedly reminded that there is plenty of concrete examples showing that the data stolen by the NSA has, is and will be used for Industrial Espionage, it is not called USA Inc for nothing. (Here are just a few of the most well known cases). Despite this the account operator behind the Cold Fjord account continues time and again to convince us that this is not possible and ignores that these concrete examples exist. Sad really.
Because of the NSA, the Internet will eventually route around the U.S.A., just like freedom-loving travellers route around the U.S.A. because of Homeland Security. And business routes around the U.S.A. because of FATCA.
Once the U.S.A. has closed down all real and virtual borders, they can enjoy their unique vision of freedom in their own Goddamn country. At least once all their drone strikes happen on U.S. soil as well.
it is honorable to die for you country, even if it is in direct violation of its laws and lawmakers..
No internet based company should be headquartered in the US.
Die for your country, while fighting against your country???
It'll probably turn out that, with no evidence the government has stolen *your* data specifically, you have no legal standing.
Fighting against your own government/leaders who are enemies of your country, is not the same as fighting against your country. It's still fighting for your country.
To me it is more patriotic than killing people in some other country.
If more people around the world did that sort of thing there would be much less need to kill people of other countries.
That said I'm not a big fan of patriotism. Seems to cause more harm than good.
The solution is if everyone had crypto whether they used it or not and things were set up so that you can't tell whether they used it or not. See also: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/148440
Or even better if everyone was using crypto (full disk crypto, vpns etc), but you can't tell whether they were using additional crypto- extra container file lying around by default).
Then if those in power are still going to torture people even though there actually isn't anything (extra) to decrypt/unlock, your country is so screwed up you could be tortured for hundreds of other reasons anyway.
That said I'm not a big fan of patriotism. Seems to cause more harm than good.
Neither am I, because bad country rulers causing wars are never the ones risking their asses when wars start.
I really hope that people can see that some of these services were never financially stable much less solvent and that these companies are taking the NSA excuse to make a quick exit with their investor's remaining cash. Plus they get to say all that and move overseas and start the cycle of schyster business schemes with the added, "well now we have found a way to avoid the NSA..." line sold to investors.
Seriously, they want us to believe that following all of the information dumps from Snowden et. al. that it is getting *harder* for these companies to negotiate with the NSA and *harder* to sell their services. Bullshit.
That's why I proposed this: http://slashdot.org/~TheLink/journal/208853
But I know it is unlikely to happen :)
It would be nice, but maybe a leader wanting to start a war has already won the internal war over his citizens.
Since other services have shut down to prevent the NSA getting access it seems likely that in future they will try to pre-empt those attempts by going in with a requirement to keep the service running. Therefore if you run such a service and you don't want to be in a position where you are basically a slave who has to lie to your customers every day or go to jail and are not allowed to even seek your own legal advice you had better shut said service down first.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I still await the coming of the Uber-provider; who in a fit of patriotism, arms himself, locks himself in a building and calls the press to make a BIG public stink and flip public opinon to extreme anti-government.
Let the revolution begin!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Or is it actually EVEN MORE braindead than subjects being in comments, which at least let you know if it's worth opening it up from the headline when browsing abbreviated comments to -1?
The internet was designed to survive a nuclear war, and the flame war going on because of the NSA surely counts as the next closest thing. Given that most of the "great" achievements of the USA were done by foreigners, I think it's time to import the next generation.
They are already waiting in Guantanamo. Or did you think they'd come voluntarily to a country renowned for civil rights violations, racism, injustice (if you can't buy yourself a proper defense, you have to accept any "plea deal" or else), the highest absolute and relative incarceration rates in the world, and a disregard of science that culminates in pupils, teachers, and schools councils being able to claim God in his intelligent design permitted them to spit on science and spend the time earmarked for learning to diddling their rosaries?
Why should anybody go to the U.S., the land of unfreedom that will detain you without due process indefinitely, grope you at airports, shoot at sight, has no democratic control and is rules by secret cabals without accountability?
What we need is for everyone to email their friends and family with terrorist keywords. Every one sends messages that will raise red flags at NSA. If everyone starts doing it then everyone will all end up on a terror list and it will become ineffective. Every internet citizen has the POWER! We can short circuit the system by over loading it. Every one start sending terrorist messages!
I wish someone would sue the NSA and the US Government and hopefully find a judge willing to uphold the constitution. Tossing Obama in a jail cell with some Arian Brotherhood members would be no worse than Club Gitmo where he merrily ships Muslims.
From drone strikes to constitutional breaches the tyrant Obama runs roughshod over people and undeterred by the liberals socialists feminists and Marxists that elected him. Apparently he can do no ills in their minds.
LOL. A good chuckle. But until and unless I become a covert CIA agent, or start making the money which would require me to truly hold data as secret from X... I think I'd much rather memorize the password and scream it out the second they bring out the lead pipe, rather than be tortured because I deliberately didn't memorize the information being looked for.
And, as such, I recognize that this would be a really bad time for me to be working for any provider trying to offer encrypting services that the government cannot crack through any conventional means. Especially when little things, like the ability to keep feeding my family and facing the contempt charge of secret courts, are still tolerated by society.
That's fine. It's still much better than if he hasn't won them over.
The referendum will prove it and will also help make things clearer for the defenders. Their consciences will be clearer when wiping out entire cities if most people in the attacking country want a war. If the whole country votes for war then they shouldn't complain if they get war.
Plus with my way at least the leader has proved he believes the war is worth risking his _own_ life for. If he's not willing to risk his own life for it then why should others risk their own lives to kill OTHER people for his idea?
Wow, American people are coming to realization that it doesn’t agree with its government and needs to fight it to save its’ country. Same as in Egypt, Iran, Iraq and everywhere else where revolutions are now happening. Isn’t this ironic? Now, all of those posts on Facebook that you people were making innocently, will be used against you.
Should Groklaw be put in a separate category? I thought it shut down mainly as a protest of the NSA (and also because groklaw's original goal of exposing SCO was finished.) Not because they had to shut down to protect anyone.
Read PJ's final post. She shut down as a direct result of the Lavabit situation.
She relied heavily on email for communication with sources, and because she couldn't guarantee the security of her communications with them, shut down.
Slashdot story: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/08/20/0750237/.
PJ's final Groklaw post: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
But in general boycott U.S. products/infrastructure. Much like how the U.S. is supposedly avoiding Huawei, other countries will avoid U.S. hosting, and quite possibly technical equipment as alternatives become available (not to mention, working on their own alternatives). It's probably a good push for Linux/BSD/etc adoption too.
The big thing is, there is *NO* going back now. Even if they the NSA et al ceased all the spying and backdoor crap today, nobody would believe them due to the terrible track-record of lies and false promises.
I'm fairly sure those exist already. Probably a combination of Homeland Security and the divisions of the NSA.
Government is inherently incompetent and lazy. Why do work when you can force people at gunpoint to make your job easy?
Especially when you can throw people in jail for the "crime" of revealing that they MADE YOU do this.
Corporatism != Free Market
I don't recognize FISA. Nothing they say or do including gunpoint or prison will change that. If they ever send me "secret" orders, etc. it will immediately be scanned into an ENCRYPTED file, then the letter will be shreded.
I will not keep it a secret, I will not comply.
no No NO!
Lavabit received a 'typical' court order for metadata information. He refused. It escalated to PenTrap devices because the FBI, by court order, is entitled to the information from that ONE ACCOUNT and Ladar refused to provide it. He created the problem, and shut his systems down because his actions forced the escalation to a wiretap.
Nothing to do with the NSA's overreaching monitoring.
But if you prefer the FBI to charge you with crimes without doing a through investigation, then go ahead and believe Ladar. He got himself in over his head, blamed the NSA, and now he's milking it for all it's worth. He's a douche.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
"It'll probably turn out that, with no evidence the government has stolen *your* data specifically, you have no legal standing."
No, you misunderstand. Thousands of people are now provably harmed, and prevented from speaking freely in the manner of their choice, by the NSA surveillance. That is all that is necessary. It's a proven fact. A done deal.
A government agency (per many, many prior SCOTUS decisions) may not take actions that chill free speech.
"no No NO!"
No, no, no yourself.
Lavabit received a FISA court order, accompanied by a gag order. This is not a "typical" court order at all. One of the things he bemoaned in his public statement about the shutdown was that he was prevented from even speaking about the details. That is anything but "normal". It's the illegal FISA court.
Second, "pen registers" are for telephones, not emails.
"no No NO!"
No, no, no yourself. Lavabit received a FISA court order, accompanied by a gag order. This is not a "typical" court order at all. One of the things he bemoaned in his public statement about the shutdown was that he was prevented from even speaking about the details. That is anything but "normal". It's the illegal FISA court. Second, "pen registers" are for telephones, not emails.
Read the documents. The gag order was to prevent the original account holder from becoming aware of the investigation. That's nothing more than Standard Procedure..
What FISA Court? The original request, on page 1, was from the "UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA" - according to Wikipedia there are no FISA members there.
Did I mention my post in the original thread? I am an 'insider' - of sorts - with first hand knowledge of how these things progress. I was just as suspicious, until I read the document and saw exactly what happened. Unfortunately the 'media' fans the flames by only presenting the last document "We want SSL keys", and completely avoiding the fact that Ladar ignored first document "Please provide metadata for account x".
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
You know, just in case we need it. Soon.
"Read the documents."
Okay, I stand corrected. But this is WHY I made the mistake in the first place: gag orders are a hallmark of the FISA court. And they ALWAYS use the excuse of "keeping the subject from knowing about the investigation" as a justification, so that isn't an argument against it.
But I do see that you were correct.
Therefore if you run such a service and you don't want to be in a position where you are basically a slave who has to lie to your customers every day or go to jail and are not allowed to even seek your own legal advice you had better shut said service down first.
That applies to any and all businesses.
This isn't about an actual threat. It's the boogyman. He may be real, and it may be proven that he has come after others, and he may come after you someday. Do you run and hide before you are ever even faced with the threat? WTF? If the mere thought of maybe being threatened with jail, not actually having the threat nor is jail guaranteed, but just the looming possibility that you may receive such a threat someday is enough to make you give up your livelyhood, don't expect me to feel bad for you.
If there was an actual order sent to the company in question, then shutting their doors would almost certainly violate it just as much as deleting their keys. Regardless, they still have the option of fighting it, even if the paper they were handed says otherwise.
Those documents are linked to at the bottom of a Wired article that seemingly pits David against Goliath. How is it that they can reference a source, and still not get the story right?
Screw the 'Faux News' complainers, there is no media outlet that is reporting the real story here.
It's a sad sad state of affairs.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
And any of them who are socially conservative or who believe corporations have rights are not actually libertarian, much like Christians for War are not actually Christians.
You can be socially conservative without believing that force is an appropriate means to prevent social change. Moreover, while corporations as such may not have rights, the individual shareholders who make up the corporation do, which amounts to much the same thing. Neither view is incompatible with being an "actual" libertarian.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Only works if you actually know the password.
Or, you know, if you just check it on the laptop in front of them.
That said I'm not a big fan of patriotism. Seems to cause more harm than good.
What "good" do you see that patriotism causes?
As far as I can tell, patriotism does about as much good as cancer. And causes more harm. At least cancer only kills people who get cancer.
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/contact-us (Look under where you are located)
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2013/06/prism/
We are located in the US. Being in the US is optimal for VPN Privacy services since the US is one of the few countries that does not have a mandatory data retention policy. Countries in the EU are forced to log, even though some claim they do not.
True?
"no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country."
---the film Patton.
You don't win by being thrown into gitmo you win by throwing out the peeping toms at the NSA and the power hungry politicians that fund them and the media that spread their FUD.
The first step is to cripple the spying capabilities of the government spooks by using encrypted, obfuscated, anonymising, decentralised, and open services, like tor freenet, i2p, retroshare, GNUnet and others.
The next step is to vote 3rd party, libertarian, green, just not one of the big two duopoly.
the final step is to read the news on the internet not get your news form the big TV networks. fox is a joke, msnbc is just as biased but in the other direction, cnn gets their news off of twitter, and ABC is the sock puppet of mickey mouse.